9. Garage Framing

As soon as the stairwell tower was done, work was started on the main-floor framing. While that was going on, the waterproofing contractor was coating the walls behind the basement with a peel-and-stick rubberized plastic material. This is the most important part of the waterproofing, since the hill behind the house will cause a lot of hydrostatic water pressure against this wall. Styrofoam sheets were then glued on to protect the membrane.

The small framing crew (just two men) made quick work of the garage. The 16-inch-deep engineered floor joists over the garage were delivered by a crane truck and set on the garage walls. This made things a lot easier on the framers, as they didn't have to carry the beams up there. All they had to do was space them out and nail a floor onto them. All the plywood subfloors in the house are 1-1/8" tongue-and-groove plywood. This is much more substantial and solid-feeling than the usual 3/4-inch plywood used in most homes these days.

After the basement waterproofing was done, we could finally start filling in around it with gravel. It took a lot of truckloads, but gravel is fairly cheap. This was an exciting time for me - I could finally see the driveway and garage entrances taking shape. I designed the garage as a drive-through, with two garage doors at each end. With the looping driveway, you can either drive through the garage or around it - there's no need to ever back up!



My truck is in the garage for the first time!

As it turned out, the garage was the only part of the house to be framed-in in 2008. The extra cost of the foundations had finally caught up with us and we were out of money. So, we had to shut down construction for a year.