Date: January 5 - February ?, 2026
We selected and ordered garage doors in the first week of December and our vendor Overhead Doors of Asheville said to expect a 5 to 6 week time frame for delivery. As I showed in the post on the siding, I had re-framed the door opening to be as wide and tall as I could fit because after I drove a vehicle into the garage I realized that my 8' width based on measuring the truck is an absolute minimum which requires skilled and careful navigation. By minimizing the width of the opening uprights I was able to order a very custom size - 8'2" wide and 9'3" tall. It turns out that isn't really a problem. Getting that wierd size didn't take any more time or money than if I had ordered 8'x9' doors.
With the coming of the new year, I was feeling the pressure to finish the framing required on the inside of the doors. I had received instructions from Rusty at Overhead Door that I needed to have a "goal post" pattern of 2x6's on the inside with the opening corresponding to the door size I'd ordered, and that any error should be on the side of a smaller opening, not a larger. I was still unclear about how the outside finished edge would be next to the door, since I wanted it to match the siding; i.e. I didn't want any 2x6 lumber to show from the outside. One can spend a whole lot of time searching the web for an answer to a question like that and find that in every instance they don't show that particular detail. Rusty said he would come by January 8 to take a look at what I had done and answer my questions.
As described in the siding post, the posts and beam forming the garage door were not straight and square. And just as I had to fuss and shim on the outside to provide a single plane for the outside siding, I needed to do the same on the inside so the doors could be mounted correctly. I started extending the jam at the top of the frame to the full 13+ inch depth to match the ICF block on either end of the building.
I packed out the top beam to be flush with the jam:
And used the planer to shave hemlock planks for the thin covering of the ICF. And discovered that my locust slat at the bottom was too short so need to make another one of those. Having stuff screwed on certainly helps with rework.
As the woodshop-in-the-barn photo included in the siding post documented, I repeated the planing of Hemlock 2x6's to box in the posts which took multiple hours. To shorten the effort I cut the 16' boards down to have a couple of extra inches so I wasn't planing a lot of material that I would cut off later. Unfortunately it wasn't until brought the planed board back up from the barn that I realized I had I mistook the measurement I'd written in the phone's Notes app which was 6 inches shorter than the length I needed! So even though I'd left on some extra, I was still 3 inches short! Damn! And there were no more hemlock 2x6's on hand. No such thing as a board stretcher. I was really kicking myself.
I made an SOS call to Tom G my hemlock sawyer and supplier. I offered to help with milling the wood if I could get it in time for my doors. He was in the middle of building a garage himself and was just preparing to poor it's slab. But after that was done (i.e. the next week) he said he would mill me the boards I needed and he thought it would be fun to have me help out. That also meant that I could get boards milled that were closer to the size I actually needed instead of making do with pre-cut 2x6's, so maybe it would have been a good idea to go this route in the first place.
Meanwhile I finished getting straight framing all round except for those missing boards. When Rusty came out on Thursday he thought the measurements looked fine and told me how to install the 2x6 "goal posts" and mentioned I didn't need to buy treated lumber for them as they were considered interior. He made it clear that the seal that comes with the door would cover those 2x6's so the way I made the hemlock as wide as the ICF would not leave any non-hemlock wood showing.
The following Tuesday after getting the sheet rock guys set up for the bathroom walls (previous post) I ran out to Spruce Pine with the truck sporting a so called "rack" made from scrap lumber. I figured I could also pick up the 12' 2x6 for the "goal posts" at Summit Lumber on my way back. I needed 10' boards, and Tom's logs are normally cut at 16', but he had two that were 12' and just big enough around for the 1.5" by 8" size I wanted. When we made the first cut to square up the second log, Tom threw out a mild oath because it was pine, not hemlock. "Let's just mill it to one inch lumber" I said. "I'll take it - I'm sure I'll have a use for it sometime because I don't have any one-by pine wood at home." So we ended up milling one of the bigger 16' hemlock logs, which I bought all of, meaning I added some siding lumber to my long-term inventory.
Tom's son-in-law swung by as he had nothing better to do and helped get the wood up on my "rack". He grabbed the rack to pull himself up and just about tore it off the truck. Tom quipped that he was glad for me to have that equipment (instead of him). I had brought my DeWalt driver and some screws so we scrounged around the millyard to find some scraps to beef up the rack. Before I left Tom treated me to a tour of his hog pen on the back forty while treating me to anecdotes about growing up raising a lot of pigs. Here's the rig after successfully making it back from Spruce Pine:
Meanwhile Overhead Door said the soonest they could schedule my install was January 28th, so the time pressure wasn't quite so high. The following weekend I started installing the new post uprights. "Measure twice" blah blah blah this time for sure. As shown in the pics below, I used the biscuit joiner to align the new board with the one I'd already installed and glue it so it (hopefully) will stay together presenting a single facade even with the high sun exposure it will get.
And a few days after that I installed the "goal posts".
This involved moving some of the wiring out to the new surface level, but that was easy because Erik had used conduit for these runs:
You can see the exposed edge of the goal post wood inside the hemlock, which I expect will be covered:
The final prep step was to de-clutter the garage so the door installers would have free range. The clean-up challenge was the leftover hemlock siding. I was thinking of stacking it under the art studio but there isn't that much room up there for long boards. Charla was of the opinion that it should go into the barn where my other lumber is stored. Good idea but not easy to get that wood up into the barn rafters. Using the long-time procrastinator's strategy, I figured I could move it from the garage to the truck and worry about getting it from the truck into the barn later.
You can see the completed goal posts in this shot I took to document the garage cleanup activity, finished just in time for the scheduled installation:
I get a message that evening that the door people are running behind and will be delayed a day. Same story next day - short staffed. But before the new target day, January closes out with a storm:
(That extra wood is more massive than it looks - check out how low the truck is riding above the rear wheel.)
After that it was "radio silence" on the door scheduling but finally on February 9th it all happened. The Overhead Door guys complimented me on the excellent framing.
The truck attests that the previous Saturday I got that siding put away in the barn with labor help from David who was Ryan's helper with the rock wall.
As I've never had an automatic garage door, the experience was very much like having a new toy. And finally I'm able to use the built-in remotes that came with both our Subaru vehicles which handily have three buttons for three doors!
In the video above you can see that the vertical seal did indeed cover the exposed goal post edge.
Backing up the timeline, at the end of January after the backfill was finished I'd texted Brandon (siding guy) to let him know I was ready for the deck to be built. I didn't get an immediate reply but then on Wednesday morning he texted back that they could start on Friday! When I said I was ready I was speaking theoretically --- I didn't have any of the materials on hand yet. I told Brandon I'd order the support wood and hopefully Summit would be able to deliver the following day (from the original framing I learned it's a bad idea to expect Summit to deliver on the same day that the material is needed). This deadline forced the decision about what type of decking material to use. I've been a fan of the plastic boards since they don't rot and don't get as slippery. However up at the north-side deck of the art studio we've put the lie to the non-slip aspect - it will get really slippery if it never dries out. And the cost is simply outrageous - about $55 for each 6" wide 16' stick. So I decided to go traditional with treated lumber. Calling around I found that you really can't get treated two inch thick lumber in Grade A. The grade is called "Premium" which means lots of knots and roughness. The only treated Grade A wood is the 5/4 decking. (5/4 means the wood actually exactly an inch thick. It is milled at 1.25" thick then planed down to 1".) Those cost about $16 per 16' length.
The second design choice was how to build the railings. After Halloween we'd gone to cyclist Roger's throw-your-pumpkin-from-his-deck party and noticed his cable railings. A couple of people at the party raved about using cables instead of pickets. Having just helped paint a wood picket railing for the Marshall Helene recovery, I was an easy sell on the simplicity and easy maintenance of using cables instead of wood. And having the view through the railing is nice too.
I drove out to Summit in Burnsville but made two stops on the way to check price and availability of treated lumber from Mars Hill Hardware and Parker's Farm Supply. All three stores carried both support boards and deck boards. The first was really pricey, the second was a bit cheaper than Summit but didn't deliver. Summit offered Grade A and Grade B deck boards so I looked at both piles before deciding that Grade A was definitely what you want. I placed my order at the desk for deliver on Thursday, paid the previous month's bill and was back home before noon.
I'd hardly got home before the driver from Summit said they'd bring my order over that afternoon!
I texted Brandon to let him know we were a GO for Friday. Law conformably, Thursday night I hear from Brandon that they are running late and won't be able to get out until Monday February 9. That's the same day as the garage door guys, of course. The more the merrier, eh?
It was just as well I suppose because that weekend it occurred to me that I also needed some way to bolt that treated lumber to the locust 3x6 beams. These beams have been sitting under the art studio for a couple years - I had them milled as eventual replacement inventory for the pergola on the house. But I had enough so I figured I could use some for uprights and railing posts. So it was off to Home Depot for another gofer run. I bought enough 8" and 6" carriage bolts to do the entire job with either one as I wasn't sure quite how it'd go together.
Turns out those bolts weren't needed on Monday anyway as Brandon found that what they could get done without his long walk plank was limited to doing some layout and initial scaffold construction.
Brandon explained that they way he does decks is to frame out the deck itself on temporary supports so it would be square and level. Then fit the support beams in under it. That approach rules means the idea I had entertained (from McCurry) of having the upright posts continue all the way up to the railing wasn't practical. I'd poured the southern most peer tall to specifically to accommodate the through-post idea. But it's certainly more straightforward, compared to bolting the uprights (which BTW being Locust are not perfectly straight) to the cement piers at just the right location to stay square with the edge of the house 10' above you. Brandon assured me the railing posts would still be solid. Another argument in its favor was then the railing posts could be exactly spaced since they would not depend on the cement piers.
Tuesday morning pictured below before we took off to Charlotte for a head-banging NIN concert. Brandon and his son Marley:
Viewing the following not recommended for those who are inclined toward epilepsy.
Wednesday it rained, but by end of Thursday the basic deck structure was looking done:
Brandon informed that the outer stringers needed to be doubled, so I was short on wood. I also hadn't purchased the boards for the top of the railings. Brandon pointed out that Mars Hill Hardware charges more for their treated lumber because it is kiln dried. So now I know why they keep it in a shed while the other yards have it sitting out in the rain and snow. So I made a gofer run to Mars Hill Hardware and paid the higher price and spent my time selecting nicer 2x6 boards for the railings.
After some discussion we figured out how to route the bridge from the rock wall at right angles to the wall (instead of square with the deck). This provided the shortest stoutest span. The supports for that got done on Friday:
Progress the following Monday dragged a bit. At lunchtime it became clear I hadn't purchased enough vinyl flashing to cover tops of the 2x support beams. John L shared this tip with me back on Vashon - cover the supports with flashing so they don't rot when the inevitable detritus collects on them between the decking planks.
Can't put down the decking planks without it so it was another gofer run to Mars Hill Hardware. They didn't have the 25' rolls of vinyl flashing but they did carry a 2" 10 mil tape made specifically for this purpose. Costs three times as much but it was quick to get and easier to use.
Tuesday saw most of the decking go down. They decided to pack it tight since gaps will appear when the decking wood shrinks over the course of the summer.
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