photograph of the new garage with a silver tarp hanging over the door as a protective curtain

What do you do when you don’t have a shower door, it takes time and money to order one, and you don’t want to get your bathroom wet? Why, you go to the local home goods store and get a shower curtain.

We found ourselves with an almost-completed garage, but the garage door was damaged in transit to the island. That means weeks of delay while we wait for replacement parts to come by boat from the mainland. In the mean time, our mainland dreck household goods arrived, and much of it must go in the garage while we complete repairs and upgrades elsewhere on the property.

So if we have no garage door, but we don’t want our stuff to get wet if we’re expecting rain (and here, one does well to always expect rain) what do we do? I had some leftover steel cable from the temporary solar installation. I had a big tarp we bought to cover building materials when we’re expecting rain. I had a turnbuckle and lag bolts and washers. HA and I were able to get the garage curtain up in minimal time. I had originally planned to just hang the tarp on multiple nails, but the curtain-style install lets us open it up to let ourselves and daylight in when we need to unpack. I can probably get some of the slack out of the cable, as the turnbuckle has plenty of range left, but I was getting kind of tired of working over my head while up on a ladder.

It was also a joy to have my full set of tools to hand during the project.

Speaking of waiting for things to come by boat, Joulee the Free Salvage Tesla appears to still be in line for the barge at the Big Port. She was supposed to sail today, but the Matson status page still shows her as being en route to the Big Port with no ETA.

—2p

← previous|next →