Changing the detached garage into a barn style garage was one of the last things of our whole house renovation projects.
After we finished the renovation on the main house, which took over a year, this mismatched, (dare I say, hideous) detached garage sat for another year while we decided what we were going to do to it.
There may have been a wee bit of disagreement in that year of waiting… one of us wanted to keep the taller door option for the possibilities it might offer. While a different one of us may have wanted the doors to be even and well, look like this:
When I finished taking careful measurements of the existing garage with the help of our contractor, I put it onto graft paper to get the proper proportions for him when it came time to frame up the front. (Yes, my plan was the one ‘we’ finally landed on. 🙂 )
Living in a small town, and knowing a lot of local people… I actually think we got more comments, (during that year of us deciding) asking if/when were we going to do something to that garage, than I think we got on the whole house renovation. (HERE are details on the huge changes we did to the exterior of the house!) Yet, I guess people were equally annoyed by the mismatched façade of the old garage as I was. And maybe after seeing it just sit there for that length of time, untouched, some started to worry that it wasn’t going to be changed. LOL. As if! (do you know me?!!)
Removing the front:
The old doors came out and because nothing was centered, pretty much the entire front had to be redesigned. As it turned out, that was fortunate for us, because once the doors came out and the siding removed, we found carpenter ants had made a rather large nest inside the wall creating a honeycombed remnant of a beam.
To most people the project at this point would look not very attractive, but for me to see the façade finally symmetrical was so thrilling. This was just such a respite to me, after a couple of years of having to see that hideous off center mess of a garage! Yes, I am easily entertained with simple pleasures such as symmetry.
When it came time to construct the faux haymow door, to have that to scale sketch was helpful for our carpenter.
For a second, I had considered painting the barn style garage red… however, after looking through vintage images of mid-century colonial style houses, I saw more that were white, to match the houses, than red to contrast them.
Another clue I took from matching the house, was the way the siding is on the house. We copied the same board and batten on the top and lap siding on the bottom as the house.
I’m fortunate that our carpenter cares and sees the value to construct the details that he knows are important to me. Little things like depth and shadow lines make a huge difference to the overall finish. Especially where the building is going to be painted all one color, the details are the shadow lines created from the details.
The cupola addition was added onto the top of the finished roof. We did have a wire run through the roof to allow a light to be mounted in the cupola. For the weathervane detail, we chose a traditional rooster weather vane.
Getting close to done… Just painting left…
I found the extra large pulley online and had a friend powder-coat it black.
Love the finished barn style garage!
As the sun sets on our outside renovations, I’m thinking about more projects… Now people ask me, ‘So, are you done?’ My reply is simple, ‘Are you ever done?’
Thanks so much for stopping by! Please feel free to follow and share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, Bloglovin, YouTube and Instagram! I appreciate you reading along.
You can also find me at Frame and Frills! I offer decorating coaching and stock amazing DIY products like Fusion Mineral Paint and Mint by Michelle decoupage papers in the shop. You can shop in person or online.
Here are some more posts I’ve written about this whole house renovation:
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