Above 1200 Sq/FT CCColtsicehockey Garage Build - 2440sqft storage, shop, and loft

[cccoltsicehockey]

So I've been planning this for a couple of years in my head. I have been reading here for a couple years as well about various garage builds making my list of things I want in my dream garage build. I finally need to make a thread because when I mention to friends what I am considering everyone tells me I am crazy why would I build that. So I figure this might be a place to get more positive feedback, ideas, and suggestions for things I might not have yet thought about or might have made the final product better you wish you had done on your build. I hope to start either this winter or early spring on this build so figured need to get going on some feedback on my plans.

Been working on getting the township zoning regulation changed for my rural neighborhood designation. Right now I can only build in the rear yard even though I have a wide 1.38 acre lot. I prefer to build the garage across the drive on the side yard from my existing garage. Two reasons for this is my lot is very wooded and it would mean removing the least amount of trees which is really important to me. I love having a very wooded lot. I plan to try and keep every tree that is outside 5-6ft from the side of the garage. Second reason being is it is a small ruralish 6 house neighborhood. Two houses already have garages in the side yard across from their existing garages so it will make the neighborhood flow as well. They were built before the zoning changes.



The current house has an oversized two car garage with a side workshop area that if you cleared out the entire space you could possibly put a third but it would really be inconvenient. The plan for a detached garage would be an additional two car of parking to start with high enough ceilings to eventually put in two 4 post lifts side by side for four car storage parking. Then a large working area with a 2 post lift for maintenance and eventual project cars. Based on the current plan drawings I have created if needed when not working I should be able to park about 5 cars in the garage on the floor space. I also want space for a small woodshop as I enjoy woodworking and I am sick of having to set up all my tools in the driveway all the time to build things. I made the mistake once of building a project in the garage with everything else years ago and I am still cleaning sawdust off things. The two car parking area would have an upstairs on that side of the garage for storage but built so it could be finished into an office or something if need be. The other half would be full vaulted ceiling to facilitate the 2 post lift for working.

Here are the two possible locations for the garage build depending on how my change goes with the town board. So far everything has been going smoothly and when I proposed the changes to the board they were all in favor with it so it should just be formalities at this point but won’t have that final answer till September.

For the purposes of now though I am going to base things on being able to build where I want in Option #1. Option #2 would require moving a lot of trees in my wooded lot and a huge driveway pour.



Here is a look at the existing driveway and garage exterior. The plan would be to also make the garage symmetrical for the most part with the attached garage layout a double door, then a person door, and then a single door for the work bay. The pink marking is where the front corner of the garage would be about in these pictures.







The gate at the back of the driveway would need to be moved back 3-5ft to fit the other bay. I also could have to make the gate on an angle to make the fence side on the detached garage side even further back. To move the gate straight back any further I would have to relocate my AC units which is an expense I don’t really want.

The current design I have laid out would be a 38 deep x 45 wide garage. It would be 24ft deep where the parking area is, then 4ft wide staircase to storage, then a 10x18 woodshop.








So now onto the other planning areas I have thought of so far to see if I am not thinking of anything.

Build:
Was thinking 2x6 for exterior walls or am I over doing it? The ceilings I was thinking 11ft in the area of eventual 4 post lifts. I know higher would be better but don’t want to make the overall building too tall with it having storage upstairs. It can’t be taller than the main house either. Garage doors will be jackshaft so the doors can be as tight to the ceiling as possible to maximize lift height. Also thinking of doing synthetic wood look doors. I have wanted them for a while and will replace the existing house door at the same time if I do go that route. The backup option if that proves too costly would be black or dark grey doors. I am sick of white garage doors. The staircase would not be exposed but rather boxed in. The free app I used to create the drawings made it hard to see that so I deleted the wall for the time being.

Electrical:
Not exactly sure yet whether I will need a full new metered line pulled or if I can pull a sub panel off my existing one. Not exactly sure how much power I will need for the building to be honest. That is one area I could probably need a lot help planning for. Circuits I can count, lighting, possibly 3 lifts eventually, 2-3 dedicated circuits in the wood shop, AV equipment and network, pressure washer probably needs its own circuit as well from what I have read, and then two garage door openers. Don’t know if 100amp sub panel would be enough or not. In my mind right now it isn’t Also figure outlets about every 6ft. You can’t ever have enough in my opion. Is that too many or should I do 10ft?

Lighting:
Lighting I want to do with all LED inside. I would also have at least six to seven exterior lights. One for each person door, two to three for the garage doors, and then two corner two light spotlights pointing down at the driveway for the ability to washing while the sun is going down. If all interior lights are LED can I run them on a single circuit?

Septic/Water:
This is an area I don’t know about yet till I get further in the build planning process with the build I am using. I would really like a small bathroom under the stairs if possible as well as a mess single in the work area. I am on septic though and the place the garage is build is higher than the house so I don’t know how easy it will be to tie into the current septic. The tank itself is on the complete other side of the house. The house is on a crawl space though so maybe it could be tied in under the house instead which would be nice.

If I can’t have any of that I at least want a water hookup inside the garage for a wall mounted pressure washer setup. I want to be able to wash cars much easier with this garage and a dedicated always ready to go pressure washer is a major want. I figure mounting it right inside the person door so I can leave the other doors closes while washing and just bring the hose out the person door. A small tanklesss water heater also as part of the same setup so I can have mixed temp water to use with the pressure washer and also have hot and cold for bucket fills. I assume without septic I can still do these since they will be like hose bib hookups.

Flooring:
Right now I am leaning towards plastic tiles instead of epoxy flooring. Several friends have installed this recently two of them installed it over epoxy after bad experiences. I know there is a lot of debate of which one is better. One reason I like the ideas of the tiles is that if I wanted to wash the car in the garage with a regular host not pressure washer in the winter to reduce spray mist the water would settle below the tiles and not be walking in puddles. With the floor sloped to the doors it should run out from under the tiles just fine from what I have read.

Audio/Video:
Will be doing one TV for sure as I will also be doing a small sitting area in the garage to have it be somewhat of a man cave area. It is close enough to the work area to probably be the only TV needed but I might put a second in to double as a computer in the work area with wireless keyboard and mouse. Stereo wired ahead of time with 2 and maybe 4 total speakers in the size of area. Possibly 6 if I put some speakers in the wood shop as well. I wil be putting in a network panel to connect to the main house. One access point should be plenty for the entire garage but will need a switch as well to run 3-4 cameras to cover the garage inside and out.

AC/Heating:
This is a big want for the garage and as much as it would be nice to do it later on to defer some costs with the fact I want to have the garage finished on the inside these units will need to be installed ahead of time. I have read pros and cons of going with a bunch of separate units or doing one outdoor unit with multiple heads inside. For the size I would think I would need about 4 heads or maybe only 3. I would like to cool both the garage and woodshop.

I can’t think of anything else right now. I am sure I am missing something after writing all of this up. Looking for all the feedback, opinions, and suggestions everyone has.

 

[RivennHewn]

Looks great!

only change I’d make is lose the waiting room and have a bigger woodshop area.

 

[Openroad98]

Looks great!

only change I’d make is lose the waiting room and have a bigger woodshop area.

Great idea and it looks like it'll be a great fit with your current property layout, I like option number one best. I also agree with Riven above, that is a very small wood shop and I would put the man cave upstairs for now so you have a separate area to relax and chill, but a wood shop that's actually usable should you want a table saw, miter saw bench, or radial arm saw in the future.

My goal is a 30x60 shop, with the back 20 by 30 being a full size wood shop and the front 30x40 for automotive related things. I currently do woodworking in my three car garage, and by the time you have project wood and suppliss, table saw and saw horses set up, and workspace, even making my wife's 60"x48" entryway bench & locker setup took up two and a half garage spaces during the project build.


Good luck, excited to see how it comes along and make sure to post lots of pictures!!

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

I spent a lot of time on the garage plans recently and switched over to SketchUp. Really starting to love the program for doing drawings. I know I am using it wrong in certain aspects of making the plans but it got me a decent visual ahead of time that I can show an architect. The design has exploded a bit from where I was originally at but I think long term it will be much better.

I moved the man cave area to a loft upstairs. This will really open things up down below. I can also increase the size of the woodshop a bit this way. I won't be able to make it a ton bigger but it will have to do. I am limited on the size of the overall building by the township is that the footprint can not exceed the heated area of the first floor of the house.

Most likely we are looking at a woodshop that is about 10x22. It's not ideal but a radial arm saw on the long wall and a table saw mostly centered for cutting large sheets should be able to be done. I have been used to working in a single bay of my 2 car garage for wood projects for the last 5 years. This should seem huge in comparison. Wood projects are typically second to car projects anyways so I would much rather have large area over there.

The way I did the one internal wall isn't right so when I decided I wanted to move it 1.5ft closer to the middle of the building I would need to almost start over. Decided I will just tell the architect that and not bother with it. I have to have not only plans from an architect but also engineering drawings as well so I can't even create my own plans.

I am missing the bathroom under the inside stairs in my plans as well as the pressure washer station on the wall next to the person door between the garage doors. Also not shown in the renderings is the fact that the fence to my backyard will basically fall just to the right of the rightmost garage door. This will put the small porch in the back yard and allow for letting the dogs into the fenced in yard from upstairs if they are up there with me.

Still need to figure out my lighting and electrical plan and if I am going to plump for air connections or not. Leaning towards not plumbing for air connections and just going with a single real on the wall. Most things I used to use it for I have moved to battery power.















I have also settled on a builder. Already had one meeting on things and having a second today with his design coming as well so we can get some official plans underway as they then have to go for engineering plans after that which they don't do in-house.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

I have recently learned that information I was given in January 2021 as to understanding the zoning regulations as far a size of an 'accessory structure' which includeds detached garages and sheds among other things is calculated. The regulation states that the footprint of the accessory strucutres can't exceed the first floor heated square footage of the pimary structure. It was originaly explained to me is that footprint was just the dimensnions of the first floor of the structure and that the square footage of other floors did not factor in. I have since been told this is incorrect. I have asked for further clarification on this as it severly impacts the other size of my garage. Effectively to build it detached it would be cut in half or build it single story to get at least the garage space needs I am looking for. Still waiting to hear back on all of that.

I don't do well sitting idle for someone else to tell me things. There is another almost loophole in this regulation and that if the two structures are attached at the roof line they are considerd not detached. To take this one step further by roof line it means as simple as a small breezeway roof covering the walk path from two buildings. Doing this means you have zero size regulations on the additional structure. This has been verified by the township. Should I want to pay for it I could build a 5000sqft garage using this look hole.

I spent the past weekend working on a new plan to take advantage of this. I was originally againt a plan like this as I was trying to build it as far in the side woods as I could to try and not make the property look like a compount. I also didn't want to block my back 8ft wide gate to the rear yard. My gate on the other side of the house is only 4ft wide and doesn't fit the tractor through. Didn't really want to redo that gate. Woud also prefer not having to go through that gate over the yard with the tractor everytime I need to use it for something that isn't mowing. Making a long breezeway more of a porto cochere was an option but would be rather expensive to have say a 35/40ft vy 20ft covering over my driveway connecting the two structures was my other idea originally. This time around I chose for a smaller one but still wide enough for the tractor. 10ft should be enough seeing as the tractor is 56in and the widest point.

This design does bring the breezeway rather close to my AC units. Should leave me a 6.5ft wide area to enter the breezeway with the tractor. I am considering widening the breezeway to 11 or 12ft just to make sure it is plenty wide. Had I originallg gone this route I would not have had to go through with my zoning text amendendment to build in the side yard as being attached makes this not count as building a detached strucutre in the side yard. Probably not worth fighting with them over that $400 but still annoying.

So here is the first go around of the new design. I have not finishe the rear and side window placements. I had to render the house to go with this to see how it fit. This will need to be dug into the ground even more than the previous design so that it is level with the existing driveway. somewhere around 2ft 4in - 2ft 8in is the current guesss without having a survey done. I also need to rethink and plan where the powerwash station goes and the cabinet layouts for this build. By breaking up the garage into two halfs with the shop in the corner it technically will hold one car less. Let's be honest it was unlikely I woud ever own 8 cars. I do have to also be careful because the U shape nature of everything means cars will always need to be parked in the garages to make sure not to block any other cars from getting out.













I do unfortunately lose about 250sqft more of my backyard going to this design over the previous one. It does make the house look a bit more like a compound. I do gain a cosiderable amount of additional space in the wood shop, 100+ sqft.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Spent some more time this weekend working on the drawings. I know it seems trivial with the trash cans and AC units but since I will be using the breezeway as the tractor access to the back yard I need a large enough opening. I might even want it larger to make sure I can take somewhat large items with the tractor through. The electric meter I realized also needed to be put in the drawing. My privacy window for light on the master bathroom is going to receive a lot less light now but at least there isn't any view to worry about.







The window for the main guest bedroom appears it should get the same amount of natural light still even with the garage in place.





Also worked on the driveway layout a bit. Still unsure on this. I had the curve inward before. Then thought it could be an issue for the straight in garage when trying to back into after pulling into the driveway. I flipped that arc around to increase the space and think the layout is a little better. I also increased the breezeway to 12ft in these drawings. I am unsure if it is too big now but the room would be nice to have just in case I wanted to pull a larger trailer into the backyard. Added a wall to hide the trash cans just to see how it works as well. I think I would add one for the AC units as well. The gate I used in generic. I would want one that the double opening part takes up pretty much all of the area from the garage wall to near the trash cans so as to have a wide a path through as possible.

 

[billconner]

One possible minor code concern, the only egress from inhabited space cannot be through a garage. I thought you almost solved that in an earlier design but seems it might have crept back in. You might claim it's storage and layer convert it without a permit, but not recommended.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

One possible minor code concern, the only egress from inhabited space cannot be through a garage. I thought you almost solved that in an earlier design but seems it might have crept back in. You might claim it's storage and layer convert it without a permit, but not recommended.

I believe you are referring to the second story loft and storage area? Yes, I will be adding an egress up there but I still need to finish up that part of the drawing. I keep going back and forth on what I am doing. At a minimum, there will be a door with stairs to the ground level on the exterior.

The original plans had a small deck when it wasn't attached to the house at all and was also 20ft further into the woods as it gave a view through the trees of the lake across the main from my property. I need to better figure out where the deck would be and what my view would be to see if it would be worth bothering with that or should I just stick with stairs. I will definitely have an egress from that level as with 3 dogs always following me around I don't want to have to always go out through the garage to get them to the yard.

I am also considering adding a door to the backyard from the corner shop area. That would allow another exit into the backyard for letting the dogs out while they are in the garage with me. The side person door under the breezeway will be in front of the backyard gate so wouldn't be suitable for that.

 

[billconner]

Make the connecting roof a deck for master bedroom with door to garage loft?

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Make the connecting roof a deck for master bedroom with door to garage loft?

The windows upstairs are for a guest bedroom and unused room. The master is actually on the first floor. The decorative window near the breezeway roof is from the master bathroom.

 

[jbrentd]

I think I like the new design better than the original. To me, it fits better to the style of your house and gives you a nice covered walkway to the attached detached garage.

 

[wasfast]

Apologies in advance; I read the posts above and can't locate the section I was looking for. Is it reasonable to move the garage over a 2-3 feet, thus increasing the pass through under the breezeway? i know you were worried about access to the backyard.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Apologies in advance; I read the posts above and can't locate the section I was looking for. Is it reasonable to move the garage over a 2-3 feet, thus increasing the pass through under the breezeway? i know you were worried about access to the backyard.

The short answer is yes. In the latest renderings, I have moved the garage 2ft further to the left to increase the breezeway passthrough from 10ft to 12ft. I think at that size I should have no problem getting the tractor in mower config or with the loader on it through the breezeway.

The property currently has a 30ft section of privacy fence on either side of the house before the split rail fence starts around the rest of the rear of the property. Once the garage is in that section will be gone from one side so I think I will replace the other side with split rail right up to the house. If I increase the current 4ft gate to 5ft it will allow the tractor with the loader on to pass through the gate and being a shorter split rail fence instead of a 6ft privacy fence I could lift large things I might be carrying with forks or the loader bucket over the height of the fence to pass to the backyard. Mostly, what I am concerned of being able to get back there is wood beams. I plan to redo/expand my deck in the future and moving the wood back there with the loader and some forks would be much easier.

I think these two solutions have fixed my concerns about getting back and forth.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

I think I like the new design better than the original. To me, it fits better to the style of your house and gives you a nice covered walkway to the attached detached garage.

Thank you. It has grown on me. The covered walk path and also covered trash can area really will be nice to have.

In the first design, I was sticking it basically completely in the woods on the side so that you only saw the front of the garage and so as not to make it as obvious from the road. My original hesitation of doing a design the way the second one is now was that it would look unsightly and like a compound from the street. Rendering it out has definitely reduced those fears of it looking so unsightly and huge. Although, it is still almost the size of the house.

 

[billconner]

I assume no well or septic in rear, or just remove fence for that?

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Septic tanks are in front of the right most front corner of the house. I have to dig the caps up to pump but with only 2 of us living here that is around every 8-10 years. The only thing I need to figure out regarding my septic field is post placement for the replacement split rail fence I would install since they would be different locations for current posts and does it interfere with it. I think no but all I have to go off of is the rough sketch provided with the septic permit.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

The garage planning is still on going. I found out in October as well that the architect/builder I was working with was moving. Apparently the company he had created was really just a stepping stone for him to something bigger. He was taking a job across the country at a large architectural firm in Seattle Washington. At that point with the holidays coming up I just put the entire project on hold rather than trying to find a new builder during that period. I waited till late January to start getting quotes from various builders I had been researching online over the holiday months. I think I ended up with 5 or 6 quotes and was about to call it quits honestly. The estimates were just so damn high. The even crazier part was no one could pin point a similar price so I never felt I was in a correct range. I ended up getting 3 more after that as well including one from a neighbor of mine. I finally was getting some quotes in a similar range which at least told me the project was going to cost X amount and there wasn't much I could do about it. The variation in the quotes I did receive had 40% variation which seems just insane to me when you are asking for the same thing from all of them.

Along the way I have kept working on my renderings and layout myself.

I have finished essentially my entire renderings here. I think I am going to only go with a single light over the garage door like the house already has vs trying to redo the exterior of the house with 2 lights. I also think with 3 lights over the area it should be more than enough light in the driveway. Garage door prices are also through the roof. I know everything is up but they are almost 2-3x up from pre pandemic prices from various companies I have talked to. I originally wanted synthetic wood multi layer doors. However, not only the cost but the the short length of warranty for the price at current prices have turned me off from those now. I am now looking at CHI Wood Accent metal doors to get my wood look with a much longer warranty while still being fairly decently insulated since I am heating and cooling the space.

I am also considering increasing the driveway and adding a space of parking/turn around in front of the garage addition. You can see this outlined in the latest renderings.










I have also begun working on a rough electrical layout. I will eventually turn it into more of a true electrical layout on many more pages by breaking it down into lights, outlets, media, and what not so the pages are not as busy and you can see what is going on.






With all that though. I have finally selected a builder in the last week and we are moving forward on getting a final set of plans drawn up so that we can get permits, stake out the site, and begin land clearing in the next month. It is finally going to get underway after several years of planning.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

The project is still slowly moving forward. The last set of changes is being finalized this week on the plans. Then the plans will be off to review. Hopefully, that won't take too long but it is a government agency so who am I kidding it will likely take way longer than it should.

I had spoken with a few tree services to get estimates for clearing the land needed on my property neatly while saving all trees outside of the chosen area for the building as well as a select few inside of it. I finally selected one last week and we will just be waiting on the plans to be approved to start that process as I don't want to take any more trees down than I need and I don't want any surprises to come up in review even though I believe everything is covered from that aspect.

In the meantime, I have been looking into the redesign of my fence gate on the opposite side of my house.

This section of the fence here will all be replaced so I will lose my large access gate for the tractor and other vehicles to my backyard during construction and after construction. I will have a small gate in my breezeway to the backward for the tractor but other larger things will have to be brought through the other side.

This gate currently with two 57.5in gate panels is my primary access right now for the tractor. Without the mower deck on I only have to open one of these to get out but with the mower on I still have to open the second part a little bit.




All of this will be removed before construction starts.


This is the current fence on the other side of the house. Currently, it only has a single person gate on that side. I don't really want to mow my lawn with just the push mower the rest of the year or be limited to not using the tractor for anything else on the rest of the property until construction is finished. In a perfect world that project takes 4-6 months but lets be real that building conditions are less than perfect these days.


I had previously planned to replace this entire section of fence with a split rail fence like I have on the rest of the property. This would alleviate some irrigation issues I have on that side of the backyard since the sprinkler could hit somewhat through the fence and over it. However, last night while outside it occurred to me that would come at the cost of a lot of privacy to my backyard that I was not sure I want to give up. So here I am not thinking maybe the best solution is to keep the current design and figure out a larger gate on this side. Long term I was not worried about the width of the gate opening as long as it was wide enough to get the mower deck through. Anything larger I could use the loader to lift over the height of the fence while driving through the gate. If I keep the privacy fence I will long term want a gate opening that is 9 or 10ft wide. The current driveway gate is 9.5ft wide when both parts are open. To support this the gate posts are 6x6.

Here is the back of the current fence. Not the hose that runs along the bottom connected to a sprinkler and a hose timer that I use to fix some of my irrigation shortcomings.


While taking these pictures I noticed something I had not for some reason taken note of before. There is a small section to the left of my current gate. I am not sure if this was done purposely to add a second support close to the gate to help hold up that fence post with the weight of the gate hanging off it. Or was it done so that it could be turned into a future double gate. In the below picture, the hinges are on the right side of the gate.


I am thinking the simple short term solution is just to remove that post and move the existing gate down to that post and build a new gate section to attach to the other post. Now I would have two 46in gates. It would be smaller than I want in the future but right now it would work just fine. That said I will have two 6x6 post I will be removing from the other side I could just build it correctly the first time with two 5ft gates.

Leaning towards the short term solution for right now.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Well, the fence project has begun. Something I question several times throughout the process but it is way too far to turn back now.

It began Friday with me tearing out the remaining wire fence that had split my larger split rail fenced yard into 2. I had ripped out about 1/2 of this several years ago so I could get my tractor to the other side. I think the previous owners used it to fence their dogs in while having company outside.

Post-pulling is much easier with a tractor but still not completely easy. Sometimes this smaller tractor still isn't strong enough. Either way it still helps save my back.




I now have my two rolls of the wire fence that will become my temporary fence for my fence project and later my garage construction project.


Still might be a few posts short when I do the larger temporary fence during construction but I have most of what I need.


Saturday, I got a later start after fixing a suspension issue on my ISF, but I did get started on tearing down the wood fence. I wanted to try and save all the slats as I was happy they were already weathered and grey. I will be replacing all the posts and rails though.


Enzo is like, hey I can see out front now.


Not all slats could be saved




So far so good on save the slats project


One side finished by lunch time


The rest after lunch






I also had to install a temporary fence to keep the dogs in.


In the past, I have always used a sledgehammer to install these posts. I think I am going to buy one of these post drivers for when I need to install the 120ft of temporary fence for construction.


Day 2 of tear down I started by measuring the slope of the current fence. For the first 24ft of the fence, it was 1in for every 2ft, then for the next 8ft it was 1.75in for every 4ft, and the last 8ft was 1/4in for everything 4ft.


Removing the rails might have been the easiest part of the job


The next fun part was going to be pulling the posts which I figured out were in some amount of concrete.


One was already rotted through as they did the concrete wrong and in some cases, people don't even believe in using it at all if you have the right type of soil. I will not be for my new posts.


Thankfully only the top 12-16in had concrete


My helper watching my backside while I work


Tried to straight pull the first post out without digging it at all. Not enough power. Eventually got it pulled though with breaking up the top soil and a little bit of the dirt around the first few inches of concrete. Still better than having to dig the entire thing out.


Continued to pull the rest of the posts with the tractor. Found that only one of them they had decided for some reason not to use any concrete. That or they just ran out.






All the posts finally out


I then began to dig two of the holes to depth. I didn't get them done but I am shooting for 4ft deep holes so that I can bury 42in of each posts for a super solid install without concrete. I will be using 6x6 for the support posts for the gates. Each gate being 5 1/2ft long will also have cross braces in the ground as well.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Finally got a full copy of the digital plans with the engineering signoffs. I had seen a print copy of them last week. The plans went to plan review and permitting on Monday this week. Things still feel like they are moving at a snails pace but I am sure once it starts it will seem overly fast for any in-progress decisions that need to be made.

 

[dmittz]

I just read your thread. I too ran into the sqft being limited on detached buildings but you can do whatever you you want if its attached where I live. Seems like an arbitrary bylaw that makes no sense.
Although here you can't just do a breezeway it has to be 'fully' attached including interior access and shared structural walls, so I opted to just do the max size outbuilding as It would have gotten complicated for me to tie into my house right now but I can still do a house addition in the future if I want.

It will be interesting to see what they allow with your septic if you want a shop bathroom/sink. Here if you want to tie in you have to upgrade your house septic to be able to accomidate 10 people living in the house full time. another silly city bylaw. My septic was in the wrong orientation anyway, so I just finished adding a new seperate permitted septic for my shop.

I love the the 'attached' garage concept you showed looks awesome. Looks like it will be a great shop space but also is very visually appealing and adds to the design of the house. I look forward to seeing you build it.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

I just read your thread. I too ran into the sqft being limited on detached buildings but you can do whatever you you want if its attached where I live. Seems like an arbitrary bylaw that makes no sense.
Although here you can't just do a breezeway it has to be 'fully' attached including interior access and shared structural walls, so I opted to just do the max size outbuilding as It would have gotten complicated for me to tie into my house right now but I can still do a house addition in the future if I want.

It will be interesting to see what they allow with your septic if you want a shop bathroom/sink. Here if you want to tie in you have to upgrade your house septic to be able to accomidate 10 people living in the house full time. another silly city bylaw. My septic was in the wrong orientation anyway, so I just finished adding a new seperate permitted septic for my shop.

I love the the 'attached' garage concept you showed looks awesome. Looks like it will be a great shop space but also is very visually appealing and adds to the design of the house. I look forward to seeing you build it.

Thanks for checking out the thread.

I will never understand that rule but hey I will take what I can get.

I don't think we have a rule like that on septic or at least my builder does not believe it to be an issue. We currently have it all in for plan review so hopefully that is fine but I just had to sign a form yesterday to give them permission to come on my property to review my septic system so we will see. My septic was overbuilt by the original owners. We only have 4 bedrooms but it was sized for 6 bedrooms for some reason. Hopefully, if there is any difference that will be enough to cover me.

In the end, I actually like my attached design better than the original one so I guess everything happens for a reason and helped me find the best design.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Way behind on updates here. To say life has been crazy and the weather has not helped projects would be an understatement.

Had to get all the new lumber for the new posts and rails for the fence. I am trying to reuse all the pickets I can from the old fence since I will have about 80ft of fence to use to rebuild 40ft with the garage going up.

Borrowed a neighbor's trailer to go pick it up.


I'm glad I finally got around to putting hooks on the bucket a little while ago.






Back to the weather issues. The old fence was torn down and the the holes were dug in about a weeks time after work. However, it took about another full month to get all 6 posts installed do to basically having rain every other day or every 2 day for about 3 weeks. The ground would just never dry out to allow for tamping the posts in. Even had to bail the posts holes out several times.






Eventually, I was able to get started.




Only to have more rain. I tried to cover it the best I could but have to say it didn't do much.


When I did get going again, on the larger 6x6 I used for the gate posts I also added extra in ground bracing to try and help prevent them from ever coming loose. I was not using concrete and only tamped dirt so I have seen people do this online so hopefully it works.










Finally all the posts are done.


Time to trim them off. The 4x4s were easy.


Borrowed this from a buddy so not to have to deal with a cord while working above my head for the cuts.


It did have one problem. I didn't realize the blade depth was only 2.5in.


Multitool for the remaining piece with a sawzaw for what was left in the middle got it done.


Now ready to build the rest.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Once the posts were complete the rest of the the fence went up fast.



Once I had mounted the rails I had to put in two temp supports. I needed to remove the rails to install the 3 pickets that were behind the fireplace bump out on the house.


This ended up working perfectly and it went right back in place when I was done.


Pickets went on fast and I finished almost the entire thing in a day.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

During the time I was tearing down the fence and rebuilding it we ended up taking a week long trip to Key West to celebrate my Dad's 75th birthday.

On the way there I got some not so great news. My builder called me and told me after 3.5 weeks that the county had had my plans they were rejected due to the township saying they had not met their requirements. The reasoning they gave was that the breezeway needed to be walled in and could not be open air.

If you have been following along earlier, the open air breezeway was exactly what the township had told me a year earlier to do so that I could build what I want to build. While at the air port trying to keep my cool I drafted and sent an email to my contact I had been working at at the township regarding what had happened trying to see if there was just some miscommunication on their end internally and the person that had reviewed it maybe had not been aware. I also attached a copy of the previous email stating exactly what I needed to do.

The next day I received a reply back that they would accept my plans as is due to the agreement before but the reason it was rejected was that the regulation had changed in the year since my emails with them and that I should have submitted plans sooner. This seemed crazy as I was working with them so I didn't pay an architect to design plans that were not usable in the first place. So much for trying to be proactive.

Now, no one is going to admit this but I think I might have an idea what actually caused the change. Down the road from me, not a mile away, is a property that is nearing the end of construction. It is roughly a 4-5k sqft house with like a 40-50ft long breezeway with a garage that has top be at least 5k sqft in size and is two stories. My guess is that got through and someone didn't like it and then pushed to have it changed so it couldn't happen again. I won't likely ever know if that is for sure the reason but it fits the time line at a minimum.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

On Tuesday this past week, we finally got underway on things. Tree company showed up to take down all the trees in the area of the building plus a 15ft buffer all around the building.

Starting with some before pictures just to have a comparison













Before they started I had to remove some of the fence that would be in the way.




Also grabbed a few before drone shots.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Day 1 of Tree Work - Most clearing brush and taking down the smaller trees






I planned to keep the trees that were not pine for future firewood at my firepit. I had to build this after they were done the first day as I had run out of time the weekend before working on the fence. Hopefully this keeps the wood dry and off the ground till I end up cutting it all up and splitting it.


Made it wide enough so I would just my grapple to stack it on the first level. Had to use loader forks to load the second level.




That night I also tore down the rest of the fence in the area they were taking down trees as well as the gate.


Day 2 of Tree Work - Most of the large trees were taken down and the tops chipped with the rest to be hauled away. Only 5 trees were left on the building site to be taken down






Few drone shots after day 2.








Day 3 of Tree Work - Rest of Large Trees came down. Day was cut short though as their log grapple tore a tread and it took 3 hours for a repair company to show up and install new ones on site.








Few drone shots after day 3




While I was up taking those pictures I grabbed a shot across the street of the lake.


Day 4 of Tree Work - Hauling away the pine trunks and taking down a few other dead trees on the property.

Thankfully the day before my forks finally showed up. It allowed me to be able to stack the rest of what I was keeping as well as clear some brush piles I had been building around the property for them to chip.






This should hopefully at least be enough wood for this season at the firepit. I use it a lot though as I put a TV out there so I watch most of my sports in the fall from there.

 

[jbrentd]

Looks like you're on your way! Keep us updated as you progress...we like to follow along. The drone shots are cool too. I wish I had more of them for my build.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Looks like you're on your way! Keep us updated as you progress...we like to follow along. The drone shots are cool too. I wish I had more of them for my build.

Thank you. I wish I could figure out how to set waypoints on it so the shots were from the same spot each time but it seems my drone might be too old to have that feature.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Was able to get some more work done on the fence this weekend. I built the fence as one piece to start to keep everything lined up.

I laid out the 12ft 2x4s so I could mark my vertical positions for my lap joints.




I really hate doing lap joints cause of the time they take but did speed it up a little over using a chisel by using my multi tool followed by a router set at 3/4in.






Laying things out for mockup.




Didn't trim the top rail so I could hang it to test fit it.



Monday was Day 1 of Stump Removal


The tap root on this pine was crazy. They normally don't have them but it went almost 4ft underground while still almost 1ft wide.






End of Day 1


Day 2 of tree removal










They filled a 40yard dumpster with stumps


Managed to get the diagonal braces installed that night


Got a little relaxation in that night for once.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Installed a second camera so I can keep an eye on the project while out of town.




My supervisor taking in some sun


Final grading was finished yesterday












After work yesterday I was able to get the gate hung. Finally, be nice this weekend to get the temporary fence in around the construction area so I can leave the dogs out again inside a fence and not have to worry about things.




Once mounted cut the middle.




Need to get the latch mounted, cane bolt, and I am thinking of adding some support wheels as well since the doors are over 5ft wide.

 

[Cdubu52]

Progress is always exciting. Tuned in for future updates.

 

[dmittz]

Looking forward to watching your build!

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Last Thursday the builder came by and got the perimeter stakes in place. Unfortunately, the footing guy wasn't available till this week. Hopefully, that gets started today.


Over the weekend I got my fence finished.




I paid too much attention apparently to the placement of the picket fence posts and not enough to the last post in my split rail. I put it 2in too far from the wire that is on the inside to keep the dogs in. Had to staple the wire to an old post and then use 4in deck screws to attach that to the existing one.


Was able to get all of my temporary fence up then to contain the dogs during the course of the build.






It was then I realized I was going to only have a gate on one side of the house for 6 months. That was bad enough for 2 months while I was building the new picket fence. I had an old chainlink gate left by the previous owners that I hadn't thrown out.


A quick look on Amazon and they in fact do make gate hinges for t-posts and a set arrived the next day.


I have a feeling this will be a rather appreciated addition to the temporary fence.


To add some car content that will be stored in the garage once complete. I finally got the call to come pick up my Cadillac back up after being down for 650 days.

 

[jbrentd]

You'll be a pro at fence work, by the end of your project! Out of necessity, I got pretty good at sprinkler repairs during my build.

That's a long time to be without such a nice wagon. CTS-V?

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

You'll be a pro at fence work, by the end of your project! Out of necessity, I got pretty good at sprinkler repairs during my build.

That's a long time to be without such a nice wagon. CTS-V?

I know way more about fences now than I think I might have ever cared. I worry by the end of the garage I will likely also be a sprinkler repair expert as well. We are hitting a major part of one zone for sure and likely a second one as well.

Yeah CTS-V Wagon. Short story is that I ended up with the issue the first week of January last year that sounded like a baseball card in bicycle spokes when letting off the gas above 1800rpm. Used a couple of personal contacts to try pinpoint the problem but to no avail. Tracked down the shop I wanted to do the work but they were heavily back logged with new build work. Dropped the car off end of Sept last year to them and got it back on Friday with a full refreshed motor and making more power to boot. 691/652

 

[fouckhest]

Cool build, look forward to following along!

 

[Jon69RagTop]

Cool build, thanks for posting. Can you tell me the model and year of your tractor? Do you mow with it as well and tell me more about the bucket too.

thanks

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

Cool build, thanks for posting. Can you tell me the model and year of your tractor? Do you mow with it as well and tell me more about the bucket too.

thanks

Thank you.

Sure thing. The tractor is a 2020 Johnd Deere X738 with hydraulic AWD. The bucket loader is actually much older. They stopped making them about 12 years ago I think it was. It is a John Deere model 45 loader. It was originally designed for the X400 series John Deeres back in I believe 2002 or 2003 they started. The x700 series now are still the same overall engines and frame from back then. I grew up using an old x400 series tractor with my Dad. They are the smallest tractors with a full set of hydraulics for attachments.





There is are a couple fabricators around the country that make a support brace to fit the newer tractors. The old one the brace passed through the frame. The new one just bolts too it but has proven plenty strong by many users on the John Deere forums over the years.



Mowing is my primary use for the tractor. I have a 54in high capacity deck for it. I went with the X738 over the John Deere 1 series since my primary use would be mowing. The hyraulic AWD does not tear up the lawn the same way the mechanical 4WD would have on the 1 series.

I miss a few features of the 1 series like a quick disconnect bucket so that actual pallet forks could be added without the bucket still being on which would greatly increase the lifting capacity. That said for my property it has proven extremely helpful having all the additional attacments while also providing a much better cut than the 1 series would have.

The loader is still pretty capable though. It will live about 1000lbs 1ft off the ground and about 500-600lbs to full height.

I also have a couple other attachments for it that work with the factory snow plow hydraulic setup.

A log grapple and a front mount dethatcher which I don't seem to have any pictures of.



I also use a rear mount sprayer several times a year.

 

[cccoltsicehockey]

It wasn't more than 15min after I posted the update from the weekend that the crew to dig the footings showed up. They were not coming till Tuesday originally but ended up finishing a job early Monday and decided they wanted to knock it out then.

This being done finally gave me the first real feel for the size and location everything. Was a lot better idea than a few markers I had been laying out.

You can see the three markers in the back for the small porch off the back of the second floor. Will be interesting when done to see what my views will be. In the winter I might be able to see the lake across the main road.






Builder showed up yesterday and put in the pipe that goes under the footings for the septic and water lines


Couple more drone shots to show the placement. Luckily they will be able to leave the rest of the driveway till around the end of the project to keep mud to a minimum and allow me to also get the cars in the garage out.