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Building 30 x 36 Garage and Shop Space

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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS
I've been following Garage Journal a while, but this is my first real post. We've been saving up to now, and it's time to build a nice garage at our 1925 airplane bungalow. The house has a little 12 x 18 garage from 1925. It's served us so far, but we want to park 2 daily cars and I want to move some of my hobby projects home so I could work on them after the boys' bed time. It'll be a 30 x 36 with a 14 x 36 finished attic, a 3/4 bath, and a shop sink under/behind the stairs. We have the permit, so the old garage should come down next week. A friend is taking it down to re-use. I could keep writing, but pictures are more fun.

Our place:


The old garage:




The Plan:




It's similar height to the house's parallel cross-ways roof line, but it's 60 ft further back, and the lot slopes down about 16 inches from the house to back property line. The perspective and blocking should keep the big garage subordinate to the house. I hope you like the posts as much as I enjoy a good project.

Kevin
 
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jsherid1

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Welcome to GJ, very neat house (I love craftsman bungalows) and cool project. I really like how you are tying the architecture of the garage with the house. One question--is the plot plan to scale? If so, I'm guessing the left (one car) door is for projects vs. cars?
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Hi Jim. The drawings are to scale, and you're right. The third stall will be a project space. There's 20' house to garage, so I could squeak something out with dolleys. I'm building a single seat track-day car for fun in my spare time. It's a long-term project between money and time constraints. It's an hour round trip to my current shop space. It'll be nice to have it close where I can get more small time slots to work on it. I also have several projects fixing old tools to set up a nice personal machine shop.

The racer:
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Thank You, I'm flattered. It's not really an atom, but that's the genre. It's about the half-way point between an Atom and a Formula SAE car like the university engineering programs build. It's got a '99 Yamaha R1 engine so it can have a narrower body than an Atom. The outrigger tube is 20" high like a car's bumper, and each side truss is 3 triangulated tubes. It's about 790 lb as it sits with engine in but without the differential, radiator, fuel tank, and misc stuff all over.





 
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ICT_Kevin

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I'm fortunate that a friend has a garage similar to what I'm planning. I was checking window sizes to prepare an order, and the planned dormer windows were too tall to fit. The dormer framing should work out something like this, so we're going to ape the window size probably.

 
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jsherid1

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It might be cool to use four smaller windows (to echo the size of the windows on the front gable of your house) especially if you could get the mullioned to match.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Progress is slow and steady. It took 3 days to disassemble the old garage and prep the first trailer load. I pick up a pick-up in the morning to take the unwanted debris to the dump.

End of Day 1




Day 3


Sill bolts from back wall were a little aged


Pile of reclaimed lumber. A friend took the structure down in exchange for the materials.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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I have old garage debris nearly cleared. One more dump run today. Then tree removal and get ready for concrete guy. Window and truss orders will be soon too. At night, I've prepped a SketchUp model of the garage. Details will vary. I can't match the upper panel of the house's double hung windows without going custom with $$, so do what I have to.









 
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ICT_Kevin

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Thank You. I have dual fluency in SketchUp/CATIA now. The mouse controls are different, so it was hard to transition for a while.

I got the windows ordered yesterday, and the big Maple removal is re-scheduled for Tuesday morning. It's agonizing to wait on normal scheduling delays. There's a driveway getting re-paved up the street today, taunting me just a little.
 
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Terracar

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SW Washington
Very nice plans. Looks like plenty of hours involved in the plan and layout. What is the finished loft going to be used for?

I am always amazed at how much taking a few trees down really opens up a yard. We had three monsters removed and it seemed like our yard tripled in size.

Please keep with the updates. I look forward to the finished garage.

-Terracar
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS
The idea is dark library at the South end by the bathroom, and a bright man-cave office at the North end. A divider wall of book cases with a wide portal will separate the spaces - sooner or later. Interiors are down the list from getting the structure done, but I'm thinking about it a lot. It'll all start as a pretty bare finished room. I really like tools too, so a few refugees or some really small cnc tools may move up the stairs.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Progress is slow. I have the last of the old garage debris in the trailer ready to leave. I had it out of the way in piles, but gone will be even better. We've had rain every second day for almost two weeks, except this stint up to the holiday. All this delay has given me time to catch up on structural calcs and checks. A library takes a fair bit of strength to support. This is the rough idea when we can get to it.





I've increased the planned header over the 2-car door from a 3.5 x 12 to a 5.25 x 18 PSL. It's a beefer, good for 80 psf in the finished space it supports. It's easiest to do it sturdy now. In the same vein, I'm going to increase the truss count and go from 24 to 16 centers between the dormers for overkill, and to keep the 3/4" sub-floor from being spongy. I'll leave the double trusses at the dormer sides as they are probably. You can see in the truss calcs that I had them put in 60 psf live load, about 50% over code requirement, and tightening the centers will take it up another 50% before it tears joiner plates. This will increase project cost about 4%, and it should prevent any swearing about sag or inadequate strength.





I can't wait to have another worthwhile outside pic. The utilities are marked, but it looks like they just put the flags in a huddle roughly where the garage will live. They don't follow any existing stuff that I know of, and I saw where everything they had a flag for is when we replaced the sewer line.
 
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MagKarl

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Olympia, WA
One suggestion along the lines of stiffening things up - Go with 1 1/8" subfloor instead of 3/4". There is a huge difference.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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MagKarl said:
One suggestion along the lines of stiffening things up - Go with 1 1/8" subfloor instead of 3/4". There is a huge difference.
Click to expand...

Still pretty noticeable on 16" centers then? The cost increment isn't terrible. It does fit with my natural taste for more than what's required.
 
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HSpencer

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I know your goal is expansion and I don't blame you one bit for what you are planning.
However, with that really beautiful Craftsman Style home you have and that little garage just being what it is (was) well, my wife would have that little space redone in original and NEVER touched. But don't get riled, as I had to say that. Progress is important and your doing what you need and want. I congratulate you on your plans. Also, it is very good you can get permits to do this.
Me, my wife and daughter would have wanted to buy the Craftsman Home and Garage from you if we could have.
That little garage was beautiful in the respect that it amplified the beautiful Craftsman style of your home.

I will look forward to the progress!!!! Great plans!!!

Best Regards
Herb Spencer
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS
Yeah, there was a small part of me that hates to take down the cute old garage. The fact that the 85 year old oak trim and built-ins survived the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, without being ripped out or painted over was a major attraction to the house. The garage just wasn't big enough to house two cars and a shop (the basic deal with my wife when i compromised on garage to get a keeper house). We had two cars totaled by hail in 2006, when we had six hail storms in 3 weeks. The one that did it was at 7:00 in the morning, the last wave of storms from the day before. We're really excited to get a garage door opener and a good place to park under cover.

The old garage siding is going to restore the back wall of a 1911 house registered as a historic home down town. The framing lumber (that didn't show old ant or termite damage) is slated to become a big tool shed. A few roof bits are becoming roof for a kids' garden house.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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I bought the foam for my floor and perimeter. It's an impressive stack. 25 psi foam was plenty good once I did the math on the slab and foam stresses per the Owens Corning report Foamular Extruded Polystyrene for Cold Storage Applications. I had been planning to use stouter 40 or 60 psi foam, but the math said it only mattered a few percent on overall strength. I chose to go from 4" to 5" slab instead, will pay less, and get a 40% stronger floor.

Hopefully get the old slab busted tomorrow, and the footer ready to pour early next week.



Owens Corning Insulated Slab Design Paper:
http://www.foamular.com/assets/0/144/172/174/4e330789-b09e-4cf0-b2d9-e16ed89ae5c3.pdf
 
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ICT_Kevin

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It's been slow going. We had almost 3 weeks of wait for concrete because of rain. It would rain two days, dry two days, rain again.



I really enjoy showing mini me the big project. He loved walking around the footing trenches.



Footings went in. Inspection approved the work.



Plumbing is in and inspection approved the work.



The slab forms took a couple rounds to go in straight. The side fence is crooked to the property line, faked the guys on the first try. It's exciting that the slab should go in soon.
 
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Conway

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Looks like it's going to be a great garage... Can't wait to see finished pics
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS
Thank you. I'm having fun, digging holes, capping pipes and all.

The foam pic is in my Dad's shop space. The hulls are wood and fabric sailplanes. The left one is a Schleicher Ka-2. Dad has another one of the same model airworthy. It won best in show at a vintage sailplane rally in New York. It's nothing like a big-money car show, but they're slick old ships. The fuselage is all wood. The front half of the wings are wood, and the rear half are fabric. I think it's a 1958.





The right hand Fuselage is a Wolf Hirth Lo-150. It's a post-war (1949?) competition sailplane. This one has a broken wing attach mast because it caught a wing tip before it had stopped on a bad landing. This ship won the Nationals in 1953 at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport if I recall the year correctly. Now it's a cheap airplane in need of repair.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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I got a slab Thursday morning. The foam and mesh went down Wed afternoon, so i did a ten-hour pex and foam trimming binge Wednesday night, until storms sent me inside. Like many, I'm not connecting the pex at first. I'd like to do a solar collector later to help keep the garage above freezing in winter.

Wednesday at Midnight


I had to scramble and mount the pex bend guides as the first concrete truck was on the way.


How to get concrete in the back yard.


There it is.


Overall view.


Sloped floor to drain, level sills for framing.


The pex stacks are just inside the wall space left for framing. I'm pretty proud of the fit.


Framing will be a bit out, waiting for trusses in 2-3 weeks.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS
Fast and Slow. I got an unexpected update that attic trusses were coming Monday, two weeks ago. It was two weeks earlier than expected. We scrambled, got the framing material order set and a crane scheduled. Their regular forklift won't fit between buildings to get to the garage. Trusses didn't show Monday, but we expected them early Tuesday, so the framers got started. We got to the point shown. Trusses didn't make Tues, or Wed, and on and on. Friday 2 weeks later, the trusses supposedly aren't built yet. The company is a mess for communication. Hoping for a recovery plan tomorrow or Tues. I have windows, doors, roofing, siding lined up, ahead of schedule now.

I like the big header on the wide door. 18 x 5.25 Parallel Strand Lumber.


From up high. There's a well lit brace piece up the middle. Parking and shed to the right, workshop goes to the left.


The important workshop side. A stairway on the left wall will eat some space. The plumbing shows how far out the staircase comes.
 
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ICT_Kevin

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We got a recovery plan together. We changed suppliers and got a quick turn on trusses. The plan is to have a crane out this afternoon and have them all set by 7:00 tonight.

 
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ICT_Kevin

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Wichita, KS ~ Air Capital of the World they say. Cessna build 150,000 airplanes in Wichita, Winfield, and Independence. Boeing 737 fuselages still come from here, and the Beech line. ICT in my profile name is the identifier code for Mid Continent Airport.
 
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Binrat

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Hurst, TX
Nice build, i spent a lot of summers in Wichita at my grandparents place there. Still have a few relatives out there.
 
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