DIY Garage Building

Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank Bill Sharkey (Shark7) for writing this story and sharing some photographs of his Garage. Cheers, Bill!

For a man who always wanted to be a racecar driver, a house without a garage was not an option. I bought a house on about an acre of land; since the house itself sits towards the front of the lot, there was plenty of room in the back for a pretty good sized garage. Unfortunately, the lot had to be cleared from hundreds of dead / dying trees.

Once the lot was cleared, I was in business. I started by digging the foundation of the garage. I knew that I ultimately wanted the garage to be 16 ft wide by 36 ft deep, so with a shovel I dug 6" to meet my dimensions – while accommodating a 4 ft drop in the land.

After I laid the cement pad and blocks and put up the walls, I eventually got to the hardest part of the project: putting up the trusses. Since I have a fairly unpredictable work schedule, I rarely had anyone else around to help me. To make due, I came up with my own system to raise and attach the trusses. I had to lift each end of the 18 trusses by standing on a ladder and attach them to the wall separately, so that the trusses were pointing downward. I then used a 2x4 to push the trusses into the upward position. One thing that was helpful was that I put a piece of block between the trusses on the wall. That way, when I put up the next truss, it was already aligned the way that I wanted it.

Once the trusses were up, everything else seemed easy. I went with a metal roof for the garage. I raised 10 ft sections with a rope and a vise grip that I'd connected to the roof. On the inside, I used center brackets made out of 2x4's so that I could slide 4x8' OSB boards up there.

After I had the structure itself built, I used OSB board and vinyl siding on the outside of the garage. I acquired a factory second door, which required me to reframe the original door setting. I also framed a second opening, which I'd like to someday make into a second section of the garage; in the meantime, I've sided over the area.

While building the garage was a lot of work, especially without help, but it was definitely worth it. Building is so different from what I do on a daily basis that it is really enjoyable when I get the chance to do it. Now I have a fully functional space where I can store and work on my racecar, race parts, and other miscellaneous projects.