24'x28' in Minnesota

I've been "lurking" around the last month or so and am posting a few pics of my new garage, which was completed yesterday (Nov. 24). Tore down the one car (14'x20') and put up a 24'x28', which is about the largest the city will allow without a variance. Here is a before-and-after:















I have wanted to do this for the last ten years and finally moved forward. I don't have welders/compressors/presses/etc., but I enjoy playing around and this will afford me plenty of room to do just that. For security reasons I placed the window as high as possible (9' walls), and installed a security plate to reinforce the deadbolt:





I look forward to outfitting the interior with plenty of tools, shelving, storage, and more. I'll need to figure out what to do with the walls and floor...

I think you are going to have a nice garage/shop when you are done. Are you going to insulate and make provisions for heat?

Welcome to the site, and congrats on the new garage. At my last house I built a 24x28, and that served me well for 10 years. Plenty of room for working on 2 vehicles at the same time. Have fun.

Bib Overalls said:

I think you are going to have a nice garage/shop when you are done. Are you going to insulate and make provisions for heat?

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I don't think I'll get to insulating it until next Spring, as I have plans to do add electrical and need to figure out what I want and where I want it. It's possible I would add gas heat, but I may end up buying a portable heater to use on an as-needed basis.

The floor is another matter - likely to epoxy it next year, and I like the grey with speckles in it. For the time being I need to empty the pod with the contents of the former garage and find a place to put everything before the big snow and cold comes my way.

Your neighborhood looks simular to the type I grew up in in Minnesota.
It would be great if you could get the floor done before you moved your stuff but that may not work for you. You can always move stuff around for drywall etc.
I like your idea of the metal plate along the jamb. Hopefully it won't be needed.

christmas said:

Your neighborhood looks simular to the type I grew up in in Minnesota.
It would be great if you could get the floor done before you moved your stuff but that may not work for you. You can always move stuff around for drywall etc.
I like your idea of the metal plate along the jamb. Hopefully it won't be needed.

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I live in So. Mpls., and I hope the "security plate" is not ever needed, but the reality is that over the last several years there have been a few neighbors, perhaps more that I have not heard about, that have had garages broken into. I have a couple motion sensors and if a wanna-be thief has a light shining on him (or her) I figure they'll move along if the door presents a challenge to conquer.

Regarding the floor - it's gonna wait until 2008 as last night I dumped everything into the garage that had been in storage from the old garage.

Question: I would like to put bars on the inside of the garage window to keep out any enterprising bad guys that have access to a ladder or some other means to get high enough to go through the already-high window (the bottom of the window is almost 7' off the ground). Any recommendations on where to get the bars?

tallqwerty said:

I live in So. Mpls., and I hope the "security plate" is not ever needed, but the reality is that over the last several years there have been a few neighbors, perhaps more that I have not heard about, that have had garages broken into. I have a couple motion sensors and if a wanna-be thief has a light shining on him (or her) I figure they'll move along if the door presents a challenge to conquer.

Regarding the floor - it's gonna wait until 2008 as last night I dumped everything into the garage that had been in storage from the old garage.

Question: I would like to put bars on the inside of the garage window to keep out any enterprising bad guys that have access to a ladder or some other means to get high enough to go through the already-high window (the bottom of the window is almost 7' off the ground). Any recommendations on where to get the bars?

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I came from St. James so that is a ways away. My girlfriend graduated from Roosevelt though.
Looks like you are along an alley so maybe more traffic by your garage than you would like. I try to keep my garage doors closed as much as possible so fewer people know what I have inside. I'm lucky in that few people in my subdivision even know that I have a large garage with several cars.
Custom window people are probably the best place to start looking for security bars. Or maybe some ideas from Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" movies.
Good work and good luck on the rest of your project.

tallqwerty - Nice garage! I was going to mention how your neighborhood looked like South Minneapolis to me.

Christmas - I'm a Roosevelt grad too (Class of '79).

Small-ish world, eh?

Tom Fuehrer
32' x 54'
Eden Prairie, Mn

Tom Fuehrer said:

tallqwerty - Nice garage! I was going to mention how your neighborhood looked like South Minneapolis to me.

Christmas - I'm a Roosevelt grad too (Class of '79).

Small-ish world, eh?

Tom Fuehrer
32' x 54'
Eden Prairie, Mn

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Maybe alot of neighborhoods look alike in Minnesota. Houses all built at the same time after the war with little imagination but to just get one built.

Tom, I have an old girlfriend that I believe lives in Eden Praire. Not real sure.
My present girlfriend graduated in 64 and was the last of the three girls. May be a bit too far ahead of you in school. Smith was her name then.

As I think of it, both of these girlfriends' parent's homes were just like the one I grew up in.

Denny
26'x80'


Any snow back there yet? We just had a dusting.