The garage…  A few weeks ago I received an envelope in the mail from the City of Peoria.  I was concerned.  I did think that there could be much good from it; but honestly I figured that it was my renewal reminder for my multiple pet owners license.  (Yes, the City of Peoria even regulates the number of pets you can have…and then charges you for it.)  It wasn’t the license.  Nope.  It was a summons.  Yep.  A legal notice to appear.  I was being summoned before an administrator for numerous code violations due to the state of disrepair of my garage. 

They have been “sweeping” our neighborhood for a while now; and I have been “tagged” for in the past for having an unregistered car in the driveway, and debris next to the garage…but never SUMMONED.  They sited me with six violations…and at no time will I deny that these were not accurate.  But as the pictures will indicate; the listed citations were the least of the problem. 

We have been hoping to rebuild the garage for quite some time.  I never in a million years would have expected the events and information that I would encounter.  But first the garage….

Broken windows and windows boarded in a manner not approved by the city:

And the fascia as noted in picture above….as well as peeling paint and rotted boards:

And my favorite, they didn’t like the entry door.  Said it wasn’t made of exterior approved materials.  I beg to differ.  My outhouse style door architecture is not only classic as well as functional…it is made of exterior rated OSB.  So there! 

(At one time it actually had a quarter moon painted on it…guess it peeled off.)

Now here is the part that gets me.  At no time did they mention:

The broken overhead door:

Or the unintentional sky lights:

…Or the horrendous sway, twist and bowing of the garage in general. 

Which brings me to the rest of the story. 

Now that I have been cited, I obviously have to remedy the situation.  Now to be in compliance, all I have to do is put in a new entry door (note the door frame and how out of square it is), fix the fascia, replace the rotted exterior boards, remove the boards from the windows (which was completed prior to photo) and replace all the broken glass and then scrape and repaint the entire thing.  Easier said than done, and ultimately a waste of materials…since this would not rectify the rotten boards inside the garage, would not fix the roof (of which the rafters cannot carry the weight of new materials) and would not cover the overhead door that is broken and sagging.  Not to mention the twist or bowing of the structure as a whole.  I also have the option of just demo-ing the garage; but we have a lot of items that require storing and the garage is also a large connecting piece of our fenced yard, which is a necessity for the pool we put in. 

So, the logical solution seems to just knock it down, bite the bullet and rebuild on the existing slab (which is close to two feet high at the back of the structure and tapers to six inches at the front) and call it a day. 

With that in mind, I started the process of calling the various permitting offices to put my idea to some sort of budget and plan.  I called the building permit office and they gave me some rough estimates of permit costs:  $30 to demo, or between $50 and $200 for a demo and building permit (based on cost and size of new structure)-this allows a demo within 30 days of application and up to a year for the construction.  However, you have to get your building plan approved first.  That application costs $195 and requires a drafted scale drawing of your existing property and the new structures.  Did I mention this has to be to scale?  The permit office was kind enough to mention one important point to later be confirmed by the Planning and Growth offices…the new structure must meet all NEW ordinances and codes.  One of which is: no structure shall be erected within 10 feet of an existing or concurrently constructed structure. 

Hmmmm.  What does this mean for me?  Basically it means I am screwed.  Why?  Well, remember that slab I mentioned earlier?  Rebuilding on this massive chunk of concrete will thus result in my new garage being 8 (eight) feet from my house (which is an existing structure) and therefore not to current code.

 So…my options:  Cry.  Tear down the garage, lose value on the house(which is already backsliding) and be left with virtually no storage(as minimal as it was with the holes and crappy doors).  Redesign the garage to be within the new codes and ordinances.  Or “repair” the garage.

I cried.  Many times.  I also had numerous panic attacks.  Tearing down the garage, creates problems of its own, such as the storage issue as well as, requiring the extension of the fencing to maintain enclosure around the pool.  I drafted a redesign of the garage that would as closely as possible follow all the new rules.  With this, I would lose more than two feet of overall garage length, would need to move the entry door to the front or eliminate it all together, and would have to relocate the electrical service (this little added bonus would increase the project cost by over $1000)…not to mention the added changes that I would need to make for aesthetics purposes.  Did I mention I am also broke?

Repair it is.  But…according to the “policing agencies” er, I mean, the permit and planning offices, there is no hard fast number to the difference between rebuilding and repairing based on the number of boards that stay behind.  Therefore, I will be building three new walls and a new roof, siding the entire thing with vinyl and adding new windows, a new entry door and a new overhead door….all on the existing slab, sans permits (because according to ALL the offices, no permits are required for repairs).  The biggest hurdles I see now are:  the garage falling down during the “repair” process which will the require “rebuilding” and all the strings that are attached, and one of us killing the other out of frustration during the building process.

I will keep you posted…..have a great day!

This past weekend, the Peoria area felt the tail effects of Hurricane Ike.  Apparently there was a front, and a trough and a push and a draft....or something or other and therefore we had rain.  Not just your run of the mill September rain; but a 10 inches over four days deluge.  This is a conservative estimate.  Peoria suffered from run off flooding, the sewer systems just couldn't keep up.  Man holes were forced up out the roads, cars were over taken by puddles...it was insane.  Of course any moron that will drive a Geo Metro through a puddle that goes over the door handles...is insane.  A 20 year old woman was swept into a culvert and came out 100 yards away...again, doubting that she was just innocently standing in her yard..but fortunately she was OK. 

My weekend consisted of a leaking roof, a flooded basement and a pool that had to be drained off not once, but twice.  A couple of weeks ago we took down the gutter to repair the fascia on the front of the house; and wouldn't you know it’s done nothing but rain since then...buckets.  The new gutters are scheduled for install at the end of the month...little did I know that this is Gutter Replacement Season.  Once they are back on, I have a bit of front brick work and yard grading to do; but hopefully wet basements will be a thing of the past and I can gut the old, mildewed paneling out of there and make it usable space. 

The leaking roof may prove to be a harder solution.  It seems that the leak source is the chimney.  Of course, leaks can be misleading.  It has been running all the way to the basement though so that is a good indication.  If I am lucky it’s just the boot and a good dousing of Black Jack will seal it all up.  If I am not so lucky...which I tend not to be...the two year old shingles will need to be pulled up around the chimney and re-set.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I drained down the pool two times over the weekend, not including the three or so inches I drained off earlier in the week.  I took three inches off Sunday morning and then another 2 1/2 inches Sunday afternoon.  I still need to drain a full six inches off and close it for the season.  It’s on the list.   I will get to the list a bit more in the next entry....

Have a great day!