Klokwerk
Well-known member
Hi there, long time listener first time caller….
I’ve been a member of the forum for a while and have posted a few times, but haven’t posted a proper intro, so, here it goes.
My name is Jerry I own an MCM with a little garage in the town of Spokane. I’m a techie, part time mechanic, part time beer brewer with a background being a garbage mouthed line cook. Middle age is where I find myself when JoAnna and I bought this house a couple years ago. It was built by William and Dorothy Trogdon. He and his wife built it as their own home in 1963. They used what we call the ‘TV room’ as their drafting studio. Both had notable careers as architects and designers. I just read recently that he passed away last year Nov, 4th. RIP and thanks for a great house!
A little more about the house they built. When I first laid eyes on it, nestled on the hill as it was, with its wide facade with few windows and deep overhangs, I knew it was something different/special. Lots of Bauhaus influence, I thought. Sure enough, Bill had studied under Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus.
You can see that influence in the layout of the floors and placement of windows and doors. In how the doors are trimmed in relation to the walls they’re on. Imagine a De Stijl painting with the repeating rectangular shapes, black outlines and color scheme. You get the idea.
The ‘less is more’ mantra with form following function and all of that.
With that said, it’s an older house and needs some care. Some of the construction back then would NOT meet code today, so we’re slowly working on getting things sorted out. Decks, I’m looking at you. For now, it’s fine and surprisingly warm and cozy in the winter and cool and mild in the summer. Good design is good design.
The ugly wart on the nose of this house is the garage. The door was falling apart. It’s a dark, miserable little space with barely enough room for two cars (small cars). I could not imagine that this is what the designers of this house had originally envisioned. As it turns out, it was not.
Here’s some pictures of the garage when we bought it Oct 2019.
As you can see, it’s pretty small and dark. The floor is in pretty good shape but does have some issues. I think it’s been mentioned in other threads about these kinds of houses having small garages. Well, here it is with a couple of the cars in it. Jo says the cars fit. Just don’t open the doors!
Before we closed on the house, the realtor let us know a set of working drawings from the architect were included. Nice! Since moving in, we have spent hours going over every detail and note. And because the house had been through just a handful of owners, we were able to get a feel for what each of them did based on when the work was done (date stamps on materials), the quality of work and the number of Coors cans found. More on that later. The drawings then, have turned into the ultimate reference and we go back to them all the time.
Here is the drawing for the basement floor which includes the garage:
From this you can see the garage was originally bigger on the inside than it is today. One of the POs had built a wall between what’s labeled the Entry Hall and the Garage making a storage room of some sort. The oddity of the room didn't sit right with me.
The POs had used this space as a mud room/workout room/utility room something? As things go with houses, it had evolved significantly from the time the Trogdon's built it to the time they sold it in 1983. Then again over the years with new owners remodeling and such. Some changes good, like some decks and the sauna and some misses, like this room. This leads me to the plan. That is, to knock that wall down and add that space back to the garage. It'll be nice to have the extra space for a little shop. Of course, this will involve some demo, then clean up, and wiring, painting and new cabinets. And not necessarily in that order. You'll see. First things first, is finding out if that's a load bearing wall.
What will I be doing in the garage once I've got the extra room? Well, there's the '89 911 C4 that I'm always working on, a '76 BMW 2002 I'm restoring for Jo and the EV from GM....that is now parked outside until it gets a new battery pack. There's usually some small project here or there that needs doing. Such as the new walnut wall sconces we made to replace the old beat up lamps that lit the stairway in the house. In the queue are some 3d printed parts for the 911. Then larger projects to support work on the 2002. Anyone know anything about restoring old BMW automatic transmissions?
So, there it is, I hope you don’t mind coming along for the ride. My hope is that I can get the garage sorted out, make it my own and also respect to the original design.
I’ve been a member of the forum for a while and have posted a few times, but haven’t posted a proper intro, so, here it goes.
My name is Jerry I own an MCM with a little garage in the town of Spokane. I’m a techie, part time mechanic, part time beer brewer with a background being a garbage mouthed line cook. Middle age is where I find myself when JoAnna and I bought this house a couple years ago. It was built by William and Dorothy Trogdon. He and his wife built it as their own home in 1963. They used what we call the ‘TV room’ as their drafting studio. Both had notable careers as architects and designers. I just read recently that he passed away last year Nov, 4th. RIP and thanks for a great house!
A little more about the house they built. When I first laid eyes on it, nestled on the hill as it was, with its wide facade with few windows and deep overhangs, I knew it was something different/special. Lots of Bauhaus influence, I thought. Sure enough, Bill had studied under Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus.
You can see that influence in the layout of the floors and placement of windows and doors. In how the doors are trimmed in relation to the walls they’re on. Imagine a De Stijl painting with the repeating rectangular shapes, black outlines and color scheme. You get the idea.
The ‘less is more’ mantra with form following function and all of that.
With that said, it’s an older house and needs some care. Some of the construction back then would NOT meet code today, so we’re slowly working on getting things sorted out. Decks, I’m looking at you. For now, it’s fine and surprisingly warm and cozy in the winter and cool and mild in the summer. Good design is good design.
The ugly wart on the nose of this house is the garage. The door was falling apart. It’s a dark, miserable little space with barely enough room for two cars (small cars). I could not imagine that this is what the designers of this house had originally envisioned. As it turns out, it was not.
Here’s some pictures of the garage when we bought it Oct 2019.
As you can see, it’s pretty small and dark. The floor is in pretty good shape but does have some issues. I think it’s been mentioned in other threads about these kinds of houses having small garages. Well, here it is with a couple of the cars in it. Jo says the cars fit. Just don’t open the doors!
Before we closed on the house, the realtor let us know a set of working drawings from the architect were included. Nice! Since moving in, we have spent hours going over every detail and note. And because the house had been through just a handful of owners, we were able to get a feel for what each of them did based on when the work was done (date stamps on materials), the quality of work and the number of Coors cans found. More on that later. The drawings then, have turned into the ultimate reference and we go back to them all the time.
Here is the drawing for the basement floor which includes the garage:
From this you can see the garage was originally bigger on the inside than it is today. One of the POs had built a wall between what’s labeled the Entry Hall and the Garage making a storage room of some sort. The oddity of the room didn't sit right with me.
The POs had used this space as a mud room/workout room/utility room something? As things go with houses, it had evolved significantly from the time the Trogdon's built it to the time they sold it in 1983. Then again over the years with new owners remodeling and such. Some changes good, like some decks and the sauna and some misses, like this room. This leads me to the plan. That is, to knock that wall down and add that space back to the garage. It'll be nice to have the extra space for a little shop. Of course, this will involve some demo, then clean up, and wiring, painting and new cabinets. And not necessarily in that order. You'll see. First things first, is finding out if that's a load bearing wall.
What will I be doing in the garage once I've got the extra room? Well, there's the '89 911 C4 that I'm always working on, a '76 BMW 2002 I'm restoring for Jo and the EV from GM....that is now parked outside until it gets a new battery pack. There's usually some small project here or there that needs doing. Such as the new walnut wall sconces we made to replace the old beat up lamps that lit the stairway in the house. In the queue are some 3d printed parts for the 911. Then larger projects to support work on the 2002. Anyone know anything about restoring old BMW automatic transmissions?
So, there it is, I hope you don’t mind coming along for the ride. My hope is that I can get the garage sorted out, make it my own and also respect to the original design.
