Our garage door to wall transformation is nearly complete. Complete enough to show you some progress shots anyway.
We initially planned to hire this job out, but after asking my dad what kind of contractor I should call, he sort of just took the job on himself. Yes, he's great. No, I'm not sharing him.
He started by ripping out the old door, door frame and the flimsy insulation, leaving a giant hole in the house. That hanging plastic was there just to block the wind some and keep the debris outside.
The end of day one was looking a lot like this.
We decided to do a wood frame wall rather than a stone or masonry wall for one main reason: weight. The weight of cinder blocks or poured concrete would have demanded busting up the floor plus part of the driveway and pouring deep concrete footings to support it all. More work, more money, more trouble. Nope, a stud frame wall will do just fine.
But one thing we could not do without was adding a window. It's what I wanted most out of this project: natural light in a dark and dingy basement. I'm hoping to turn this space into a work area, so it was a necessity. The long and skinny 2 x 6 foot window was special order from Lowe's for $160; I was surprised it didn't cost more.
I wasn't completely sold on the idea of having a small patch of siding on the house, but there are not a lot of options for weatherproof exterior materials. Plus introducing a fourth material to the existing stone/brick/siding combo would probably have looked just as weird. So we used the same approximate color and style as the top and the back of our house.
The clay color also blends into the stone foundation color so from far away, it doesn't really draw attention to itself.
After some calling around to various to-the-trade siding distributors, I finally located the same(ish) siding in stock at Home Depot. Imagine that. (FYI, not all Home Depots carry the same siding color or profile in-stock, so if you can't find what you're looking for at one location, try another or check stock online. There's a good chance it's different.)
We still have to add some trim around the edges of the opening and then paint the wood the same tone as the siding, but with everything already weatherproof enough for winter, those jobs will probably have to wait until next spring.
And the inside?
The inside is still not complete, but that's OK. It tells you how bad it was that I can look at this unfinished wall and think it looks great.
If this photo is looking a bit wonky to you: the window is level, and the floor is not. The floor is actually far far from level. But that's an issue for another day (or never).
The view is nothing amazing, but look at that light! It's not a dungeon anymore! The natural light still catches me off guard when I go down the steps.
I mentally budgeted between $1000 and $2000 for this project, so I'm excited it only added up to about $420 with DIY labor. More money to spend on something else!
See the before pics >>