Issue #267 In Search of a Dream Garage
Blood, sweat, bucks and concrete. That’s all it takes to build your ultimate work area. Nancy Irwin recalls the day she went garage hunting and got a house in the bargain.
Garage talk. It’s that time of year when summer road trips that include sun bathing or swimming become a thing of the past, and we look forward to restoration work that we’ve put off all summer. Know what I’m talking about? At some point we have to work on our bikes, our houses or our garages. I block out summer for riding. No housework, no school. Summer is my time to ride.
But when autumn hits, I shift gears. I remember the chores I set aside in spring, and wonder how I’m ever going to manage to complete the tasks I’ve laid out before winter hits. After eight years, my house is in reasonable shape. It’s finally time for my garage to get attention.
Those of you who’ve been reading my column over the years may recall one that my father still teases me about: it was the story of how I bought a garage with a house. It really happened that way.
I was house hunting in the Toronto area at the beginning of the real estate boom. Prices were rising 10 per cent a year, but my down payment wasn’t. I had my criteria. Of course I needed a place to live. But what I really wanted was a garage, not just to park my bikes, but to work on them as well. I hunted and hunted.
Just when I thought I had to give up, I found a house with a driveway and a garage in my price range. And the garage was exceptionally large. I told my realtor, “This is my garage.” The house was solid brick and across from a park, but it was incredibly ugly inside, and all the “mechanics” were bad. The house was going to be a lot of work. But the garage was amazing. So I bought the garage and used it to store all my belongings while I worked to bring a run-down rooming house to a standard I could live with. That had to happen first, and it took years.
Last fall I started on the garage, and hope to finish by next spring. Slow and steady doesn’t win a race, but I hope to finish, eventually. There were structural problems that had to be corrected, and plenty of them. It was not at all solid like the house. After a lot of effort and concrete, I’m no longer worried about the foundation, now that there actually is one.
The supporting walls are strong. The roof no longer leaks. All I have to do is address the wiring, insulate, hook up the furnace and decorate. Sound easy? I’m always impressed by how much longer it takes and how much more work every task is than I expect—something like restoring a motorcycle. Maybe this project will be different.
I hope to have the heat on before the snow flies so that I can play on my bikes this winter. If there’s one thing bikers want besides a bike, it’s a garage.
Last winter I prepared for the overhaul by moving all my tools into my living room and my work bench, camping gear and more were stored in the back yard under tarps. A concrete floor was poured in spring. I wasn’t able to move everything back into the garage until May, which is why I had trouble doing a tune-up this year. I couldn’t find my oil drain pan, or even a funnel. That sucked. But eventually the new floor was poured and I was able to move back in.
I should mention what I think is a unique aspect of my garage: sunken tie-down hooks. I seated L-bolts into the concrete at strategic locations, set inside short cylinders of ABS pipe, wide enough for heavy duty eye-nuts. They might be a trip hazard, but not when there’s a motorcycle attached! Otherwise, I remove the eye-nuts and the threaded rod is flush with the floor. So you can walk around without trouble—as long as you’re not wearing high heel shoes (mental note).
Compress the front forks, tie down the rear, and the bike will be as secure as it would on a trailer or in a truck bed, and excellent for working on. No hydraulic bike lift? I can’t have everything. But now even bikes without a main stand (like my KTM or my friend’s KLR) will stand upright while we tinker for an afternoon.
I confess. I added two skylights that are beyond fabulous. It was a stretch financially, and hard to justify. But now I walk inside the garage during daylight and it seems so bright. It’s the kind of space I want to spend time in.
Well into my project I discovered a book called How To Build Your Dream Garage. It’s written by Lee Klancher, and published by a company that produces a wide range of motorcycle and car books, Motorbooks.
I wish I’d found it before I started, but am glad to have it now. This is not a book about building a roof over a car. It’s about building a workshop suitable for mechanical play as well as socializing, because so many of us congregate around the workbench. The book covers building from scratch or working with an existing structure, layout, wiring, running air lines, heating and cooling, flooring materials, building work benches, bike lifts, storage and DIY cost versus contractor cost and benefits. It also considers the value of daylight through windows and room for a sofa, which I just happen to have.
It’s a treat to read about garage floors and driveways, pertinent to motorcycles. (For example, a sidestand will sink in hot asphalt but concrete is about double the price.) The author gives information based on those with a tight budget and those without. It’s an easy read, and supporting photos speak a thousand words.
Then I found Motorcycle Dream Garages, which is also by Klancher, and was reviewed for CB last issue by Terry Peters. (See, Etcetera P. 26, Oct/Nov.) It’s an image-heavy book that could make me feel inadequate, and is probably best digested while on the couch in winter.
I can’t wait for my garage to be finished. But, like riding, getting there is the adventure. I plan to spend hours tinkering on my bikes, getting them all spiffed up for spring, like I used to back when I had a heated shop in my basement a couple decades ago. That was before a trip around the world, that required the sale of my first house to finance the adventure. But soon is when I finally will have my Dream Garage.
Editor’s Note: Last issue Nancy wrote about Port Dover, Ontario’s Friday the 13th event, which I abbreviated as FT13. Oops. Problem. That’s not how they do things in Port Dover, where the official acronym is PD13. Sorry Nancy. Sorry Port Dover.
