Barn Dance! Garage Update; Guest

As a wanna be farmer / country girl, when I got this little garage makeover, I thought it would be fun to share.  And Shannon from Altic Quiver did it all on a very tight budget!  Great Job!  This is what Shannon said:

This is our nasty garage. It's gross and that's all about to change.

I have great plans for the eyesore. It all started this morning when Ms. Jess backed up a beautiful Dodge pickup to the open doors. We removed 90% of the junk in the main stalls and now I'm cleaning and organizing.

We have pounds and pounds of cans that will make their way to the recycling station this next week. I plan to use the money to purchase RED paint. This garage is going to get a full barn makeover including 1 x 2 's in the shape of an X on the utility stall (far left door).

Sweet Richard has agreed to help me with the power washer. We are going to clean it inside and out (removing flaking paint). Jared and I have a goal of concreting the drive way in front of the main stalls and installing a basketball goal.

FINALLY, after 6 years it will look as if it belongs with the property :)

Stage two is prepping the garage for paint. I would honestly rather drink bleach than do this part. First of all there's a ton to do. Second of all I don't have the tools or the know how when it comes to replacing rotten boards.

I got up early this morning and took the power washer to the garage to remove loose paint. I would just like to let you all know what a waste of time this was. I guess it cleaned the exterior which was needed but good ol' hand scraping is definitely the way to go.

Garage before power washer:



After (with some hand scraping):

After Hand scraping:

I need help. I need someone with some basic home improvement skills to come over and give me a list of boards needed. We have a ton of random lumber in our garage and I assume there's quite a bit of what we need in there. I need a Lowe's list of the boards I need that we don't have. The back (West) side of the garage has large sheets of some kind of boards/paneling for the exterior walls that are completely rotten on the bottom.

We have termites. We were told a year ago that the garage had active termites and termite damage. Due to the $3000 price tag to treat the house and garage we have yet to exterminate the nasty creatures. We are currently in talks with Joe S. and Richard. We're forming a plan that will hopefully take place in the next few weeks.

It is my goal to have an attractive building that will serve some purpose. In the 6 years we've lived here anything that was stored out there has been ruined. The roof leaks and it's an eyesore. My goal was to paint at the end of the week after it has some time to dry (due to the power washer).

Let's take a minute a reflect on the before:

And savor the after!!

This is it! It took a lot longer and a lot more work than I ever thought. I wanted to be done about 4 hours into it but I pushed through and now look!!!

I haven't blogged a whole lot in the last few days simply because I've been working diligently on this huge building. It's taken the better part of 3 days and I did the work primarily on my own with my 5 little helpers.

I would really like to find a galvanized wash tub on a stand to put between the two main stalls as a planter. The pile of wood at the base of the street lamp will be leaving soon. I have dreams of a weather vane at some point.  (Which I got for Mother's day!!) 

Several of our neighbors have stopped by to give their nod of approval. It's awesome what a difference some paint and super hard work can do.

I think she did a great job!  

It look 100 times better, don't you'all agree?