Hello,
I’ve been lurking around the site for years dreaming of incredible shops and garages. Well, I am now under construction for my new garage shop and thought I’d share my plans and progress. Like most such projects, my dreams are curtailed by the realities of zoning and budget. We live in the city of Seattle on a 5,100 SF lot (102 x 50). Our house is 104 years old and is lovely, but it has no garage. I’ve had a shop space at my place of work, but I'm demolishing that building at the end of the year, so it’s time to build a shop at home before my play cars get left out in the cold and rain.
Lot coverage rules limit me to a 20’ x 20’ structure, so this will not be a Garage Mahal. I do have the benefit of a full basement under the house with exterior entry at grade (not practical for car access) and an understanding wife, so the garage will be entirely my domain and will not have to shelter daily drivers, bikes, strollers, or sundry yard implements and holiday decorations. Thus it will be small, but dedicated to my projects, foremost of which is my addiction to hotrod vintage Porsches. Luckily my cars of choice are relatively small and low ;-).
Our lot has no alley access, so the driveway runs up the south side of the house and is only 9 feet wide. The garage will be nestled into the south east corner of the back yard with almost zero setback from the property lines. The garage will have one 8’ garage door on the south half of the west face. I plan on having a four post lift there with a sliding jack plate. Thus I can stack my two 911’s and the right lift (Backyard Buddy for example) has ramps far enough apart to allow me to drop a 911 motor between them (motors are about 36” wide and the BB lift has 39.5” clear between ramps). The other half of the garage will be dedicated to work area with benches, storage, toolboxes, ext…
Since our entire backyard is only about 1,500 SF and the garage will take up almost a third of that, we wanted to get back as much space as possible, thus the roof of the garage will be fully structural and have a full planted garden in raised beds. The topography of our yard will allow a terraced set of steps onto the roof for easy access that don’t really take away from the usable area of the yard. The roof will therefore be mostly flat with a slight slope to allow for drainage. The low side of the roof (east) will allow for about 9’ clear ceiling height and the high side will be about 10’. It will be a little close, but my cars are low enough to allow stacking even with this relatively low ceiling height.
I’ll be reusing three steel sash industrial windows in the garage that measure 5x4 and the top 2/3 pivot to open. I’m salvaging these from the building my shop is currently in that I am taking down. This will allow a lot of natural light into the garage and help it feel a little more open.
The garage door is an all glass Clopay frosted unit that provide privacy from prying eyes on the street looking up my driveway, but allow even more light into the work area.
EDIT January, 2016 - Here are some preview shots from later in this thread:
I’ve been lurking around the site for years dreaming of incredible shops and garages. Well, I am now under construction for my new garage shop and thought I’d share my plans and progress. Like most such projects, my dreams are curtailed by the realities of zoning and budget. We live in the city of Seattle on a 5,100 SF lot (102 x 50). Our house is 104 years old and is lovely, but it has no garage. I’ve had a shop space at my place of work, but I'm demolishing that building at the end of the year, so it’s time to build a shop at home before my play cars get left out in the cold and rain.
Lot coverage rules limit me to a 20’ x 20’ structure, so this will not be a Garage Mahal. I do have the benefit of a full basement under the house with exterior entry at grade (not practical for car access) and an understanding wife, so the garage will be entirely my domain and will not have to shelter daily drivers, bikes, strollers, or sundry yard implements and holiday decorations. Thus it will be small, but dedicated to my projects, foremost of which is my addiction to hotrod vintage Porsches. Luckily my cars of choice are relatively small and low ;-).
Our lot has no alley access, so the driveway runs up the south side of the house and is only 9 feet wide. The garage will be nestled into the south east corner of the back yard with almost zero setback from the property lines. The garage will have one 8’ garage door on the south half of the west face. I plan on having a four post lift there with a sliding jack plate. Thus I can stack my two 911’s and the right lift (Backyard Buddy for example) has ramps far enough apart to allow me to drop a 911 motor between them (motors are about 36” wide and the BB lift has 39.5” clear between ramps). The other half of the garage will be dedicated to work area with benches, storage, toolboxes, ext…
Since our entire backyard is only about 1,500 SF and the garage will take up almost a third of that, we wanted to get back as much space as possible, thus the roof of the garage will be fully structural and have a full planted garden in raised beds. The topography of our yard will allow a terraced set of steps onto the roof for easy access that don’t really take away from the usable area of the yard. The roof will therefore be mostly flat with a slight slope to allow for drainage. The low side of the roof (east) will allow for about 9’ clear ceiling height and the high side will be about 10’. It will be a little close, but my cars are low enough to allow stacking even with this relatively low ceiling height.
I’ll be reusing three steel sash industrial windows in the garage that measure 5x4 and the top 2/3 pivot to open. I’m salvaging these from the building my shop is currently in that I am taking down. This will allow a lot of natural light into the garage and help it feel a little more open.
The garage door is an all glass Clopay frosted unit that provide privacy from prying eyes on the street looking up my driveway, but allow even more light into the work area.
EDIT January, 2016 - Here are some preview shots from later in this thread:
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