The Garage

The fact is, I have not had a garage since I was in high school.  And as someone who greatly prefers travelling by bicycle or Vespa to a car, I was OK with that.  Bike can be brought inside, and throw a tarp over a Vespa and you are set.  But I have come to appreciate the garage as more than just a warehouse for a car.  A garage lets you keep yard tools outside (you don't have to schlep them up from your basement).  A garage lets you work on bicycles and scooters without the claustrophobia of working in a basement.  Plus, it is impossible and/or unwise to work on motor scooters in your basement, and working on them in the yard just means lots of clean up each time - you can't just leave a project half done and hope it won't rain or get dirt or leaves in it while it sits in the backyard.

Now, some might say a shed can take care of most of these items.  And that is true.  But to be fully practical, the shed would need electricity.  Also, even big sheds are a bit small for spreading out and having access to your tools.

As the attentive reader will have noticed, my new house has a garage.  It also "needs work" as the roof is in such bad shape you can see daylight through a chunk of it.  And it appears to have been a grand hotel for mice over the past 40+ years.  But despite its age and condition, it stands straight and has a concrete floor and is 10' x 20'.  Now, that's not a big garage by any means (I am not 100% certain my car will even fit through its barn-style doors).  But at 200 square feet, it will very nicely accommodate my 2 Vespas, my 3 bicycles, and my 1940's Indian bike-rickshaw.  And remember, at 200 sf it is 22% of the size of the entire house.

The previous owner left a bunch of stuff in the garage - a cabinet, some doors and screens, a nice workbench, some yard tools.  And I've stored a few items in it just for convenience.  But last night I decided to do some cleaning.  I opened the barn doors for the first time and was pleased to see they worked, at least well enough to get smaller items in and out (I will test a full open later).  I started throwing away the random debris and sweeping up the old mouse nests which filled most of the crevasses.  I also tore down some of the ridiculous patchwork of planks a previous owner had nailed to the frame to combat the mice accessing the garage walls.

OK, enough words.  Here are some pictures showing the garage and the clean-up.  Still very much "in progress" but I was encouraged at how it went and I am thrilled to have a garage!