This Old Garage, financial report

In case you were thinking about building a new garage, here is what I spent and a few thoughts.

First of all, I was going to build a brand new garage.  Two cars, walk up overhead storage, it was going to be beautiful.  By the time I bought plans, had them reviewed to ensure that they met local and state building codes, had an asbestos survey done to see if I could legally throw away the insulation that I bought from Home Depot and put in myself fifteen years ago, and put a down payment on a building permit, I had spent $833.95.  I had not finished paying for the building permit and the permit, although it included local building inspections, did not include electrical inspections.

 Wasted garage project $833.95

After getting an excavation/concrete/building materials estimate which did not include roofing I was up to about $18k without talking about labor costs.  Now over budget I decided to do the renovation.  Best estimate that I can figure, a new garage would probably have cost me something over $30,000, well over my budget.

Renovation here we go.

Actual cost of renovations including excavation, concrete, lumber, siding, some roofing (will re-roof the old portion next summer and do it myself), supplies, and labor

$16,544.11

What jacked up my costs?  Well, we decided to build on a proper shed end to the garage.  Extended the roofline and framed and sided it as though it were a part of the garage.  Looks much better than a lean-to and leaves the possibility of tearing out the end garage wall and enclosing the shed opening for a bigger garage in the future.

Tongue and groove drop siding to match the old siding, $2.88 a linear foot.  That means that one 16' piece of siding costs about $50.  A piece of siding covers 5 inches vertically.

Note: Millwork Supply, a great place to do business, suggested cedar drop siding which was cheaper than the stuff I had bought first time around.  Cheaper because it is primed for paint and so they use wood that isn't quite as fancy.  The stuff I originally bought is designed more for staining and so is very fine wood.  Resist.  I should have spent the extra money.  The cheaper stuff splits when you are trying to nail it up and it isn't tongue and groove, it is overlap siding.  We had to groove the first piece of each run to get it to fit into the old T&G.

Even taking into account the cheaper stuff, however, I bought this much siding.  $1932.05

The alternative, buying Hardee plank would not have been cheaper because I would have had to strip the whole garage and re-side.  More labor and more siding.

Concrete, two separate pours cost me extra money.  We poured a stem wall and then I decided to do a new floor.  Not sure if that could have been done in one pour or not, probably not.  Concrete cost me $1,128.94.   Plus I owe my concrete buddy some motorcycle work for coming over to do the pour.

About $1,000 to haul away all the junk and for the storage unit to store my stuff while building.  Got rid of a fair amount but not as much as I had hoped.  I might do another run through in the spring and see if more could go away.

Bought a really nice garage door.  I could have gone to Sears and got a cheapy, but I wanted this to look nice to go with the house so I went fancy.  Strap hinging, molded to look like carriage doors, etc.  It looks great but it cost about $2400 installed, a thousand more than the cheap one.  Should last decades, however, and since it looks great, I'm OK with it.  Only problem now is that you can look right into the garage through the windows.  I hadn't really given that much advance thought but could see it being a problem now.  I have to look into some sort of one way sticky material to put on the inside I guess.  It's depressing that one should have to but it is what it is I guess.

So there it is.  Pics in the spring once it's painted.  Total cost, about $17k including the wasted money on new construction planning.  Leaves me about $3k leftover but since I will be buying roofing and paint in the spring that will probably get eaten up.

Take-aways:

1) Do it right, even if it costs more.  This rebuild should last fifty years anyway, on top of a ninety year old garage.  That will outlast me I would guess.

2) It's going to cost more than you think.  I'd originally thought $20k to build, not even close.  Then I thought $10k to rebuild.  Not even close.  If I had to guess my new estimate on a new build would be over $40,000.