Bought a garage. It came with an old house.

The strive for more garage space can make us do crazy things. I moved into a 100 year old house and I have no idea what I'm doing.

Here's what lured me in. It was a trap.

This guy came with it.

Photo from the listing. Don't be fooled! That carpet is nasty.

I bet there's hardwoods under there... Aha! Wait, what are those patches?

Only about 1 million near-invisible-but-totally-noticeable-to-your-toes carpet staples left to pull out of the floor.

Ah. Termite damage and the structural repair to go with it. So that's why there's missing sections of hardwood, and why they chose to just cover it with plywood and cheap carpet. Gotta love cheapskate PO's.

Might as well replace any bad boards while I'm at it.

Tried to save trim.

Patching in progress. This is the handiwork of Lady Maschinenbau. She's the only one who seems to know what they're doing!

Soon we (she) will be wood filling and sanding. I got sent down to the basement to make the water not taste like E36 M3.

Hardness test. We live in a notoriously bad area for water hardness, cleanliness, sediment content, microbials, farm runoff, you name it we got it in the water.

Got this softener thing and a filter to go with it. Still don't know what I'm doing.

Guess there's no turning back. House supply line and associated hardware is leaking and all-around kinda gross and rusty.

First time soldering copper. I used these short sections to leak test, you know, make sure I'm doing this right.

Could have turned out worse. This valve system will allow me to turn off the house water with one valve, then drain the house pipes with the one above it. So I don't have to go out to the street to turn off the city valve when I inevitably find a leak in my work.

Got the filter and softener in too.

Aaand finished! Tested the softener recharge and the sump pump, all appears to work.

Thats a pretty nice garage you have.

It's a lot deeper than it looks. However, SWMBO required the house to be larger than the garage.

House: 30'8" x 41'8"

Garage: 30'3" x 40'3"

Wow, the devil was really in the details with that lol. Ill take a 1200sf garage any day.

It can't just be the floor and the termites and the plumbing after 100 years, there must be more.
Keep at it, I learn something new every time I see how someone else solves problems. I like your solution to draining the pipes, way to think ahead.

I'm loving the grm house/shop builds. I'll be watching.

I like it. On your drain setup solder an end on it that you can connect a garden hose to in case you find a need for one down there.

Quarter-turn valves are awesome.

I had a 100 year old house.... with an oversize 2 car garage! 3' thick stone foundation, french drains with twin sump pumps. My water was pretty bad... but not that bad, a whole house general filter cleaned up most of the particulate.

make sure you plumb in a water powered sump backup for that electric sump.

maschinenbau wrote: It's a lot deeper than it looks. However, SWMBO required the house to be larger than the garage. House: 30'8" x 41'8" Garage: 30'3" x 40'3"

Wow! Talk about maximizing within constraints. You did great!

That looks great for a 100 year old house, nice work!

Nice house and shop. The repairs are looking good too.

With really bad water, you might want to filter before AND after the softener.

What Ratel said....

Mad_Ratel wrote: make sure you plumb in a water powered sump backup for that electric sump.

Wish I had known about this 10 years ago

The watered power pump seems awesome, but isn't really practical if you have a well. If your power is off, so is your water which drives the pump. I guess you can have it as a backup, but why go through all the trouble and not just have a backup pump at that point?

its purpose is more up north where you'll lose power during a storm (above ground lines) before you'll lose water pressure(buried pipe). so rather than lose your basement to flooding you use the pressure of the water lines to keep you safe.

Right, but you still have to be on municipal water, yes? If you had a well you'd have the pressure tank, but it's not that much water, not enough to use as an energy source to pump out a flooding basement.

Well in that case youd be sunk.

I also bought a 100 year old house, the diffrence is my garage is smaller then my living room. I have garage envy.

Floors are patched and ready for the sander. Got lazy trying to pry up the old boards and blend the pattern together. I think with enough sanding and filling, the edges won't be noticeable.

Also, we are officially moved in as of Saturday night, so now I can't escape the project house for better or worse.

Good luck, ive worked on my house way more then i would like. Wife still wants me to pull the carpet in the kitchen. Im not sure how people enjoy this.

Good luck with the move!