Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT KC Wrenching Society garage condo

[sh944]

I have been lurking on GL for a good long while and never really thought I'd get around to saying much about my garage, but I think its probably time to take the plunge as I seem to be spending more time on this site, so here we go...

A long time ago (around 2000), I was involved in starting a local club in the KC area that we referred to as the "KCWS", which stood for the Kansas City Wrenching Society. The genesis for this was local Porsche 944 owners having a need to be able to get reliable service on our cars without getting ripped off, because quite frankly, no shops wanted to work on 944's and those that had the ability charged like they were working on Ferdinand Porsches personal car. Jim Overly, Mike Morgan and I met on Rennlist and realized that we were local to each other and thought that we might have fun spinning wrenches ourselves in my driveway. We had a blast the first time and it just kinda grew from there. Within a year, we had a group of upwards of twenty Porsche 944's that would gather at my place and we gained a LOT of expertise working on them, collected a pile of 944 specific tools (including the P9201 belt tensioner tool) and the factory manuals and were doing clutch replacements, timing belt/front engine services and pretty much anything that a Porsche 944 would would need, along with BBQ and beer on various Saturdays. We eventual started up a webpage and hosted occasional events and grew to the point where we had upwards of 150 members, although the core group was centered around twenty-five or so folks.

As time goes on, all things seem to run their course and after about twelve years or so, the group started dwindling down, and my wife decided it would be nice if we could move the wrenching sessions somewhere else so that our house wouldn't be overrun during the monthly events. About the same time, I became aware of a garage condo complex being built in Desoto KS and went out to look at it during one of their open houses. They had one building standing and occupied, with grand plans to expand eventually to twelve buildings and a club house, but they were currently trying to get enough pre-sales to fund the construction of the second building when I showed up. After discussing the idea and getting the go ahead from my wife, I was able to negotiate a reduced rate on a 19' x 30' garage with a 24' high peak and man door, since that was the last unit they needed to sell to be able to proceed. We signed in February 2014 (iirc) and took possession of it in June 2014.

For reasons I don't really understand (various personalities got involved and the group splintered), the KCWS never made it out to the garage condo for any wrenching sessions and pretty much ceased to exist except in name on the sign I have hanging in front of the garage condo unit. The owners of the garage condo property honored me by naming the road in from of my building as "Wrencher Road" and for the first ten years I owned it, I dreamed of installing a mezzanine and ideally expanding it by purchasing the unit next to mine, but it was largely just a garage for overflow parking of my various toys and a place to occasional work on cars.

I will likely be scattered in my reminiscing of the timeline and posting of pictures here, but I'd like to use this space to document my history of ownership of the garage condo and more importantly some of the fun I have had there over the years. I hope y'all don't mind indulging me.

Here is a current picture outside my garage condo to get started. I'll be digging for old pictures so I can show how I wound up here.

 

[sh944]

And here is where we started... pulling my Porsche 968 cab in for the first time and christening the garage floor with Grain Belt!





At that point, it was just four unpainted walls...

 

[TiFJ]

Love the Spyder!

 

[sh944]

It was pretty hot in there, but we got the walls primered the first week. We wound up having to get a scissor lift to reach the peak and to install the ceiling fan. I also installed a couple of extra electrical circuits before I started priming.

 

[sh944]

Here's what the garage condo complex looked like when I moved in. The building in the background was first, and the building to the right is the club house.

The complex has come a *long way* since then...

 

[Rc_Guy]

They are nice. A few of them in Minnesota

 

[ovscrider]

wish we had something like that around here. if i had more room i'd have more than a sled and SxS in the toybox.

 

[sh944]

From where it started when I took possession, the complex has grown steadily. Once the second building was up (the one that I am in), they have been adding one to two buildings a year.

Here's what it looked like around the end of 2019...



Its been fun to watch the community grow, as its pretty much like a Country Club for Car Guys" and on a typical Saturday morning with nice weather, its like an impromtu car show with hot rods, muscle cars, exotics, Harleys and other motorbikes, cool 4x4's all in attendance.

It's also been interesting to watch how the units have gone up in value, and to this day, typically when a unit is offered up for resale by an owner, it is usually sold within the first 30 minutes to another owner looking to expand. As a result, the sizes of combined units are getting bigger and more extravagant, and there is a healthy competition within the owners to build some pretty extensive garage-mahals... Such is life for those that are well heeled, I am just happy I was able to get in when I did. I harbor no illusions that I am going to compete with them on building out the garage or what I am parking inside it. Having said that, I doubt anyone is going to feel sorry for me as I have some fun toys to play with and personally, a lot of the fun is in building it yourself as opposed to paying someone else to do it for you. Most of my Porsches over the years have started out a bit worn out or downtrodden, and I put forth a fair bit of effort into building them into what they became.

 

[sh944]

Love the Spyder!

Yeah, its a hard car not to love... it was a 50th b-day present, courtesy of my wife and is a real keeper. Its a rare car (only a shade more that 700 were available in the US) and I have used it sparingly over the years, with just over 10k miles on it now. Pretty much every time I do drive it, it gets driven for real with certain allowances given with respect to trying to maintaining some semblance of street legal operation (proviso: speed kills, don't try this at home, be a positive influence to the youngun's, etc). After having a number of 944 series cars, which I do truly love, I think this is the last Porsche that I am planning on owning and that it will last the remainder of my life, assuming I don't wreck it or have it stolen.



This car is an exception to my previous comment about building my Porsches into nicer cars, obviously... and I have kept it almost completely stock, the only exception is the clear front markers that I added in place of the orange originals that I still have in a box. The car came from the factory with carbon fiber sport buckets, and I opted for the "cup holder delete" option and the PDK ****** for performance reasons. I attended the Porsche Driving Experience at Leeds AL (Barber Motorsports) prior to getting this car, and was instructed by none other than Hurley Haywood there. If you had told me going into that session that after driving everything Porsche was currently offering that I would favor a "Boxster" over everything else including a 911 Turbo, I'd have called you a liar, but Hurley was really enamored by the Spyder and convinced me it was indeed a *very* special car and that I should get the PDK to boot. Rowing a car while driving is for wannabe's, not drivers (his words, not mine).

 

[TiFJ]

Thanks for the background on the car, sounds like it, and your wife(!) are both keepers! For a track car and a focus on lap times, I agree that the PDK is the way to go but IMHO, a manual is preferred for a primarily street driven car - it doesn't take anything away from your Spyder though, I'd have one in a second! After seeing your post, I went and looked at the classifieds online to see what they are worth these days. Didn't see any of your generation of car, only the 718s but they are well beyond my snack bracket.

Again, great car and awesome space!

 

[sh944]

Thanks for the kind words!

To continue the saga of how my garage condo unit has developed over the years, so to speak...

Here's what my condo looked like for too long. Ignore the guy taking pictures of my 968, he's a friend that wound up buying it from me after I realized I didn't need it once I had the Spyder. There are a couple of tool boxes not shown in the pictures, but it was basically a big empty box that I parked cars in and did the occasional wrenching project, such as the 928 in the picture which was a basket case when I bought it for my wife (no paint, no interior and barely running) but is now pretty well restored. I say "pretty well" because anyone who owns a 928 knows that the wrenching is *never* done on that car...



I always planned on building a mezzanine in my unit. I had watched a bunch of other owners build out and finish their units with envy, as they built some *very* nice spaces. A lot of folks had epoxy floors, wall art, neon lights, and a good number of mezzanines, but I always thought that the idea behind a garage was to have a work space, not a showroom, so I really wasn't much of a fan of the non-functional designs. There are plenty of folks that are doing real work in the garages, and almost to a fault, the mezzanines those guys were installing was more like an "indoor elevated deck" made out of wood and typically used for storage. I didn't like that either, as I wanted something that was more industrial, solid and gave me some additional room but also a place for my wife to lounge a bit while I was at the condo doing guy stuff.

The exception to the two different approaches to flashy garage/wood mezzanines was my neighbor Dan, who had his constructed out of steel and even though he does have all manner of artwork, signs and whatnot on the walls, epoxy floor and the whole nine yards, he does a fair bit of work in his garage and keeps a *very* nice '55 Chevy, a '34 Chevy coupe street rod and occasionally his late model 'Vette in there. He also regularly wins the annual "nicest garage" competition that is held at the June car show that the complex hosts. After watching Dan and talking with him, I decided I needed something similar so I started drawing up plans.




Since I am CAD literate, I did the design myself and sent the package over to a PE (friend of Dan's) to get it stamped so I could submit it for a permit. The city liked it and approved it immediately, so then the fun really began!

 

[sh944]

Here's the sign outside the garage. Its the logo we used for the website and is sort of the last legacy reminder of that group, but I hope to rekindle the flame and start hosting wrenching sessions again.



As it is, I have occasionally hosted some various local club events at the garage condo over the years, such as one last years "First Friday" Midwest Chevelle club gatherings. Here's a picture of a couple of us in the process of swapping a 305 for crate engine (semi built 355) into a '70 Chevelle owned by the guy on the right. At that point, you can see that I had moved my four post lift (Auto Lifter M6, which I believe was the precursor to the Backyard Buddy, its very similar in design) from my house to the garage condo.


I also found a picture of Dan's (my neighbor) garage and car to give a good idea about how far some folks take their garages.

 

[sh944]

It’s a somewhat gratuitous picture, but I can’t resist posting. My Spyder likes to eat bugs…

 

[sh944]

My apologies for the random drive-bys... usually when I am in the middle of a project, I am not taking pictures, I am trying to keep from screwing up. lol Anyway...

So, with the plans approved by the city, I engaged my metal guy to put the basic framework structure up. I might have another photo or two from when he was doing so but they weren't the greatest pictures, so I'll just show where he left it, which was just the basic frame and stairs.


Prior to doing so, we emptied most of the condo and pushed the rest up towards the front to give Craig room to work, and my wife decided a color change was in order, so she and I threw some paint on the walls.

After that, it was time for my wife and I to spring into action. We put the sheeting down, then the subfloor. Here's an action shot of my wife doing her thing (and no small thanks to her, she was heavily invested in doing the construction and trying to keep me from doing stupid things while building this out... more to come on that later in the story. lol)

 

[sh944]

By the way, the camera angle distorts the perspective... its a lot wider and bigger than it looks in the picture.

 

[MacTexas]

I grew up in Prairie Village, looks like a nice space.

 

[Jagmandave]

Hi Scott, great to see you posting again - I remember when you bought this.....I was envious of all the room and clean, smooth floor!

I have a good friend who bought one several buildings over from you and uses it to house and work on his collection of LBC's (little British cars, for those who don't know the acronym) Bugeyes, Morris Minors and MG Midgets mostly.

I strongly considered buying one too, but just couldn't justify the cost, since I would need an end unit so I could have A/C - it gets HOT in KC in the summer........humid too! By the time you add property tax and utility costs it gets pretty spendy.....not to mention I would HAVE to put a lift in there too!......so I wound up just using my small 2 car garage to build my Mini hobby.

I would love to drop by and say hello, let me know when you're usually out there and I'll pop by.

I'm Jagman here but everywhere else online I'm MiniDave as I sold the E-Type quite a few years ago. My friend don still has the Mini pickup too, and has added 3 more silly cars to his garage including a Midget and a GT6

 

[sh944]

Dave! Yeah, we gotta catch up! Let me know if you don't have my phone number handy and I'll shoot it to you. There is a reasonably decent chance I'll be out there on Sat as I need to put a keyless entry system in my wife's Jeep Wrangler. I'll keep you posted but it would be great to catch up.

I haven't had a Mini in quite a while but an tempted every now and then to get another one, I had great memories from when I owned them, especially the Orange one, and I am familiar with your buddy with the LBC's, he's got a huge Union Jack flag flying in his garage.

 

[Jagmandave]

I'm building classics, tho I still have my blue Clubman S.....

New phone so I don't seem to have your number, PM me when you get a chance.

 

[Skellyii]

Scott,

Love the Spyder! I've seen a few in other cities, but not around here.

I didn't know about the concept of garage condos, I just bought a house with a big garage that I'm outfitting for my wrenching activities. However, I was just talking to my real estate agent last week about buying a small property and putting up a pole barn to store my son's and my "overflow" vehicles, maybe the condo thing would be a better and quicker solution?

BTW: I was aware of the local 944 group, I ran into a member some years ago at a parts store and he invited me to stop by. My job at the time had me traveling constantly, so I didn't have the time to join in.

I still have the 944, and I need to do the timing belt, do you still have access to the belt tensioner tool?

@Jagmandave I still owe you a call, not ignoring you, but still haven't figured out whether or not I'm selling the lift.

 

[sh944]

@Skellyii Yep, I still have all the tools including the factory belt tensioner tool and would happy to help you out or just loan it to you as needed.

Between some of the responses I am seeing here on GJ and elsewhere, I am convinced resuming regular wrenching parties would be a welcomed thing and since the weather is getting nice, maybe we should schedule one in the next couple of weeks. Anyone that cares to show up will be welcome, I have enough tools, a lift, space etc to accommodate just about anything we'd want to work on... if anyone is interested, throw out some dates/times and we'll see what we can pull together.

 

[Skellyii]

@sh944 I'm open over the next few weekends, I'd like to just drop by and see whether the Garage Condo thing would work for me. Let me know when you're gonna be there.

I noticed that there's a couple of open spots in your place. BTW: Is the concrete suitable for a two-point lift?

Also found this one that's REALLY close to my house: Luxury Condos

However...did a drive by on that one, seems pretty barren, and overpriced as well. I like nice things, but a Luxury garage?? SMH

Any others that you guys know about in the area?

Thanks!

 

[sh944]

Concrete in our units is 6”, plenty of folks have two post lifts with no problems. I should be out there tomorrow if you want to swing by, I’ll pm you my number.

There are four other condo complexes in the area that I know of, all are lagging behind ours, mostly due to high pricing, imo. We can chat about it when we hook up.

 

[Jagmandave]

Give me a time, I'll be there.....I'm retired now so my time is almost always open.

 

[sh944]

I’ve got a few chores around the house to take care of, so I am guessing around 11:30 but I’ll post up when I am heading out there.

[EDIT] Had to cancel due to minor medical scare with aging parents... sorry about that, but we will reschedule soon enough.

 

[sh944]

Okay, so back to our regularly scheduled programming...

After we had the steel structure erected and the 16GA steel sheeting down, we put down a 3/4" subfloor, a foam underlayment and then used a relatively inexpensive Mohawk laminate plank flooring for the final layer. While it certainly does the trick, especially for the given environment, I wasn't very happy with the actual manufacturing on the product as the tongue and groove locking slats didn't hold together all that well. It looks good as a final result but I'd go with a different product if I were to do it again.

Some pictures...

 

[Xti04]

Lookin good!

 

[sh944]

The upside of having your wife help you with projects is that you don't have to worry about getting permission to do things. The downside is that you can quickly lose control of your project. Case in point...

So... that space I was building in my garage condo, thinking that it would be nice to have a little extra room for storage and whatnot so I could maximize the floorspace downstairs... well, it turned out *too nice*. My wife had a very good suggestion with regard to the balusters when she suggested that we use rebar run horizontally, which you can see from some of the pictures I already posted. It gave a rugged, industrial chic look and while it was a bit of a pita to install, with some careful measuring, a new Unibit and a metal blade for my chop saw, I was pleased with how it came out.

When my wife saw the finished product though, her mind started thinking that we had done a really nice job finishing a space for *her* to hang out while I was downstairs working on cars and projects, and that it was time to go shopping for new furniture to decorate the place. lol Behold below...



The space is now fitted with a couple of IKEA chairs, a leather loveseat and a bar height rectangular dining table. I'll admit, it looks nice and is comfortable and functional and is a great place to take a break (assuming I am not covered in grease, god forbid that I should stain any of the furniture!). My friends *love* hanging out there now and since I am equipped with a refrigerator that looks like a toolbox downstairs, there's plenty of cool beverages to enjoy. I really need to change the locks now... lol

 

[Skellyii]

OMG!!! I can't let my significant other see this....

 

[sh944]

For every problem, there is a solution (or so we hope...). When we started down the road of adding a mezzanine, it was because we were land-locked as far as expanding outward, so we figured we'd just go up instead. As mentioned above, my wife really liked the way it turned out and while she laid claim to the space we built, she at least had a commitment to what we were doing at the garage condo (aside from financially, that is).

Dan, my neighbor to the South was really wanting to buy our unit so he could further expand his and we gave it serious consideration. We spent a fair bit of time looking for land suitable for constructing a 40' x 60' Morton building somewhere, or a commercial building that could be set up as a workspace area, and found nothing feasible within a reasonable budget. We also didn't want to relocate to one of the new buildings being built at the garage condo complex as we are very close to the club house and associated amenities right now in our current spot.

And lo and behold, something magical happened! The people that had the unit directly to the North of me had a pass-through unit to store their large RV but were at the point in their lives that they decided to sell the RV and no longer needed their condo. After a very brief discussion and an even faster answer from me, a deal was struck and we scheduled a closing in 30 days. This meant that instead of a 19' x 30" unit, I was adding an additional 15' x 60' to my space, which solved any space issues I had. One of my main goals was to be able to park *all* my vehicles inside, which will work out as long as I don't get stupid and buy any more vehicles... lol

Needless to say, I was excited. More to come...

 

[68400BIRD]

Congratulations on the purchase of a larger unit. Size does matter.

 

[Skellyii]

Congrats on the new edition!

The Morton building was what I had been contemplating, but my real estate agent hasn't found any land smaller than 4-5 acres, and that's more land that I want to deal with at the moment.

So is the new area back-to-back or side-to-side?

BTW: If I'm not being too nosy, how many vehicles are you planning to store there? Between myself, my son and my girlfriend we currently have 10, but we hope to get rid of at least three of them in the coming months.

For the future, I'd like to have the additional space to store 4 vehicles and maybe a trailer.

 

[VolksWomble]

Have to say I really love this thread. The idea of the garage condo you describe just doesn’t really exist here in the UK, and I’ve been mulling over reasons why - i suspect it’s largely the cost of land and rates required to make it viable are just too high, but it sounds like a fantastic setup.

looking forward to see your updates with the extended unit.

 

[ovscrider]

For every problem, there is a solution (or so we hope...). When we started down the road of adding a mezzanine, it was because we were land-locked as far as expanding outward, so we figured we'd just go up instead. As mentioned above, my wife really liked the way it turned out and while she laid claim to the space we built, she at least had a commitment to what we were doing at the garage condo (aside from financially, that is).

Dan, my neighbor to the South was really wanting to buy our unit so he could further expand his and we gave it serious consideration. We spent a fair bit of time looking for land suitable for constructing a 40' x 60' Morton building somewhere, or a commercial building that could be set up as a workspace area, and found nothing feasible within a reasonable budget. We also didn't want to relocate to one of the new buildings being built at the garage condo complex as we are very close to the club house and associated amenities right now in our current spot.

And lo and behold, something magical happened! The people that had the unit directly to the North of me had a pass-through unit to store their large RV but were at the point in their lives that they decided to sell the RV and no longer needed their condo. After a very brief discussion and an even faster answer from me, a deal was struck and we scheduled a closing in 30 days. This meant that instead of a 19' x 30" unit, I was adding an additional 15' x 60' to my space, which solved any space issues I had. One of my main goals was to be able to park *all* my vehicles inside, which will work out as long as I don't get stupid and buy any more vehicles... lol

Needless to say, I was excited. More to come...

nice. we have nothing like this lcoally although I'd love it. Friend bought a pole barn in PA for short money but can't find anything like that around either so i buy and sell stuff to keep the collection down which i wish i did not have to.

 

[sh944]

I forgot to post pictures of the important part. Storage is an important part of any garage....

Outside the box.


Inside the box.


Clearly, I need to put more "tools" inside the box.

 

[sh944]

Congrats on the new edition!

The Morton building was what I had been contemplating, but my real estate agent hasn't found any land smaller than 4-5 acres, and that's more land that I want to deal with at the moment.

So is the new area back-to-back or side-to-side?

BTW: If I'm not being too nosy, how many vehicles are you planning to store there? Between myself, my son and my girlfriend we currently have 10, but we hope to get rid of at least three of them in the coming months.

For the future, I'd like to have the additional space to store 4 vehicles and maybe a trailer.

My original was 19" wide x by 30' deep, the unit next to me that I acquired was 15' wide by 60' deep. Combined, I am now 34' wide with two 14' wide x 12' high garage doors and a man door in the middle. The first picture on this thread shows the front access. Obviously, there was a wall separating the units when I bought the second one... more to come on that. lol

I currently have two Porsches, two Harleys (plus a two place motorcycle trailer) and my F-150 parked there, plus my four post lift. That gives me plenty of room to walk around and have storage and work space. At home, we keep our Jeep Wrangler and my wife's BMW and one Harley.

They are putting up another building at the Condo unit now and may have a unit or two available for sale. Its not cheap by any standard, but its less expensive than any of the other places I have seen and has been a phenomenal return on investment for me, both financially as well as use of personal time and satisfaction. The community aspect of it has been top flight as well, its a really good group of folks out there.

 

[HogDude]

I forgot to post pictures of the important part. Storage is an important part of any garage....

Outside the box.


Inside the box.


Clearly, I need to put more "tools" inside the box.

KC Bier Dunkel is awesome. My nephew introduced me to it. The pretzels there incredible too.

 

[HogDude]

KC Bier Dunkel is awesome. My nephew introduced me to it. The pretzels there incredible too.

Just remembered, Waldo is the area of KC where we were introduced to KC Bier. Sat in the outside area and they had a one man band playing polka.

 

[sh944]

So here is where the majority of the folks on this site will question my sanity.

After closing on the additional space, I made a deal with my wife to sell the back half of the 60' space and let her use the funds for a "she-shed" on our property at home. I have a couple of reasons for making this decision and while no one here has probably ever said "I've got too much space", losing back side (15' x 30') wasn't going to do anything to me other than keeping me from buying more projects that I don't have time to get to. The neighbor on the back side of my existing unit made me a good offer for the space so that he could do a similar expansion to what I was doing and offered to split the cost of erecting the demising wall. I also benefit from giving my wife a space that was "hers" so I might regain some utility from the mezzanine that we just built. Not that I am complaining about spending time with my wife, of course, but sometimes you just want to spin wrenches with the guys and not worry about your wife getting bored, right?

Due to the expense of some work we recently did on the 928 (which is technically "her" Porsche), I did inform her we are downsizing her place to a "she-shack" instead of a she-shed. She wasn't amused... lol

So the deal was done... My garage condo was now a 34' x 30' unit, and I have plenty of space for what I want to do. I'll post a pic or two of building the demising wall if you want, its not terribly exciting stuff. More fun is tearing down the wall between the two units and turning into one space, which I'll start sharing next.

 

[sh944]

In between posting about the garage condo stuff, I've also been doing some rehab on the garage at my house. After seeing some of the folks building various things around here, I though I should step up my game. I had an area above an alcove in the garage that would be a good space for overhead storage. Therefore, I went from this:


To this:

Painting it white really brightens the whole thing up as it reflects light well, but for future installs, I will paint the parts *before* erecting the structure. What a pita, but I enlisted my wife for help on that part. lol

It turned out well, but then I decided to expand on it, so I decided to bring it out perpendicularly from there above the garage door. I don't have a pic handy yet but I will snap one later and update here.

From there, though, I am realizing that lifting stuff up there would be a *lot* easier with some sort of lifting device so I am looking into designing some sort of track based pulley system. Does anyone know of a ready made solution thats available, otherwise I will probably get busy with some uni-strut ad some pulleys...