Well, the project is still heading the way I was expecting (that is, slowly!). Since I don't have the funds to dive straight into it, I have to sell some stuff first - this will have the added benefit of freeing up some room too. The main item (a VW T25 Transporter that I somehow ended up with) won't generate much in the way of finances, but it is eating valuable space so it needs to go. Unfortunately, it's had myriad little issues that needed tidying up, so it's swallowed a lot of my attention recently.
I have, however, managed to get a lot more done to the garage too. Some 20+ years ago, I did a lot of work on it, including adding a pair of concrete block towers that almost reached the ceiling - these then carried a large steel girder which was intended to carry a rolling overhead gantry (i.e. something to lift engines with). Along with this, I added lots of thermal insulation in an attempt to keep the place useable during the winter.
I had a builder working on the house at the time, and decided that as I had to go off on business for a few days, I'd get him to add the cladding over the insulation so that the work wouldn't stall while I was away. I don't know what you call the boards in the USA, but here in the UK we call them Sterling boards - they're a sort of cheaper version of plywood. Anyway - he misunderstood my instructions, and when I got back I found that he'd used the girder to carry two wooden joists (beams), onto which he'd then fixed everything else. In other words, all the time, effort and money that I'd put in to installing the overhead gantry were wasted as the rolling gantry no longer fitted.
For over two decades I growled every time I went in the garage and looked up. Since I've done so much out there this year, however, I decided to get angry with it and fix the problem. In essence, I engineered and fitted some super heavy duty cantilevered joist-hangers and then cut away the offending parts of the boards so that there was sufficient room for the rolling gantry to move. It doesn't sound like there was much to do, but it took me about three weeks of hard work.
Still - it's done now, albeit it that I still need to blast some expanding foam into the narrow slot above the girder so that I don't get a blast of cold air coming in immediately above where I'll be working. The complication is that there's a Land Rover parked underneath which doesn't currently run, so I need to shift that before coating myself and everything within reach in nasty, sticky goo.
But - I have to say that being able to out there and not quietly simmer with rage is truly marvellous!
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