Our garage was getting pretty bad, I was literally peeling off paint in pieces as big as my hand. The 'nails' were starting to rust and show through the paint as well. Our first thought, was to save money and scrape/sand/paint the whole.damn.thing. Yes, we were seriously considering this. And then we talked to my dad and he assured us it really wouldn't be all that bad to just put vinyl siding on the garage for now.
We eventually want to do the whole house, but really can't afford that right now. Between our house and garage, there were 4 different types of siding on it. Yep, 4! Wood siding on garage, cement board stuff on the back door area, small area of vinyl siding on the front of the garage around the door, and the whole house is aluminum siding with a faux stone facade on the front. Needless to say, we want to continue pulling this house into the 2000's.
So we took measurements, I drew a diagram of the sides/front/back, wrote down how many outside corners, inside corners, J-channel, starter strips etc we would need, and off to get prices! Dad convinced us we could do the garage ourselves and could do it in a weekend. My husband was skeptical and didn't want to mess anything up by doing something wrong, but in the end, we convinced him to do it ourselves! I brought home some samples and a price quote from a local place and we both thought about going with a green. Currently, the color scheme was/is brown/white, so we wanted to liven it up a bit. We decided on Mastic Mill Creek in Scottish Thistle color. I went back to the store, and placed the order after we double checked our numbers. It was delivered a few days later!
Along with this project, we decided to replace the 2 windows on the sides as well. They were literally falling apart with the rest of the garage, so we picked out some nice vinyl slider windows from a local bargain place for home remodeling. Approximately $70 each, couldn't get a better deal than that. We did have to frame in the new windows because of the sizes, but no big deal according to Dad!
So, one weekend, my dad came out to rip out the windows and put the new ones in and assess the rest of the project. That morning, it was pouring rain, I was really bummed, but I had to go to work and hoped that the rain would let up for my dad and my husband to get some work done. They got both windows in and half of the East side sided. Then, the next weekend was the big weekend. He and my mom came out and brought the family dog too!
Getting started was a little slow, had to get the corner pieces, J-channel and starter strips on which takes the most time, have to make sure they are level otherwise it will not work out well in the end. Once all that is in place, the siding actually goes up pretty quickly. The tricky part came when we got to the back side of the garage, the peak. Now, we have 2 garage doors, one on the front and one on the back, so the back side took longer to make sure that the right and left of the door was even going all the way up.
Once we got to the peak we all had a job. Dad and I were on 2 separate ladders, my husband was making the angle cuts and mom was supervising and getting any tools needed etc.
To this day though, we have not finished the front of the garage. It is a tiny bit problematic because of the inside corner meeting the rest of the house (that we can't afford to put siding on yet). So, the J-channel is up around the garage door, but that's about it. We also need my father-in-law to come out and work on some electrical, the main power line comes in right in the front of the garage so it's in the way for new siding anyways.
But for now, enjoy the pictures! I love it so much, cannot wait until we can do the rest of the house though!
(sorry so long, I get long-winded sometimes!)
Also, for reference, the whole project cost less than $1,000. :-)
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| North side/Back of garage before any work done |
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| West side before any work |
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| South side/front of garage |
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| East side before any work |
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| East side with new window and half new siding! |
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| Left side of the front of garage, that pipe is the electrical line feeding the garage |
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| Started the west side |
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| North side prepped for trim pieces and siding |
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| West side half done |
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| Pooped puppy hanging out in the shade |
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| This pooped puppy was under-foot.... :-) |
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| North side/Back of garage, no it's not uneven, just more was up on the left side than the right |
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| East side completed |
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| West side completed |
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| We did put up some composite/pvc type trim around the door, but after I took this picture |
