New Detached Workshop

[TheClaw]

It's been a while since I've been active here. I've been running my own business for the last 9 years and I've been pretty swamped. Very little garage time let alone time to hang out on the forums. However, now the business is gone (finally) and we have downsized. With the downsizing my wife promised me a workshop.

We don't have a big house, just a regular split level in the chicago 'burbs. When we moved in I did some work to the existing two car garage to make it manageable. We coated the floor, painted, insulated the ceiling and installed some new outlets with 220 and an overhead heater. It works for now.

This is where it's going,



This is what I have jammed in there right now.



I just signed a contract for a new 16x24 single car garage. It's kind of a cool design and going to compliment the house well. It's not more space than I have, a little less but we will be able to use the existing garage for the cars (at least my wifes).

Here are a couple of renderings of the new building.





(no, those are not my cars!)

I will be asking for ideas on how to arrange things. Ideas for lighting, wall covering (thinking barnwood), and general organization. I'll post as we make progress. Imight end up leaving some of the benches on the other side. Half of the bikes and workbenches are for my son and I don't know how he plans to be here. He's 25 and I'm happy to have him around but kids will leave the nest at some point (daughter lives in Chicago).

One idea I'm for sure going to put up is this 48"x84" vinyl from Road America.



I'm looking forward to the whole project. Now that I'm typing this out, I'm thinking that I NEED MOAR SPACE!

 

[HogDude]

Great start! I'm signed on. BTW, nice job of maximizing your current space.

 

[Crabman]

The design looks cool, good luck with it.

My shop has a breezeway between the house garage and the shop. While it is not a big area, with concrete floor and a roof it has a lot more utility than meets the eye. I tend to park my lawn tractor there with a solar charger on it when I don't feel like getting out the cover. It also provides open covered workspace on a rainy day. It is also a staging area for gardening, landscaping kind of stuff pretty often.

Don't know if your lean to porch (which I really like) can be integrated into the side of the garage so you could put a man door on the side of the garage for nonstop out of the weather transit, but that is nice to have. I will also say if you have room to move the garage to the left (don't know how close you are on sidelot setback), I would move it and make the covered porch wider. It will be handy to have transit to the back yard that is wide enough for OPE, hand carts, wheel barrows, etc on concrete. Plus you will have more covered space, which is really valuable, at least to me.

Best of luck with the project!

 

[TheClaw]

I'm planning on cutting a hole in the adjecent side of the attached garage to make it easy to go from one to the other. Moving the man door on the new garage to the back.

I'm upgainst an easement for the utilities. Next to that is the forest preserve so I can't go wider. however after I was writing this all out and looked at the space, I might make it deeper. Go 16x36. I only have one chance to build it so I'm thinking as big as my budget and space allows.

 

[Fav Onefour]

Fun project.
I'm glad you mentioned the utility easement. I saw the overhead lines and wondered if it was going to work.

The lean to is a nice upgrade. Plan for water and debris management. I'm guessing you get leaves etc. blowing around quite a bit with that many trees. The additional roof will funnel some of that right into the walkway area. Any furniture, toys, or project pieces left in the area will catch more debris.

 

[manwithtools]

The lean to is a nice upgrade. Plan for water and debris management.

I thought the same, definitely want a gutter along that lean-to to catch all the water an direct it to the back of the structure.

Although I like shed roof design, I'd be tempted to combine the lean-to roof and shop roof into a conventional gable roof of low slope, almost like your existing garage slope. I think the roof's would complement each other being the gables are 90 degrees to one another.

It would be interesting to see it rendered that way.

I'd for sure go 36' deep now if you can, or even 30', 32'!

 

[CraigStu]

Why waste all the space between existing and new garages. AT the very least can't the right wall of the new garage be brought out to the 4x4s supporting the shed roof. Seems to me that some of your stuff will stay in the existing garage and some in the new one. Not an ideal situation. I did the exact same size add-on bay to an existing 19x19 attached 2 car. I also continued to use half of the 19x19 but it worked out because it was attached to the 19x19 w/ a 4ft walk through opening between them.

 

[qdvuu]

As noted above, water runoff management between the two garages is very important. The space between the two seems like it will have a great vibe to it as a place to hang out, even in summer rain, so getting the roof treatment done right is important (or would be to me). Also, the posts in the space are obstacles that should not exist since they ruin the vibe as well as get in the way of moving equipment through.

The lamps at the fronts of the new and existing garage are lower than those in the existing photo, and seem to be in the exact position to get in the way of heads and shoulders, especially when carrying stuff. I suggest raising them.

 

[Hank11]

The breezeway is gonna be awesome. If it doesn’t wreck the design make it even a little bit wider.

 

[TheClaw]

I thought the same, definitely want a gutter along that lean-to to catch all the water an direct it to the back of the structure.

Although I like shed roof design, I'd be tempted to combine the lean-to roof and shop roof into a conventional gable roof of low slope, almost like your existing garage slope. I think the roof's would complement each other being the gables are 90 degrees to one another.

It would be interesting to see it rendered that way.

I'd for sure go 36' deep now if you can, or even 30', 32'!

Good point about making sure I have a gutter on the right side of the overhang.

As soon as I started laying things out I realized I needed more depth so we are extending it 12ft.

Why waste all the space between existing and new garages. AT the very least can't the right wall of the new garage be brought out to the 4x4s supporting the shed roof. Seems to me that some of your stuff will stay in the existing garage and some in the new one. Not an ideal situation. I did the exact same size add-on bay to an existing 19x19 attached 2 car. I also continued to use half of the 19x19 but it worked out because it was attached to the 19x19 w/ a 4ft walk through opening between them.

We had an extension plan at one point. Same gable but just offset a little to the back. Then I found this design on a house plan site and liked the way it complimented the vintage split level design of our house. In addition, having the breezeway gives me a "cut through" from the back to the front. Right now I'm walking along the north side of the garage all the time. This way I'm not having to walk all the way around the new structure.

As mentioned, I realized I was short on space so I punched it out 12ft. Now I have some room for MOAR motorcycles!