Introduction

Six years ago my husband and I bought a beautiful home in the Travis Heights neighborhood of Austin. Records state the home was built in 1930, but the previous owner said it was built in 1928. I have yet to research the discrepancy, but plan to eventually. However, this is not about our beautiful home, it’s about our ugly garage. We are about to replace the foundation and then remodel it. I imagine the process will be about as ugly as the garage’s current state. I’m hopeful the outcome will complement our beautiful house.



I don’t have a record of when the 2-story garage was built. By all appearances it was sometime in the 1950’s or 1960’s. I base those dates on the casement windows and other details on the second story apartment of the garage. The first floor doesn’t offer many period details other than the fact the two garage bay doors only allow the smallest of cars to enter.

For the past six years the apartment has been my office, but as of yesterdayI have officially moved out. I have left the piles of boxes and junk behind and am now typing away in my dining room. I guess we won’t be hosting dinner parties anytime soon.

Here are our plans for the garage:

1. Remove the entire first floor and pour a new foundation and reframe it (the second story will be in the air for several weeks).
2. Add a small covered area off the back of the garage. Voila! I get a new laundry room (currently it’s inside the garage).
3. Lightly remodel the second story (open the space up by removing a couple walls, update the space in general).

To give you an idea of how much we’ve scaled back, our original plan was to add a second-story greenhouse above the new area off the back of the garage. How amazing would that have been?!