Ryan McFarland

Taking a few months off of our home improvements has given us a little more time to think through our plans for the property. All of our ideas piled together would equal pretty significant Homeowner Loans. One of the first things we need is a workshop or shed for me to move my tools and projects into. We had planned on constructing a shed behind the house — actually rebuilding the rotten one that had been there. Two winters with thousand pound piles of snow falling onto the site of the planned shed has changed my mind.

Now the idea is to make the carport a garage with a workshop in the back. We can use the whole thing for a workshop with just the addition of some insulation, windows, a door and a garage door. Then we’ll build a post and beam structure detached from the house as a carport. In the summer we can just park in the driveway and use it as a covered patio. In the winter if we want to we can park one vehicle in the garage — i even have a heater for the space.

That will open up the current workshop/boiler room for our planned office and downstairs bathroom.

By this coming winter we should have the garage enclosed and the carport built. That will give us the dark winter months to do the interior work we have been putting off. Since we recently refinanced the house a home equity loan wouldn’t give us much to work with. We’ll just have to pay for the projects as we go along.