I’ve really been dragging this week. The nasty crud I had before my Eiseman Hut trip turned into a sinus infection last week. The first couple days after I started on antibiotics I continued to get worse. I’m feeling much better now although I’m still congested. Saturday night I took 3 doses of cough medicine, nighttime Tylenol, and nighttime cold medicine before I finally fell asleep at 1 AM. It was even worse because that was really 2 AM with the time change. Although I like that daylight savings time came earlier this year, I’m still adjusting. Having kids makes time change harder because they aren’t ready to go to be when it’s time for them to.
The other reason I’m dragging this week is because of how I spent my weekend. I cut a door opening in our foundation and used a chipping hammer to shorten a wall. I probably moved a couple tons of block and concrete. I’m in the middle of a new garage project. It partly explains why my fitness level is so low and my weight so high. We bought our house 6 and a half years ago and we’ve remodeled it a third at a time. A lot of it I’ve gutted down to the studs. It’s a big part of why my cycling results have been so spotty the last few years. I do a big project and then take a break and focus on cycling again. Next year my focus should be back to cycling. Next year I’ll be trying to do something on the mountain bike that I believe will be tougher than the Race Across America. I’ve been planning to write about it and hopefully will get it done soon.
The rest of this post is off-topic rambling and ranting so continue on at your on risk of being bored. When we bought out house, there was a detached one car garage. It was needing a lot of work. The roof leaked, the soffit and fascia was falling off and the one piece garage door didn’t always stay on its track. I found out about the garage door the hard way and if there weren’t some boxes to stop it I probably would have been crushed. Even so my back was tweaked. I learned to never open the door from inside so at least if it fell I wouldn’t be under it.
Because of the condition of the garage, we have only used it was a storage shed. Rather on fixing it up we’ve been planning to replace it but wanted to get the inside of the house done first. Part of the last big remodel job was to make some changes to the layout inside the house so we could have a hallway to an attached garage. Even though we needed to get a variance to build the garage were we wanted to, I was pretty sure we could get it so I went ahead and did the interior remodeling. Here we have to get a building permit within 6 months of getting a variance so I couldn’t get it before doing the house and then take a break to train for the RAAM.
In September I started drawing the detailed site plan that was necessary to get the variance. City planning had me make changes to it before accepting it. Once they accepted the application, a public notice had to be posted for a couple weeks. Next they wanted some more changes based on other city departments inputs. After about 2 months, I had the required variance. The reason we needed a variance was because we live on a corner lot. Corner lots have 2 front yards, a back yard and a single side yard. In most neighborhoods you can’t build within 25 feet of the property line in front and back yards. To have room to build, we needed to be closer than 25 feet to what seems like a side yard but is considered our back yard.
Around Chistmas and New Years, I got the old garage torn down. Of course it wasn’t as simple as just tearing it down. First I needed a permit from the health department to make sure there wasn’t any asbestos. Then I had to get a demolition permit from the regional building department. I had to keep receipts to give to the health department to prove that rubish was dumped at an approved site.
Once the old garage was gone, I had to get my garage plans approved by the regional building department. After 3 rounds of having them reviewed and making changes, I got my building permit. My brother and several friends work in construction and it even takes them 2 or 3 tries to get plans approved so I don’t feel bad about it.
All but one of the big things that I don’t feel comfortable doing myself on the garage are done now. They were excavating and pouring the foundation and and floor. I’d also need help to get the trusses put up. That’s a least a 2 person job and 3 is better. Although I could do most of the rest of the work, I at want to be able to ride my bike and do other outdoor adventures too so I’m going to pay someone to do the framing. I also need to have money to pay for my adventures so I’ll do most of the electrical work, shingles, insulating, drywall and the dozens of other smaller tasks. Depending on how the balance of time to play versus money to play ends up, I may hire somebody for more of it.
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