I previously shared a post about the 13ft bar that our oversized garage was graced with. And how we made a few people unhappy by cutting it down to 8ft and moving it to the back wall of our garage.

But I also promised that we had a reason for doing this. And that was to convert our 100% fun, 0% functional garage into a garage that was 100% both. AKA, we had to make room to put the garage door back into place so we could escape Mother Nature in the winter, while still being able to fully enjoy the rec space in warmer weather.

For whatever reason, we got a late start in the planning/ordering of the door, with an installation date not scheduled until the week after Christmas. To put it bluntly, if we had had a winter like we did last year, we would have been screwed. But lo and behold, Mother Nature held out for us. Barely…

To save a bit of money, we decided to do all of the prep work ourselves. When the previous owners converted the garage door to a set of French doors, they left the entire framework, header included (THANK YOU). This made it a lot easier (and a lot cheaper), as we essentially had to just demo the wall back to its original frame.

And so, Dan got a head start by taking down the interior drywall, and ripping off all the siding. (Okay, he didn’t rip it. He took it down gently so it could be pieced back in later)

My cousin then came over to help with the rest of the demo, which include removing the French doors and windows, and knocking out the interior studs and plywood. We scheduled a whole weekend for demo, but 4 hours later, we were all set for installation. It probably only took 4 hours because they were having way too much fun knocking those walls down. Boys will be boys.

Two days later, our garage door was installed. Three days later, we were hit with our first snow storm. Phew, that was a close one.