Carpet Day

I actually installed the exterior carpet before the electrical so that I could cut the holes and pull through the electrical cords...

I installed the right wall, then the roof, then the left and front walls.

Since I did not follow the dawbox plans of taking the walls down and then glueing the carpet flat I had to use staples and install vertically. This made it easy but it was impossible to hide the hundreds of staples in the carpet.

Soon after this pic Coop and I took a long break laying on the carpet in the driveway. The best part of this project was the time that we spent together, being able to teach him new things...

I added the corner bead over both walls, again not in alignment with the dawbox plans. It did come out looking really nice though...

Insulation

Remember to wear eye protection, a breathing mask, a long sleeve shirt and pants when you install insulation. I only forgot the long sleeve shirt...

I could not find the specific insulation recommended by dawbox (R-19) at Lowe's so I purchased R-13 rated sound insulation. It was priced well and it came in 3 1/2 inch thickness. This worked well even with the two narrow walls (1 1/2 inch thick), I simply compressed it as I installed the interior wall board.

Electrical

Dimmer switch for track lighting...

The black cord on the left is simply an extension cord that you can purchase from Lowe's with the female end as exposed wires. This is attached to the dimmer switch while the male end exits the ceiling and is plugged into the outlet by the garage door opener.

The white cord on the right is wired from the dimmer switch up and over towards the left wall and drops down from the ceiling near the AC unit. This will be wired into the track lighting system.

This is the dedicated outlet for the AC unit. It is the same type of extension cord with the exposed wires on the female end. This will exit the rear wall and plugs into a different outlet near the washer/dryer.

Learning wire diagrams, not difficult but required if you are to do any DIY electrical work...

It is important to write things down or I may forget...

Window, First Pane

Left Wall

Here is my version of the ventilation system. Summers here reach over 110 degrees (the garage gets much hotter!) so the AC unit is required. I made sure to tightly fit it in the wall and then surrounded it with some weather stripping, scrap foam pieces, etc. Also some extra weight support underneath...

I designed it so that the AC unit faces the street, away from the bedrooms. I am not as concerned with noise leakage outside as within the home. You may barely hear noise from the sidewalk but my intent is to keep any noise from invading my living room...

Ceiling Exterior

I decided it would be nearly impossible to follow the dawbox plans by assembling the ceiling in sections and lifting it up, so I just purchased 10 foot 2x4's and framed in the entire ceiling. Then I lifted up the very heavy MDF boards and carefully crawled on top to assemble.

...by the way Cyndee tried to kill me by opening the garage when I was up there! Accident? Hmmm...

Right and Front Wall

Here we go...

...and yes, I screwed up the height of the front wall! Measure twice, cut once doesn't work when the measurement is wrong!

I also went for the double pane plexiglass window design.