Restored 1930's garage

[Bruce Wayne]

I found this link on an S-10 site that I frequent.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51567&highlight=floor+jack

 

[bil_maxx]

Incredible. I have been wanting to turn my garage into a golden age themed garage for years. Now I have more inspiration.

 

[Stearmen]

No Office Space

Great to see some one restore a garage so it can be used for it's original purpose! Around here, it would have either been torn down, or worse, made into office space. Thats what happened to three of our old Fire Stations. Oh how I wish I could have bought one of them. Now they want to sell old No1, I believe $1.2 million, needless to say, I'm not bidding!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

What a fantastic job! So glad that it didn't get bulldozed!

 

[botty]

They ruined the outside.

 

[andy richards]

Absolutely awesome! Would love to visit the garage if I ever have the chance.
Good luck and well done!
Cheers,
Andy

 

[tonyb]

I applaud that fellow for saving that old structure and putting it to good use. He undoubtedly sunk a whole lot of money and effort into it, and it shows.

But, to echo and expand on botty's post ... It's had much of its character remodeled right out of it. Those cabinets by the diner-style booth are among the more glaring examples of what's not quite right with it.

 

[I Adore Film Noir]

They ruined the outside.

I agree. It's not a restoration as much as it's a renovation. The porte-cochère doesn't belong and the nine pane garage door is gone

 

[Dinerman]

Not really a restoration.
I'm sure the original was cool looking when it was new, from the "before" pictures.
But I agree with the other posters, they ignored all the things which made the original interesting, and super-imposed a hodgepodge of idealized versions of a past which never was, done without any overall vision for the place. Better than seeing it bulldozed, I suppose.

There was a very rare 1910's diner- one of the original lunch wagon types. Someone got their hands on it, removed the original cast iron stools, the original hand laid tilework, the original stained glass windows and wood cabinets and replaced it with a checkerboard linoleum floor, cheap chrome stools, diamondplate and stainless paneling. And boy were they proud of their "restoration".

 

[Gene]

Glad they took a page out of the Generic 50's-Themed Restaurant Handbook to "restore" this garage. All that's missing is a poster with James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis hanging out.

Disappointing.

 

[tonyb]

Glad they took a page out of the Generic 50's-Themed Restaurant Handbook to "restore" this garage. All that's missing is a poster with James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis hanging out.

Disappointing.

Ouch! But I gotta agree.

There's a company out here in the Great (or so they say) Northwest that specializes in taking over old structures (schools, theaters, restaurants) and turning them into food-and-entertainment emporia. While their designers and decorators do a considerably more inspired job than what that garage fellow did, there's still something "off" about it. Their establishment with which I am most familiar, a bar and restaurant in Olympia, Wash. called the Spar, had survived much as it had been for most of its seven-decade existence, before this new outfit took over. Now it feels like they made an approximation of the Spar in the space the Spar had occupied. Among the more ersatz of the new elements are the paintings depicting idealized scenes from the Spar. Totally (expletive deleted) phony.

And they took out the bolted-to-the-floor barstools. Just to compound the sin, the old barstools had those little hat-holder clips on their backs. A crime against humanity, I say.

 

[Gene]

I'm sure this is what a 1930's garage looked like:

Or you could stock it like a museum like this:

Sorry about the passion here, it's just my grandpa had a garage/workshop for years in his house built in the 40's and it had REAL tin signs and old oil cans, REAL mason jars of nuts and bolts, REAL industrial lights and wooden workbenches, and REAL dirt/dust/grime. It didn't look like a shiny new 80's-does-50's car dealership.

 

[tonyb]

Please don't apologize for you passion, Gene. Without people who care about this stuff (by that I mean really, really care), we'd all be the poorer.

I sincerely hope that the fellow with the butchered garage takes a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction in it, because he certainly has a whole lot into it. Perhaps his aim was exactly what he ended up with. If so, well, good for him.

What people like us can take away from this is a reminder that people have talents we don't, so should we contemplate such an ambitious undertaking it would be wise to consult those who know better. I wouldn't be the person to assess the quality of the guy's workmanship (that's way outside my area of expertise), but it's apparent that the "vision" of the place is either his own or that of a designer who missed his calling.

A longtime friend who 20-some years ago converted a large, 1902-built house into a duplex says his wisest expenditure was the fee he paid the architect. He not only ended up with a place more in keeping with its original style (they undid many of the "improvements" made to the place over the decades), the master plan also saved him tens of thousands of dollars, he figures.

 

[thecardigankid]

I think we need to look at the bigger picture here, even though the restoration was quite hokey, it was still saved and will be around for a long time now thanks to this guy. I find he could have done it up in a much cooler 30s to 40s theme but instead he chose not to thats his choice, we also gotta remember he could have just easily said "No it aint worth it" and let it fall further into disrepair and eventually be domolished. So I commend this guy for giving this old gem a new lease on life.

 

[tonyb]

Yes, of course, cardigan. You might note that along with our less than entirely favorable critiques, both dinerman and I commended the fellow for saving the structure.

There was, until recently, a 1920s (or even earlier, possibly) gas station structure three blocks from a place I had lived for 20 years. It's since been demolished. Given my druthers, I'd have seen it get a unfaithful-to-its-origins renovation rather than a bulldozer.

On the forum where those photos are posted are glowing reviews piled upon glowing reviews. So for that audience, the thing's a real hit. For this one, which is more concerned with period accuracy, it's somewhat less so.

 

[Warden]

I disagree, I like it. Yes not a museum style restoration, but I suspect this is a functioning workshop.

I am of the view, unless places are useful and serve a purpose they will be pulled down and re developed, so I am chuffed this building has a new lease of life, thus saved from re-development

 

[StraightEight]

My garage looks more like the "before" pics.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

That's how I look at it. I would have loved to see this place restored back to original, but putting it to use is better than putting it to the ground.

I disagree, I like it. Yes not a museum style restoration, but I suspect this is a functioning workshop.

I am of the view, unless places are useful and serve a purpose they will be pulled down and re developed, so I am chuffed this building has a new lease of life, thus saved from re-development

 

[MisterCairo]

I agree. It's not a restoration as much as it's a renovation. The porte-cochère doesn't belong and the nine pane garage door is gone

The nine pane garage door was falling apart! I think it looks great for a FUNCTIONING garage. I suspect this fellow doesn't have the means or inclination to run a museum.

 

[Stearmen]

That's how I look at it. I would have loved to see this place restored back to original, but putting it to use is better than putting it to the ground.

Or making it into an office building with a bunch of lawyers running around!