Garage Part Deux

It started simple, really - I was losing all my heat up into my 2nd floor area since my stairwell is completely open. So I started looking into insulating, which got me looking into finishing up planning for HVAC, any additional electrical, etc....

But then I called the county. After some discussing about what they wanted to see, I figured the best thing to do was go ahead and pull a new building permit now that will cover the finish-out of my upstairs area and all the rest of the garage finishing, including closure of the open stairwell (framing), installation of a steel door, add some insulation and sheetrock, etc..... Sounds simple enough. So I put a plan together, pulled my permit, and got started tearing the stairwell half-walls down and replacing with full walls.

Then I looked at the stairway and what it would take to "fire seal" it in, insulate, and brace...... long story short - I ended up ripping the "patchwork of scrap lumber" stairs down completely and starting over. Except for the landing itself, and the stair tread boards which I was able to salvage, everything else is new wood.

So after many days (ok, many days of a few hours each), the starway is done. And it's strong. Like drive a tank up the stairway strong. Still some small trimwork to make it pretty that will happen later on, but this will pass inspection (I hope). Note that the sheetrock is in place around the stairs and door just to create a solid fire block where I won't be able to access later - I probably went overkill on this but hey, that's what makes me happy.


Note that there'll be a door on that landing, separating the garage from the "upstairs" area.And that's a shot of the stairs. Which, frankly, don't look much better from the top than they did before... just have some runners up the sides now that I can butt sheetrock up to, and some fire blocking. But, underneath, they are glued, screwed, and nailed, and just plain beefier.

Now on to figure out the last of the electrical and HVAC.....