Ray's Garage Inc.

I'm Ray. I'm Beth. And this is a story about our garage. Ray's garage. We met probably 25 years ago. Were lined up by a friend of mine and Beth's roommate at the time. Ray's friend didn't give him a very stellar introduction. He said, you're going to He's kind of quiet. He's not very tall. He doesn't have much hair. And he's about my age. And this guy's considerably older than Ray. And I thought, what's to But he came to my door and I did And the rest is history. I guess it was 2004. Things were kind of slow up here on Capitol Hill. So it was an opportune time to buy property. And this house was pretty distressed. It was built in 1906 and hadn't had a lot of maintenance on it over the years. But only an architect or contractor or lunatic would have the courage to take on a project of this scale. Ray Dovind. Originally when we first saw the house we realized that we did need a garage because there's almost no off-street parking around here. And being an architect I have specific knowledge of construction and costs. And I figured, oh, Well, it can cost quite a bit as it turns out. We've actually started in earnest in November of last year. So it's been six, eight months since we've started construction on that. We've been involved in putting piles in, shoring, excavation, and then concrete. Well, Ray has been really busy because he's been not just the architect but the contractor and the client. So all his fights have been with himself. This is the entrance to the garage from the basement. And this is the new garage door. And then two cars will park in here. This will be the shop area. So at this point we're getting ready to pour the slab up above, which is going to require that we shore between these beams to make sure that the metal deck doesn't sag during the pour. So this is a new sidewalk and a new curb cut here. This will be where the stairs will go up to the terrace, which is on top of the garage. We had a dog for 15 years, a fabulous Australian shepherd, very opinionated, very peculiar, loved her to bits. She got old and died this past spring. And both of us wanted to get a dog right away, even though were brokenhearted or because were brokenhearted. We've waited for a dog. So when the garage is through, we get a dog. That's what I get. And it's good. I want a dog. Once this garage finishes up, we get the dog. We've got the car. Yeah, it's going to be a regular man cave down there. Well, there's a place for firewood storage. There's going to be a shop. And hopefully a computer, maybe a big screen TV. I see a coffee pot. It's not clear that Ray will ever ascend into the house again. But I can visit him. Yeah, come on down anytime.