The time has finally arrived for me to start the build thread for my little slice of garage heaven, hearby named the Droobarn. I've been planning this pretty much since I bought the house in 2005 as we're on enough ground (.3 acre) that I had some space to expand out. A bit. More on the "a bit" later…
First, a bit of background story.
Here's what I've got now, your standard 20'x20' suburban garage. Plenty of space for a decent sized bench, my MGB and BMW F650, and the wife's Rodeo Sport. It's a real help that I like small cars, let me tell you. I just have to park outside. Did a pretty major amount of work on a Bugeye Sprite in this very space, worked well -- but I had to park outside.
Did I mention that I hate scraping the ice off my windows. At 6 am. When it's -10f outside. And dark. And cold.
And here (thanks to Google) is a rough picture of the lot and what I had planned. Picture is a bit out of date, so I added in the deck that we built in 2010. Big gray rectangle on the back properly line is a large gravel area that we've since put back to lawn. Yellow square is roughly where the Droobarn is going in.
I've done a bunch of thinking and planning over the last few years, and finally this year was my year to build. Deck is done, landscaping is done, time for the shop/barn/garage. Calls were made, a contractor chosen, and a plan was put together for a 20'x24' garage. Bid came in within my budget. I was ready to sign, just gave a couple days to sleep on it and think it all over one last time.
A funny thing happened as I thought it over. The more I contemplated what I was about to do, the less I wanted to do it the way I had it planned out. The less I wanted to spend what this project was going to cost. I had the resources available, just didn't want to put them to this purpose.
It really came down to how I was going to use the space. The more I thought about what I *needed* versus what I thought I *wanted*, the more I realized that the space really didn't fit my use case. It needed to be smaller to really be what I needed.
Smaller you say?
Yup, smaller. After much thought, I've really come to the conclusion that I won't do any more automotive restorations. I just didn't enjoy the last one I did as it took too much time away from the other things I have passions for. By way of explanation, let me say that I'm an actively gigging musician in addition to holding down a steady full time job. Those two things alone could easily take up every available minute. Add to that a wife (she's understanding, but I should see her occasionally) and a passion for hiking and I've just about used up all my daily allowance of minutes. I love my MG and bike, but they're a bit down the list of passions.
So what I really needed was storage and parking, not shop space. Back to the drawing board I went, and out came the new design that is a better fit for what I need. The Droobarn is now a 12'x20' barn-style shed on a full concrete pad with footers. The barn roof gives lots of room to eventually build a loft for more storage space.
Now for most folks here this would be way too small. What solid upstanding Garage Journalist would ever recommend going *smaller* on a build? For me it wasn't so much an issue of going smaller as going with the proper size. This is the amount of space I need, so that's what I'm building. I'd estimate it's probably 1/3 the cost once you figure in the extras (like heat, lots of power, other tools) that I now won't be pursuing. A more modest project, but one that's properly suited to what my needs are.
Another benefit to the smaller size is that it makes a hard limit on the number of cars/bikes I can have. After some experimentation over the last couple years I've decided that I'm happiest with one car and one bike, no more. No exceptions. For me this is a hard limit, and accepting that and the fact that I don't do restorations means that my needs for space are much smaller. Besides, I've always got the existing 2-car garage if I needed to do a larger chunk of work on the MG.
So there you have it, a Garage Journal project that is intentionally smaller than it could be. Who knew?
First, a bit of background story.
Here's what I've got now, your standard 20'x20' suburban garage. Plenty of space for a decent sized bench, my MGB and BMW F650, and the wife's Rodeo Sport. It's a real help that I like small cars, let me tell you. I just have to park outside. Did a pretty major amount of work on a Bugeye Sprite in this very space, worked well -- but I had to park outside.
Did I mention that I hate scraping the ice off my windows. At 6 am. When it's -10f outside. And dark. And cold.
And here (thanks to Google) is a rough picture of the lot and what I had planned. Picture is a bit out of date, so I added in the deck that we built in 2010. Big gray rectangle on the back properly line is a large gravel area that we've since put back to lawn. Yellow square is roughly where the Droobarn is going in.
I've done a bunch of thinking and planning over the last few years, and finally this year was my year to build. Deck is done, landscaping is done, time for the shop/barn/garage. Calls were made, a contractor chosen, and a plan was put together for a 20'x24' garage. Bid came in within my budget. I was ready to sign, just gave a couple days to sleep on it and think it all over one last time.
A funny thing happened as I thought it over. The more I contemplated what I was about to do, the less I wanted to do it the way I had it planned out. The less I wanted to spend what this project was going to cost. I had the resources available, just didn't want to put them to this purpose.
It really came down to how I was going to use the space. The more I thought about what I *needed* versus what I thought I *wanted*, the more I realized that the space really didn't fit my use case. It needed to be smaller to really be what I needed.
Smaller you say?
Yup, smaller. After much thought, I've really come to the conclusion that I won't do any more automotive restorations. I just didn't enjoy the last one I did as it took too much time away from the other things I have passions for. By way of explanation, let me say that I'm an actively gigging musician in addition to holding down a steady full time job. Those two things alone could easily take up every available minute. Add to that a wife (she's understanding, but I should see her occasionally) and a passion for hiking and I've just about used up all my daily allowance of minutes. I love my MG and bike, but they're a bit down the list of passions.
So what I really needed was storage and parking, not shop space. Back to the drawing board I went, and out came the new design that is a better fit for what I need. The Droobarn is now a 12'x20' barn-style shed on a full concrete pad with footers. The barn roof gives lots of room to eventually build a loft for more storage space.
Now for most folks here this would be way too small. What solid upstanding Garage Journalist would ever recommend going *smaller* on a build? For me it wasn't so much an issue of going smaller as going with the proper size. This is the amount of space I need, so that's what I'm building. I'd estimate it's probably 1/3 the cost once you figure in the extras (like heat, lots of power, other tools) that I now won't be pursuing. A more modest project, but one that's properly suited to what my needs are.
Another benefit to the smaller size is that it makes a hard limit on the number of cars/bikes I can have. After some experimentation over the last couple years I've decided that I'm happiest with one car and one bike, no more. No exceptions. For me this is a hard limit, and accepting that and the fact that I don't do restorations means that my needs for space are much smaller. Besides, I've always got the existing 2-car garage if I needed to do a larger chunk of work on the MG.
So there you have it, a Garage Journal project that is intentionally smaller than it could be. Who knew?
.
Never happen!
Lucas the Devil himself 
