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John's Garage Journal: 26" x 32" Brick Garage w/ Car Lift

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shortymgee

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Jul 9, 2012
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Wow! Exteriors are awesome. Heck the entire build is awesome. Can't wait to see finished. I'm sure you can't either.

What is the distance from the floor to the top of lift in full up position.
 
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dondb

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John,
Beautiful garage, well thought out.....and great build thread! I'll be following your thread closely, since i am currently building a garage very similar to yours. It is a 28x32 loft and stair way in same spot. Foundation was just poured, back filling tomorrow and construction starts Monday. I went with attic trust engineered to 50 lbs/psf to avoid the high cost of the lam beams. Since i am GCing the build myself that electrical plan is great. That scissor lift looks tempting but i think i'm going to go with a 4 post lift so i can store a car under in the winter months (New Hampshire) and don't have the year round weather like you Texan's. Plus my attached garage is only a 2 bay. Looking forward to seeing a picture of a car on your lift.
 
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JDishong

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Prosper, Texas
dondb said:
John,
Beautiful garage, well thought out.....and great build thread! I'll be following your thread closely, since i am currently building a garage very similar to yours. It is a 28x32 loft and stair way in same spot. Foundation was just poured, back filling tomorrow and construction starts Monday. I went with attic trust engineered to 50 lbs/psf to avoid the high cost of the lam beams. Since i am GCing the build myself that electrical plan is great. That scissor lift looks tempting but i think i'm going to go with a 4 post lift so i can store a car under in the winter months (New Hampshire) and don't have the year round weather like you Texan's. Plus my attached garage is only a 2 bay. Looking forward to seeing a picture of a car on your lift.
Click to expand...

Thank you dondb, I appreciate the post! Understood on the lift. I now have an equivalent to a 5 car garage so I don't have enough cars to fill the spots...but certainly see the value in vertical storage.

I will be anchoring the lifts this weekend and I'll post a picture of my car on the lift.

I'll be watching your build.
 
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JDishong

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358
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Prosper, Texas
Lift completed, first lift-off!

This weekend I painted the concrete recesses black and anchored the lifts to the concrete. I also installed the controller box on the wall versus floor mount. The theme for this garage will be that all cabinets will be wall-mount (no legs) with only a few exceptions. I plan to build a wall cabinet around the controller box in the near future. Now for some pictures from today:

Wall mounted lift controller (below):
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First car up; my son's 06 GT Mustang (below):
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Total lift height is 70" plus
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My son and I (below):
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My Dad,
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me, and my son checking out how easy it will be to work on the cars:

My Dad, who started this all when he built a 24' x 24' garage at our house in San Antonio when I was growing up. (below)
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Roof clearance good even with the garage door open:
_DSC0182-L.jpg
 
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MacTexas

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Granbury Texas
Great to see when a plan comes together. Beautiful result. You are a lucky man with three generations enjoying the garage.
 
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Crazy68Dart

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NE Ohio
Looks really good man. Your son has clean car also. He can get into trouble with that thing... :)

How much do you have into the lift? I love the space savings they give you. I want to put a lift in the garage when I build it, but I am already sulking over the space that they consume. Although, I want a 4 post for storage, it does allow me another virtual bay to store an additional car.

I think the scissor setups are really nice for your day-to-day maintenance (tires, brakes, oil, etc.).
 
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JDishong

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MacTexas said:
Great to see when a plan comes together. Beautiful result. You are a lucky man with three generations enjoying the garage.
Click to expand...

Thanks MacTexas..it does feel good. As you can see (or maybe not) the floor is getting a bit cleaner & darker. I rented a buffer at HD and bought a mop/bucket. I think I've mopped the floor maybe 6 times so far:headscrat

I've decided to clear seal it (medium gloss) to put a little punch into it. I need to make sure it doesn't become to slick when wet.

Next phase .. cabinets!
 
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JDishong

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Crazy68Dart said:
Looks really good man. Your son has clean car also. He can get into trouble with that thing... :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Crazy68Dart, That thought has crossed my mind many times. I need to be careful on the upgrades I guess:D

Crazy68Dart said:
How much do you have into the lift? I love the space savings they give you. I want to put a lift in the garage when I build it, but I am already sulking over the space that they consume. Although, I want a 4 post for storage, it does allow me another virtual bay to store an additional car.
Click to expand...

Lift $2500, but I understand they have gotten marked up a bit over the past 6 months. I plan to do many things int he garage so for me the in-ground scissor was the answer. I wanted maximum floor space when not in use.

Crazy68Dart said:
I think the scissor setups are really nice for your day-to-day maintenance (tires, brakes, oil, etc.).
Click to expand...
 
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Crazy68Dart

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Since the lift has those wide flat pads, how do they suggest to lift cars that don't have a frame below the rockers? Looks pretty close to the rockers on the Mustang.
 
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JDishong

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Prosper, Texas
Crazy68Dart said:
Since the lift has those wide flat pads, how do they suggest to lift cars that don't have a frame below the rockers? Looks pretty close to the rockers on the Mustang.
Click to expand...

They provide rubber blocks as stand-offs that you align with the proper lifting points. You could use 4 x 4 blocks as well. I didn't select the optimum placement on the Mustang and that's why it is lower in the back. I guess in some situation, you may have to get a bit creative on how you support certain cars... but for the most part this should work on majority of cars.
 
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GBsnoopy

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Durham, U.K.
You have me reconsidering a scissor lift in the centre again over a 4 post to the side.
Looks great. Really liking the way its turned out.
18 ft x 10ft door is quite large height wise, do you know what sort of height the doors on the house garages are for comparison please?
Isbyour ceiling about 12ft?
 
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JDishong

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Prosper, Texas
GBsnoopy said:
You have me reconsidering a scissor lift in the centre again over a 4 post to the side.
Looks great. Really liking the way its turned out.
18 ft x 10ft door is quite large height wise, do you know what sort of height the doors on the house garages are for comparison please?
Isbyour ceiling about 12ft?
Click to expand...

Thanks GBsnoopy. 8 ft. tall exterior doors w/ a 12 ft. ceiling.
 
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JDishong

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Prosper, Texas
Here is why I chose scissor lift over post lifts ..
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Here is a night shot to show how bright the interior T5 lights are. Should be > 100 lumens...someday I may even measure it.

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Wide angle view of house and garage:
_DSC0192-L.jpg
 
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MacTexas

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I just realized something looking at the shot of the garage and the house. Your garage could not be built in my neighborhood. The HOA rules here do not allow a garage door facing the street.
 
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JDishong

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MacTexas said:
I just realized something looking at the shot of the garage and the house. Your garage could not be built in my neighborhood. The HOA rules here do not allow a garage door facing the street.
Click to expand...

Turns out my HOA has the same rule BUT variances allow this. About 7 - 8 years ago someone built a garage (door facing the street) and it got built without approval ... now a precedence has been set and the HOA feel that considering some lots are deep but not wide, they allow it. :).

I will plant some trees and shrubs along the ditch and driveway to help provide me some privacy.
 
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JDishong

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INTERIOR DESIGN:

OK, time to design some cabinets on the north wall. These will be constructed of wood, wall mount, and use slatwall internally so I can hang most tools. It will also cover up the lift controller box to keep things looking clean and tidy. Here is what I am thinking. 18" deep shelves.

Wall%20Cabinets-Model-L.jpg
 
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Blue Seducer

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N.O La.
Great biuld. My garage is the same layout, 24x40 with stairs to the loft in the left rear corner. I also have a 18x10 door. I am thinking about upgrading to a new insulated door with an opener, can you give details on yours? :beer:
 
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JMURiz

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NoVA
Re: the picture with 4 cars inside

Show off :p

Great shop and I really like that lift, very stealthy and I had no idea they had that high of lift-height!
 
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JDishong

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Blue Seducer said:
Great biuld. My garage is the same layout, 24x40 with stairs to the loft in the left rear corner. I also have a 18x10 door. I am thinking about upgrading to a new insulated door with an opener, can you give details on yours? :beer:
Click to expand...

Thanks Blue - My door faces west so it takes direct sun for many hours a day. The insulated door has a 'R' factor of 12.76. About $2,000 plus the cost of the LiftMaster, maybe another $500 - 600. VERY happy I went this route. The liftmaster is super quite being direct drive.
 
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Bob Heine

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JDishong said:
INTERIOR DESIGN:

OK, time to design some cabinets on the north wall. These will be constructed of wood, wall mount, and use slatwall internally so I can hang most tools. It will also cover up the lift controller box to keep things looking clean and tidy. Here is what I am thinking. 18" deep shelves.
Click to expand...
Looks like a good plan. You might want to consider shallower cabinets above the lift controller. If you store big tools in the lower (deep) cabinets, you can hang your small tools on the back wall of the upper cabinets. If those upper cabinets are 18" deep, there is going to be a lot of space in front of the tools. When you start putting things in front of the tools to make use of the space, you'll be shuffling stuff around every time you want to grab a tool.

A gallon paint can fits on a 6.5" deep shelf so that's the depth I made some of mine. I put shallow cabinets on one side wall in the garage and it's much harder to bury stuff out of sight (also cuts down on the duplicate cans of stuff) . I made 30"x30" modules with 1"x8" pine boards with 1"x4" stringers inside at top and bottom. Some cheap 15"x30" melamine doors hides the mess and cuts down on the dust buildup.
 
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JDishong

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Bob Heine said:
Looks like a good plan. You might want to consider shallower cabinets above the lift controller. If you store big tools in the lower (deep) cabinets, you can hang your small tools on the back wall of the upper cabinets. If those upper cabinets are 18" deep, there is going to be a lot of space in front of the tools. When you start putting things in front of the tools to make use of the space, you'll be shuffling stuff around every time you want to grab a tool.

A gallon paint can fits on a 6.5" deep shelf so that's the depth I made some of mine. I put shallow cabinets on one side wall in the garage and it's much harder to bury stuff out of sight (also cuts down on the duplicate cans of stuff) . I made 30"x30" modules with 1"x8" pine boards with 1"x4" stringers inside at top and bottom. Some cheap 15"x30" melamine doors hides the mess and cuts down on the dust buildup.
Click to expand...

Bob Heine - I like this concept, thanks for the advice. If you can share a link or a photo that would be helpful too. Thanks again - John
 
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Bob Heine

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JDishong said:
Bob Heine - I like this concept, thanks for the advice. If you can share a link or a photo that would be helpful too. Thanks again - John
Click to expand...
John,
I am having trouble with PhotoBucket but I think I can upload a few pictures here. Because my garage doesn't have a lot of space on the side walls, these actually fit between the door tracks and wall. The last two cabinets are slightly deeper and taller (1"x10" construction and 42" tall x 30" wide), which make them the perfect depth for magazines and catalogs. Space below those two was for a compressor upgrade to 5hp 60-gallon horizontal. Budget decided a vertical compressor would be better so one of the cabinets got moved -- modular is good.

Construction is very simple, with the horizontal boards cut shorter by the thickness of the verticals (to make the outer dimension 30"x30"). Four sides and two nailers makes a pretty sturdy box. I'm not a neat person so this hides a bunch of stuff. As a side benefit, the closed doors make the garage brighter -- the flash didn't go off when the doors were closed.
 

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JDishong

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Bob Heine said:
John,
I am having trouble with PhotoBucket but I think I can upload a few pictures here. Because my garage doesn't have a lot of space on the side walls, these actually fit between the door tracks and wall. The last two cabinets are slightly deeper and taller (1"x10" construction and 42" tall x 30" wide), which make them the perfect depth for magazines and catalogs. Space below those two was for a compressor upgrade to 5hp 60-gallon horizontal. Budget decided a vertical compressor would be better so one of the cabinets got moved -- modular is good.

Construction is very simple, with the horizontal boards cut shorter by the thickness of the verticals (to make the outer dimension 30"x30"). Four sides and two nailers makes a pretty sturdy box. I'm not a neat person so this hides a bunch of stuff. As a side benefit, the closed doors make the garage brighter -- the flash didn't go off when the doors were closed.
Click to expand...

I'll work something up thinking if this .. appreciate you sharing. - John
 
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gsxrken

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Sep 6, 2009
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just north of NYc
What an excellent garage and so well thought out. I really like the two hideaway scissor lifts that don't hurt a bay; so much so I will incorporate them into my build for sure.
I also just love the brickwork look. Not too much of that in suburban NY and it would probably double the price of the garage to import the masons for it, but it's a great look.

My present lowly under-house 2 bay garage has one claim to fame, some Swisstrax flooring. Folks ooh and ahh over the red and black checkerboard, and it was a nice way to hide a cracked and flaking cement floor. The good thing is it can be picked up and placed in my future detached garage. I don't know what you decided on the floor but give the Swisstrax/RaceDeck tiles a look.

Thanks again for posting up your experiences.
Ken
 
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JDishong

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Prosper, Texas
gsxrken said:
What an excellent garage and so well thought out. I really like the two hideaway scissor lifts that don't hurt a bay; so much so I will incorporate them into my build for sure.
I also just love the brickwork look. Not too much of that in suburban NY and it would probably double the price of the garage to import the masons for it, but it's a great look.

My present lowly under-house 2 bay garage has one claim to fame, some Swisstrax flooring. Folks ooh and ahh over the red and black checkerboard, and it was a nice way to hide a cracked and flaking cement floor. The good thing is it can be picked up and placed in my future detached garage. I don't know what you decided on the floor but give the Swisstrax/RaceDeck tiles a look.

Thanks again for posting up your experiences.
Ken
Click to expand...

I've used the lift twice now and already can't imagine me doing the jobs without the lift. Neighbors are beginning to drive by slowly trying to see what's going on inside the garage.

I checked out the tiles .. very cool. I built the slab using integral color (med-dark grey). I just applied penetrating sealer so I'm going "natural look" for now. I can always do "polished look" or even these tiles down the road. Thanks for the info!
 
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55cadillacking

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Calgary
There's a lot of awesome oozing out of this thread. That night shot is spectacular. I'm even more impressed with your impeccable yard maintenance skills!
 
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