Our story so far: We’d moved into the old Methodist church we’d turned into a home, and now my husband turned his attention to the garage.

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Naturally, this was no basic two-car garage. Fiddlesticks! What would my go-big-or-go-home husband do with such a tiny structure? He couldn’t even contain all his screwdrivers to a single drawer in his tool chest! He certainly couldn’t contain all his man-cave dreams—and tools for a lifetime—to a standard garage.

To be fair, Tyler created plans for the footprint of the extra-deep four-car garage in order to acquire a building permit. This allowed us to pour the cement foundation in the spring, and it had the opportunity to cure all summer. As we enjoyed happy hour drinks around a picnic table on the what became our temporary summer patio, we marveled at how well the water drained off the driveway. So we knew we had a good foundation.

While Reroofer worked on the roof of the belfry, You-Can-Call-Me-Al and Tyler began constructing ten-foot-tall garage walls out of two-by-sixes. In what I imagined an old-fashioned barn raising to be like, the two men would fold in helpers when necessary to set up a wall. One morning Tyler roped in a couple of railing fabricators who stopped by to measure for an interior railing, and often Reroofer, You-Can-Call-Me-Al’s son and St. Johnny would lend a hand.

Here’s a slide show of the transformation of the back yard from cement pouring in the spring to wall construction in the fall:

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Tomorrow: A crane and a roof. Check it out here.