In the beginning...

Fall 2009: Visit the Home Show, and collect some business cards of builders

Christmas 2009: after trying to get this done all through November and December, I finally make some progress on putting together the "perfect" design.

January 2010: With an initial design in hand I start making calls to builders. Still not sure if I'm going to contract the whole thing out, or try to manage it myself.

February 2010: Quotes starting to roll in. Becomes apparent pretty quick that I need to rethink what I'm really trying to accomplish with this garage, regardless of who does the work. Spending significantly more than we paid for our first house just doesn't seem right! Ok, so the plan did have an unfinished 800 Sq. Foot "Apartment" above a sizable garage, but still....

Early March 2010: Basically got it narrowed down to just a couple potential builders. Delays in getting to this point have me more or less convinced that I really need somebody else to manage this project. Also have a simplified set of plans together - we've detached it from the house, simplified the upstairs area into a 1/2 story bonus room/workshop area, and cut the size down a bit to 24x32. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we get this into our $$ comfort zone. At the recommendation from a friend who just had a screen-porch put on by this guy, we also added one last contractor into the final pool of candidates.

March 3, 2010: stump-henge is born. The neighbors were having a large number of trees removed and we approached their tree crew and negotiated a (low) price to take down ~15 trees where the garage will be located. The expanse of 5' high stumps left (to facilitate removal of the entire root systems later when the foundation is dug) becomes known as "stump-henge" in the neighborhood.

Late March 2010: 2nd round of quotes coming back. YAY - the changes cut ~40% off the cost, though it'll probably be more like 25-30% once we get done with the concrete driveway work and electrical that I'm now planning to manage myself.

April 2010: Got it widdled down to 2 contractors. ~10% lower quote, willingness to let me work some parts of the project myself, and glowing reviews from all his references, including the afore-mentioned friend who just had work done, seals the deal. We're FINALLY gonna build a garage!

May 2, 2010: After some final "details" discussions, we opt to add a "bump-out" entry area about 4'x14' to the right side of the garage (bottom side of this picture). While also accommodating the "man" door, this extra width will allow me ability to properly position a 2-post lift in the garage while keeping both bays usable AND being able to walk around both sides of the lift posts.

Final drawings completed and sent to the Joseph (aka Joseph Grantham of Joseph Grantham Custom Homes, the builder we're using), to be sent to the engineer.


May 3, 2010: DOH. I'm a day late - the engineer's office is closed down for a long weekend, so we'll wait for ~a week.

Mid May, 2010: Plans back from the engineer. Joseph working on pricing out in detail. Unfortunately, lumber prices have skyrocketed in the last month or so as we've been working through these details, so the pricing has gone up a little.