garage door i promised the beautiful and talented alisa a new garage door for christmas. that's last christmas in case you're keeping track. yes, the very same heart holding garage door is marked for destruction. anywho, nothing around here can just be easy. the previous owners built a loft in the garage. we've been storing boxes up there. it's in the way of a panel type garage door. maybe a rollup? ew no. they're ugly industrial things. i offered to paint it to look like a panel door. no banana. so the loft has to go. at least the first of three sections. the remaining two sections would be plenty big enough to hold all the boxes. so it's outta here. alisa and the boys went hiking. i wasn't really planning to rip up the garage yesterday. it just sorta happened. step 1, inspect and plan. leave the bits with electrical wires. identify the structural bits by looking at the neighbor's garages. step 2, remove the bicycles and everything that's under the soon to be ex-loft section. that's half the stuff in the garage. i don't know about you but we've got quite a bit of stuff crammed into our garage. i noticed some cars driving by slowly. i think they thought we were having a garage sale. step 3, remove the wiring for the garage door. step 4, remove the drywall ceiling. i have no idea why they thought the garage needed a drywall ceiling. i tried to position the garbage can to catch the dust as i sawed with moderate success. they added 2x4s between the 2x6s to give them something attach the drywall to. great. a couple whacks with the small sledge took care of that. step 5, remove the loft floor. i tried manually sawing from below. but that was too fatiguing. so i got out the ladder and the saber saw. the loft is inconveniently high. like it's a bit of a climbing exercise to go from the top of the ladder into the loft. yes, the tippy top of the ladder that's two steps up from the step that's clearly marked, do not stand above this step. one might question the sanity of ignoring this warning while holding a power saw. i was careful to stand in the middle section of the loft while i cut away the floor of the first section. i may not be sane, but i'm not stupid. i only had to cut some of the sections. then just brute force ripped them down. one had a nail that tore a hole in my pants. meh. didn't like those pants anyway. step 6, remove the horizontal 2x6s that used to support the floor. this part was kinda weird. one side was attached to the wall inside the wall. the other side was attached to the beam above the window. there were two pieces that almost met in the middle. it couldn't be one piece. cause it would have impeded the garage door opener. so they were attached to the 2x6s above them that are part of the garage. no matter. was actually easier to remove in two pieces. one side had to be cut. the other was just wrenched clean off the wall. it's amazing how much force you can generate with a 10' lever. step 7, remove a couple of extra boards. this was the fun part. cause there's no longer a floor. nor are there any floor supports to stand on. so i'm hanging from the rafters by one hand cutting a 1x6 with the saber saw with the other. one might also question the sanity of that maneuver. step 8, clean up. gawd what a mess. step 9, clean all the stuff and put it back back. i tossed a few things we really didn't need. the hockey gear used to be on the top two shelves. but since the loft is no longer in the way, it's all piled up on the top shelf. leaving a lot more room for all the other junk. i ran a bungee cord around one shelf to keep all the soccer balls from falling off. step 9, finish cleaning the garage. might as well. beat the rugs. and sweep out the corners. step 10, wonder where the heck everyone is. i was really expecting to get busted in the middle of this task. but it didn't happen. heh. if it wasn't for the pile of building materials in the driveway, the day's work might have gone unnoticed. which would have been kinda funny. in a sad sort of way.  ¶ 8:00 AM