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Though it has been almost 3 months since the last post, the GarageDominium continues to develop.  I’ll bring you up to speed on the latest work and other goings on in our neck of the Texas hill country.

The summer heat is taking its toll on our landscape and on our ability to do much outside.  We have stringent watering restrictions, and the lake is drying up.   As of July 27, Comal County where we live is under extreme to exceptional drought.  As of July 31, the water level in Canyon Lake has dropped to 894.36 ft which is 14.64 ft below full pool level.  The graph below shows the lake level this year compared to the last 5 years.  The lowest level recorded was 892.7 ft on September 9, 2009.  If we don’t get significant rain soon, we’ll set a new record. The County and Corps of Engineers have closed most of the boat ramps making it difficult to use the lake. 

Our kids and grandkids were here at the end of June.  We were able to find a boat ramp to use and had some fun on the lake.  We just had to be careful and watch for submerged tree stumps and rocks.  Trees that were once 14 ft under water are now at the surface.

The drought has not stopped progress on the GarageDominium.  Painters added another coat of sealer to the wood beams and corbels on the house exterior to help prevent sun damage.  Landscapers have done more work in the front yard.  They added some plants and repaired the sprinkler system.  Landscapers previously damaged the sprinkler piping when they created the additional berm in the front yard.

We still need to improve the drainage at the end of the driveway.  Drainage on this side of the house has been a problem.  We are planning to line a trench with mortar and rocks to prevent water from going into the neighbor’s yard.    Hopefully this will fix it and we’ll get some rain to test it out.

Another addition to the landscape is our address stone.  Actually, the big address stone has been in place for months.  We just finally got around to ordering and installing the numbers.  You would think we could just tack up some numbers and be done.  But every house in the neighborhood has custom numbers on stone of some sort.  We checked out custom engraving and decorative sandblasting.  Some folks have nice painted flags or cut metal scenes. 

We decided to simply get some 12” high black numbers from modernhousenumbers.com.   After U.W. and I settled on a layout for the numbers, I drilled holes in the stone and used epoxy to set steel studs.  Fortunately, Modern House Numbers provided a layout template for drilling the stud locations.  With some solar powered lights, I think they turned out pretty well. 

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that the garage is the central feature of the house and the main subject here.  We designed the garage with not only a lot of floor space, but also a lot of vertical space.  The floor space will accommodate 6 large cars or even more cars if they are small.

With the addition of the Bendpak HD-9XW car lift, I can now take advantage of the vertical space.  May 19 was one of the most exciting days of the entire build as the car lift was installed!  It took less than a day for the team from Lone Star Equipment to install the lift.  The HD-9XW has a 9000 lb capacity and can lift high enough for me to walk under it.  The garage is tall enough to enable lifting a pickup on the lift and store a car underneath it.  Also, I can move the lift around (without a car on it) using a caster accessory kit.  So, I can put the lift anywhere in the garage.

But that’s not all folks!  I upgraded my toolboxes as well.  My old toolboxes were a combination of boxes returned to my Dad’s Sears store and some drawer sets I bought.  They have worked well for 30 years or more but are filled beyond capacity and are getting a little wonky.

I decided to by a set of US General Boxes from Harbor Freight.  They seem to be a good value and get a lot of good reviews.  These things are heavy! They seem well built and hold lots of stuff.  I also like the blue color which matches our blue floor tiles well.  I also got a matching Harbor Freight tool cart.

Now I’m sorting my tools.  I’m going to keep the best of the old Sears Craftsman boxes to use in the workshop.  I may paint them but haven’t decided yet.  I’ve loaded the tool cart with the stuff I use the most so that those tools will be available whether I need them near the lift, in the workshop or on the driveway.  The Craftsman boxes are loaded with wood working tools.  The new large US General boxes have mostly mechanics tools, electrical tools, and measuring equipment.  The large toolbox fits great in the niche beside the garage sink, almost like it was designed that way (. . . yep, it was designed for those boxes).

In early May I also took delivery of my workshop tools.  I ordered this equipment during 2022 black Friday sales.  Since it was shipped to me before the house was ready, I made a deal with Lone Star Equipment to store everything until we had a good place for it.

The centerpiece of the workshop is the Harvey 3 hp, 52” table saw.  The saw is complete with a router table on one end.  I also have a new Harvey 3 hp 14” band saw and a Harvey G700 dust processor.  About a year ago I found a good deal on a DeWalt planer.  With U.W.’s reluctant approval, I stored it in our bedroom at the rent house until we moved to the GarageDominium.

To supply air tools in the garage and the shop, I installed a new Quincy 5 hp, 2 stage air compressor.  I don’t have any piping connected yet.

Combined with my small Rockwell jointer, Delta benchtop drill press, and DeWalt miter saw, the shop is well equipped.  I’ve spent a lot of time the last few weeks setting up and tuning all the equipment.  I still have much more to do, but I can start using it now.  My project list is lengthy.

We’ve also made some improvements to the interior.  The flooring saga continued.  After replacing tiles to correct the bonding issue, we’ve been dealing with the flooring finish.  All of the floor work left a haze and swirl marks on the floors.  After a lot of cleaning with various products along with buffing, they finally have them looking good.  U.W. decided that in spite of her love of mopping, that a robot vacuum/mop would be a good addition to my shop tools. She ordered a Dreamebot that mops all the tile and vacuums the carpet and rugs at her command (happy U.W., happy life).

Since I’m becoming lazier and more forgetful, I decided to automate a few things.  I installed z-wave light switches to control the porch and front soffit lights.  These were amazingly easy to install and integrate into our Alarm.com system.  I set them to automatically come on just after sunset and turn off just after sunup.  I also installed a z-wave smart plug to control the Yamaha receiver in the study.

We’ve had a few minor issues corrected such as a bad outlet in the shop, a bad electrical breaker, and repairs to stone caps around the wood columns.  Our kid’s visit proved to be a good test for all of the systems in the house.  It was more than a little disconcerting when we discovered that my son-in-law could control the master bedroom lights from the guest bedroom.  We could also control the guest bedroom lights from the master bedroom.  He was turning lights on when I turned them off and vice versa.  We met in our sleep shorts in the great room to discover that 3 of the fan/light controllers were all set on the same frequency.  We reset them the next day and the only other issue was a pocket door that came off of its track.

U.W. has been keeping busy with various projects inside and in the yard.  In addition to setting up tools, I’ve been doing some engineering work for Becht Engineering and American Petroleum Institute.

If you’ve read this far in the post, you are either really bored or very dedicated.  Thanks for reading.  I’ll focus future posts on projects we do in the garage, shop, and sewing room.  Are you interested?  I’m debating on whether to continue posting.  If you think I should keep adding to this blog, let me know in the comments.  Tell me what you would like to hear about.  If you think it is time to stop, let me know that too.  It won’t hurt my feelings.