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3 Car Garage, Help me!

jackhossross

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Feb 26, 2020
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Denver, CO
Hey guys,

New member here - but I stumbled on here because it seems there are a lot of like-minded individuals here.

So let me spell out my programming needs and see how everyone reacts.


Wife and I are expecting our first kid. Building a new garage with the connected Mudroom.

I own a 1989 Land Cruiser (that I daily) and she owns a 2013 Audi Q7 (Hopefully will be a brand new Land Cruiser soon though)

I am in the process of rebuilding a BMW M20b27 Super ETA engine. I do not have a car yet (hence the need for a 3 car garage) but the platform I want to drop it into is a 1968-1973 BMW 2002.

Needs:
Space for 6' Snap-On Drawer
Space for 4' Concrete Wash Basin
4 Bike Hangers
2 Stroller Hangers
Floor Drains
Wall Slat/Peg board for tools/outdoor equipment storage

Wants:
Air Compressor Closet
Storage options above 2 car garage door


We live in Denver, Colorado off of I-25
Wall height is 8'

Below is snip of line drawing.

Thanks for any and all help.

qnBODWO.png
 
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Hammer1963

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Sounds like this is going to be a nice setup full of good projects and capabilities. Anxious to see what takes flight
 

Kaizen

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Go high like 12 feet. Gives you ability to store cars in a lift. Not much more money. Why the wash basin? Not sure what you are describing. Forget about floor drains unless it’s mandated. Lots of areas won’t allow at all.
At 8 feet you will always be looking for space. Use attic trusses. Consider building so you can have that as another room in future.


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YukonXL04

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Your going to want more than 32ft width. Our in progress 3 car is 36 wide and 26 deep. The 26 deep leaves plenty of room in front of my crew cab truck or my wife's suburban. The 12ft each stall width let's you open the doors on each vehicle without door dinging them.
 

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Stuart in MN

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People will always say a garage is not big enough, but it also depends on your budget, the available space (and local regulations), and the size of the vehicles. If you're going to get a BMW 2002 as a project vehicle they don't take up much space. Even your land cruisers aren't that big when compared to crew cab pickups.
 

ambenz

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You are going to have a lot more "floor" space than I have but I have 10' wall so the height gets me storage space on wall shelves. My garage is 22X30

View media item 6722
So shelves, shelves, shelves... I also store the bikes on the pull up trolleys so that helps to have the wall height.

s-l640.jpg


With the extended space behind the cars is going to be your primo storage area and I would do shallow benches along the walls and car.
I also use all 3 bays in the winter and it is heated to 55F with a convection furnace.
It get tight but with sports cars in the fleet, it's manageable.
You figure it out after you move things about 50 times...LOL Have fun !
 
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GTO

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Whatever you do go deeper...30' would be a minimum for me.
Good luck
 

ddurrett896

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Dang guys, some people do have a budget you know. And they are expecting their first child.

Even more reason to make it bigger. It ends up full of toys and when it's raining or freezing outside, it's where they want to play.

I'm at 1,375sqft and ready to build a detached lol.
 

gnpenning

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I have more questions than answers.
With only 8' walls If you put a storage box on the rover you won't fit in the garage or if you buy taller vehicle you may not get it in the garage.

I'm guessing that one of the 2 mudroom doors is attached to the house and the other outside??
 

ludakris04

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Have you had a garage before? Parking your dailys will tell you that you want more width.
I only have a 20x20. Its too narrow to really park two vehicles in because of trash cans, bikes, opening doors, etc.
If you can swing it, I would allow at least 12ft per car. 26' deep should work pretty well.
 
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Kaizen

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Dang guys, some people do have a budget you know. And they are expecting their first child.



Built mine over 3 years on a budget. Little by little. In my opinion if I was in op’s situation with a kid coming the last thing I’d be doing is starting a garage. Unless I was just cutting a big check for others to do it. Op did a good job laying out what he wanted. We know after living with and building new ones that something has to change in his equation


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zoepop

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While I agree bigger is always better, what you have will work. My attached garage is 34x28. I've rebuilt a bronco and a mustang in it. I would shuffle things a bit when it would snow to get the wife's car in. It was a pain at 1st but certainly doable.

15 years later its getting old so I'm putting up a detached. But it worked for a long time
 

drivesitfar

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Jack: i've got a small 2 car garage (19x20 approx.) that my wife parks her car on one side and the rest is my shop and STUFF. my ceiling height is also 8 foot so you might check out my thread for a few ideas.

if you haven't built your garage/shop yet you might consider going 12 foot ceilings if you can afford it and that will allow a lot of your stuff to be stored up high on racking sort of like I do with my 12 foot tall racks at my 14 foot tall leased storage unit.

if you put the racks sideways you can park your land cruiser, Audi and BMW under them especially if you run the garage door up against the ceiling and wall.

here's a picture of my Costco or Home Depot commercial type racking sideways in my storage unit and i used to have a trailer parked under it until I put in racks and cabinets and left my old trailer outside. click on the link to my garage gallery thread and you might get a few more ideas if you are set on keeping the 8 foot tall ceilings.
 

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jackhossross

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Go high like 12 feet. Gives you ability to store cars in a lift. Not much more money. Why the wash basin? Not sure what you are describing. Forget about floor drains unless it’s mandated. Lots of areas won’t allow at all.
At 8 feet you will always be looking for space. Use attic trusses. Consider building so you can have that as another room in future.


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The ceiling will be vaulted (trusses). I hope to build an attic space up there for seasonal storage. I did that on my last home. Great advice.

In laws have floor drains in Park City, it’s the bees knees for cleaning the cars off in the winter.


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jackhossross

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With only 8' walls If you put a storage box on the rover you won't fit in the garage or if you buy taller vehicle you may not get it in the garage.

I'm guessing that one of the 2 mudroom doors is attached to the house and the other outside??



My land cruiser fits just fine in the current 8’ garage door with 33’s, a 3” lift and an Alu-Cab tent on it.

But current garage is vaulted.



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jackhossross

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Have you had a garage before? Parking your dailys will tell you that you want more width.
I only have a 20x20. Its too narrow to really park two vehicles in because of trash cans, bikes, opening doors, etc.
If you can swing it, I would allow at least 12ft per car. 26' deep should work pretty well.



I will need to look at the dimensions again, as a lot of people are saying too small.

But I parked two SUV’s and stored 4 bikes in my last garage, and it was 386 sq ft. Just had to get very creative with pulleys and such.


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jackhossross

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Built mine over 3 years on a budget. Little by little. In my opinion if I was in op’s situation with a kid coming the last thing I’d be doing is starting a garage. Unless I was just cutting a big check for others to do it. Op did a good job laying out what he wanted. We know after living with and building new ones that something has to change in his equation


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I will not be doing this work myself, we have a master suite addition going that is plan south of the mudroom.

Definitely going to look at the dimensions a bit more.


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jackhossross

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I, reluctantly, am in the "it's too small" camp. I'm usually on the other side, telling guys they don't need something as big and as tall as they're planning unless they want it to become a junk storage. The reason I say too small is because of what the OP has stated as needs. The space won't work well for those. The needs, or the space, needs to change. The space to meet your wants needs to be 36 feet wide and 30 feet deep. The bikes, air compressor, and toolbox will still eat into that space, as will any storage you put in there. I'd expect you'd be leaving one (or both) cars outside to use it as any kind of a workspace, particularly for a frankenstein car build.



My thought on this particular build is that I'd do two things if I was trying to make this space more usable: One, I'd cut the mud room in half or less, to widen the back of the garage by a few feet. Make a workbench alcove back there, and put an air compressor back there if you absolutely have to. Consider not having the monster garage air compressor, and use a small portable instead. Second, I'd put in a single wide door in the middle or slightly offset in the garage, and make it into a roomy 2 car garage with work/storage areas along the outside walls. You could still tuck a car build in the back right hand corner if you have to, and park the daily drivers inside except when you're working on the build.



To make it a functional 3 bay garage AND Shop AND suburban family storage unit it needs to be 36 feet wide and 30 feet deep. Otherwise, it's an awkward, hard to use compromise all the time. Particularly if you store anything in it.



It's hard to give up on the things you want and desire, to conform with reality. The reality is that once you have kids, you need a lot more storage space, and some of the things like the weird car build tend to go by the wayside until the kids are older and/or gone. The idea of a car build gets more and more out of date by that time. It might make marginal sense to put a slightly outdated motor in a quite outdated car today. But, 5 or 10 years from now when you actually get to executing it, you'll be looking at something that quite possibly will make absolutely no sense with the current state of automotive and your own place in life. I went through this. I was planning to build a GT40 clone in my garage. Had assembled many of the parts, and had the tools. I had to move and that put the project on hold, and delayed it. Now, those parts are in my way, some of them got hauled to the junkyard for scrap to make way for other things, and I'm quite satisfied with my modern mustang instead, to the point the GT40 isn't even a wish today.



Look hard at what people are telling you here. You don't have the size and space that you need for what you expressed for wants. You've got a new family that will be changing things. You need to change your wants, or see if you have the resources to actually build something that meets those wants. Or, live with a crowded compromise, that won't serve well.



I don’t know, this just feels like a lot of negative talk here.

My last year has been hard - lots of family ****, wife in rehab for 9 months of it and now we have our own surprise coming.

Before that we lived in a super nice townhome in Boulder with a tiny two car garage that I built attic storage above. While my wife parked outside during the summer I rebuilt my land cruiser transmission in the garage with it parked in it while I rode my bike and took the bus to Denver everyday until it was done. We deal with what we have and make it work.

I don’t know - there are better answers than don’t do it or go bigger. There’s a lot of problems that can be solved with creativity and intelligent design.

This is great feedback though, from everyone. Giving me a lot to think about.


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jackhossross

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Couple things from all the great feedback:

Thank you, it is incredible that I/we can receive such direct feedback from a community that is obviously very passionate about this.

Mudroom is the only thing enabling me to build the garage how I want it. Wife doesn’t care about cars, I’m lucky enough to have a 3 car garage even in the cards.

I shouldn’t have assumed that everyone would make the assumption that the garage is going to have a vaulted ceiling. I will have attic space framed and the ceiling finished there for storage.

Third stall will have a two post lift once the car shows up (by end of first quarter 2021 is the goal).

Wash basin is this super cool soapstone sink I found in Fort Collins. It’s 4 feet by 2 feet, it’s amazing for washing dirt and grime and **** from car parts. Let alone dog **** from shoes and whatever else we track in with us.

This is awesome. Love the feedback, keep it coming and I will continue to update the thread with decisions and development.

Cheers and beers,

JR


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thehorse13

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Even more reason to make it bigger. It ends up full of toys and when it's raining or freezing outside, it's where they want to play.

I'm at 1,375sqft and ready to build a detached lol.

This. 1000 times this. Please pay close attention to this.

The chaos that will explode and spread through your garage will shock you. Every plastic nightmare will be there waiting for you to trip over, and over time, the great plastic mountain will eventually topple over and bury you or your beloved project car.

This condition gets exponentially worse with each child. You've been warned.
 

Kaizen

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The ceiling will be vaulted (trusses). I hope to build an attic space up there for seasonal storage. I did that on my last home. Great advice.

In laws have floor drains in Park City, it’s the bees knees for cleaning the cars off in the winter.


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Might want to ask local building officials. We all would love a drain. When I found out what I had to do I dropped it.
Same goes for any plumbing at all. Adds to price tag substantially.
Not sure what lift you are thinking of but normal ones won’t do well with 8 ft ceiling even if it is vaulted.
As to your “lots of negativity here” comment. We have done it. We have lived it. We know. Would you rather we just like and “heart” your plans? Not what gj is about. Not many here talking about what we have not lived


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jackhossross

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Might want to ask local building officials. We all would love a drain. When I found out what I had to do I dropped it.
Same goes for any plumbing at all. Adds to price tag substantially.
Not sure what lift you are thinking of but normal ones won’t do well with 8 ft ceiling even if it is vaulted.
As to your “lots of negativity here” comment. We have done it. We have lived it. We know. Would you rather we just like and “heart” your plans? Not what gj is about. Not many here talking about what we have not lived


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Negative talk was just in reference to just one comment suggesting I don’t even give a dream of mine a go, I’m taking all of this in, it’s fantastic. If I didn’t want feedback I wouldn’t have asked. We’re all different people and have different goals and desires. That was my only pushback there.

I’m a Project Manager for a large GC, so I understand the costs associated with each piece. But radiant heated garage floors and drains are fantastic in the winter here in Denver.

Unincorporated Arapahoe County is much simpler code wise than Denver/Boulder/Eagle ... I’m pretty comfortable with what I want to do.


Thanks - I am extremely appreciative of all this advice.


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YukonXL04

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I will need to look at the dimensions again, as a lot of people are saying too small.

But I parked two SUV’s and stored 4 bikes in my last garage, and it was 386 sq ft. Just had to get very creative with pulleys and such.


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Build whatever size you can afford. In 5 years it will be too small lol. It will be huge at first, but you will have more room, then acquire more stuff. Then you will be back to creative storage solutions.

The best you can do is build what you can now and deal with storage how its needed. But you will love your new garage! It's an amazing feeling seeing the new garage getting built
 
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jackhossross

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Sorry to be negative; I'll try it again, I took lessons in positive reinforcement when I had art classes in college:



Wow! What a cool project! I think you're spot on with a 30'6" x 26' garage. :beer:



I especially like the 8' ceilings. :thumbup::). You might want to vault it for a couple of trusses to put in a lift and put in some attic storage. Put in a good solid stair to the storage, it's worth it to be able to store stuff like engines and spare parts and welders and stuff up there. There's a lot of designs on here of guys that have vaulted a couple of their trusses to put in a lift; it saves money if you just put in the trusses and then loft it later for the lift after the inspection is finished. Putting in a lift would be bad ***; put aside a bit of your overtime each week and you'll have it paid for in no time; when you get it in, then you can loft the trusses.



I can't believe you're doing a Super ETA in a classic Beamer! It's been my dream ever since I was little to be able to do one on a '70, I think it's the most beautiful car ever built, and it just oozes class. Just needs a bit more horspower than the 2L; can't believe the germans didn't think of that back then. Love the curved tube intakes on that motor, and the vacuum/semi-electronic controls from that particular engine are the best ever for performance and dependability. Combined with some great american "get er done" enginuity, it'll be a show stopper for sure!:drool::drool:



You want to make sure you get one really big, bad *** air pump for the garage. The size of your pump is what separates the real men from the wanna be's with a man bun. You'll want to build a nice closet for the compressor and tank, and make sure you plumb for air all around the shop with copper. Since you're in Denver, you'll want a good refrigerated dryer to make it so you can paint without condensation. And a good Mig, and the biggest, toughest press you can find. Watch HF for coupons on the Mig and press. Watch for the parking lot sales too. Put your electrical all in conduit, over the walls, nothing says PRO like surface mount electricity.



You might want to put in some speakers in the corners, and a good bluetooth system. Mounting a 55" inch TV is great; it'll be especially handy so you can have your son (or daughter) with you in the garage and share some quality time rocking out, streaming some vids and working on the 02 Beamer.



A couple of things on your Needs: I'd go for a hutch on the 72 SO cab. Great place to stash your chargers and with a kid in the garage, some snacks and supplies. I'd add a stainless steel restaurant prep table to the 4' sink; my dad and I did a 14 footer and it was the coolest place to lay out engines and ******'s while we worked them.:pimpflash



Slat wall is the coolest storage system ever. I've even seen guys hanging up their lawn mower and leaf blowers and stuff. It's like adding another 10 feet onto your garage, except cooler, and only takes up 6 inches.



Have you thought about how you're going to do your floor yet? A lot of guys doing Epoxy on here; but the best is the patterned tiles. Contrast that to your wall paint (I'd recommend 2 colors and mid height stripe) and it'll really set the place apart from everybody else.



You're in for the time of your life! It doesn't get much better than this, ever. Building a garage is the most fulfilling, meaningful thing you'll ever do in your life. OMG!!! I'm so jealous.



Don't let the naysayers get you down. There isn't a problem made that can't be solved with creativity and intelligent design, and man, from what I've seen so far of your plans, you've got it nailed! :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:



Good luck on your build!! Make sure you post pics as you go so we can share in the experience.


Yikes.

Thanks for the constructive feedback folks. I guess I’ll see myself out now.

Cheers and beers


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ssdave

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This is long; sorry, but to be meaningful it needs to be.

All joking aside, here’s an attempt at some constructive suggestions. I am an engineer and designer for a living, so deal a lot with trying to fit peoples dreams, wants and desires into reality in the space they are having designed. I’ll try to address your space specifically.

The design of the garage is a typical, residential 3 car garage such as is found on most upper level suburban subdivision homes. Great for resale, not necessarily for shop use. What you described as your wants are shop use. Plus suburban storage. Plus vehicle garage. You describe storage needs of a 72” SO roller, a oversize sink, 4 bikes hung up, 2 strollers hung up, a large air compressor in an enclosed area, a lift, attic storage space, and talk about having a family. A typical family uses most of this garage space for storage; occasionally they are able to fit 1 or 2 cars into it. At least part time.
You also have talked about making do in the past, by parking your vehicles outside so you could rebuild a transmission and working around the space you have. You talk about dealing with what you have in the future. If that’s the approach you want to take, just forge ahead with your plans. Or, look at how you can make changes to both your space, and your wants/needs/desires, and come up with a better overall situation. I always look at ways I can change things administratively or procedurally before I make the investment in space and resources to build something.

Here's where I’d go with procedure:

Do you need to store 3 vehicles in the garage? Since one is a project, do you really need 3 active doors?
Do you need to store 4 bicycles and 3 strollers in the garage?
Do you really have a need for a large air compressor? And the closet for it?
Do you really need a lift, and willing to budget the space for it? Have you realistically analyzed what space the lift takes?
What are your realistic storage needs? Can they be met with an inaccessible attic? What will your increasing family do to the storage needs? What kids toys, bikes, strollers, wagons, dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, skate ramps, etc will you need to store and have access to use?
Do you really want/need a project car, and can you give realistic time to completing it? Is it your critical spare time activity, so you are willing to devote the real space you need for it?
The answers to those procedural questions give the final design criteria.

Here’s where I’d critique your design.

The minimum width for 3 workable vehicle bays is: 2 feet from wall to door, 8 foot door, 2 feet space, 18 foot door, 2 feet from door to wall. That’s 32 feet. Minimum. You can cram in 2 feet tighter, if you accept that you can minimally move around the vehicles, it will be hard to get in and out the doors. This will give you no storage of any usable kind on the side walls. The land cruiser is about a 17 foot long vehicle. Give 2 feet clear to the garage door, and 3 feet to minimally move in front of the vehicle and you’ve got 22 feet depth. So, minimum garage parking size is 32 x 22 feet. Working and storage space needs to be added to that. You’re 6” too narrow, but can cramp up to live with that. You’ve got 4 feet of depth left to meet your working and storage needs.
4 bikes and 2 strollers hung in an 8’ ceiling: need 4’ depth, x 24” width to hang and access them: You’ve used up 12 feet of width, 3 feet deep. 6 foot rolling cabinet. Air Compressor 3 feet minimum. 4 foot sink. You’ve used up 28 feet of the 31’6” you plan. You have 3’6” for your slat wall storage and other storage stuff.
So, you’ve managed to cram in the minimum of stuff that you want, and have no space left over for lift, work space, work benches, family storage of stuff, garage and house supplies storage, garbage and recycling, ladder, yard tools, lawn mower, etc.

So, how can you go about increasing the pie? Add an attic? Good plan. Make sure you have access space for a ladder. If you use pull down, you’re making the space less usable, so only low use stuff will be up there. Plus, the pull down has to be in a clear spot on the floor, or you’ll have to move a vehicle to use it. The garage doors block access to a lot of the ceiling. Plan on putting the stairs over the 3 foot aisle between the vehicles and the 4 foot of storage against the back wall.

You can also increase the pie easily by eliminating half the mud room. That room is what we call a “bowling alley” in the house sale world. A bowling alley room in a house DECREASES the value. It isn’t usable. Chart out what is door swing and corridor space, and you’ll see there’s only room for a set of shelves. Split the space in half, and you move that corridor space into the garage, it’s still in the same space, but you’ve added usable shelf and working space to the garage, in excess of what you took out of the house. You’ve also made it much easier to move around and access the garage space. Essentially you shared corridor space so increased the usable area.

You can add a permanent stair to the attic storage. That will allow you to reliably use that space, and you’ve given your family a needed storage area. You can make that stair steep (ship ladder) if you keep your size down below the code minimum for an alternative stair design. That way you minimize the impact on the usable garage space. You’re trading a small amount of garage space for a larger amount of attic storage.

You still haven’t accommodated your lift. The garage doors and your walking corridors and your ceiling height and desire for attic storage use up almost all the floor room. A lift can’t work without compromise, at all. You can install a lift, and park under it, walk over it, and have it in the way. It’ll gut the usability of the garage for workspace and car storage. It’ll need a higher ceiling, and reduce the available attic area for your storage. To get a lift in effectively, you need to go bigger. Here’s where I’d really start to ask if a lift is needed. It’s an expensive, space hogging luxury. Unless you do work that really needs it, and is valuable enough to either hog the space or make you buy more space, I’d abandon that idea. Buy some good jack stands and a decent floor jack.

Back to air compressor. Air compressors are space hogs and noisy. What do you do that needs air? Can you use battery or cordless tools instead? Many guys are going that way. Can you get a small pancake compressor and store it between uses? That’s a compromise a huge number of suburban garages make.

Can you put a garden shed in to store your yard tools and lawn mower and similar stuff? Can you put a garbage can area outside so the garbage isn’t inside?

Here’s where I’d go with my recommendation.
Decide you’re going to have a 2 car vehicle storage garage, with the third bay a work and storage area. Use the wall where the door was for slat wall storage or workbench or shelving. Eliminating one door gives you ceiling room, wall space, and lets you use all the area, not use part of it for door access. Put in one large door for 2 car access and leave one side of the garage for workspace. You don’t need a door for a project car space, just use wheel rollers to move it sideways from the other bays. Add a staircase up to the attic storage, and maximize that attic storage to keep junk out of the garage working space. A usable stair is the prerequisite for that. A ladder or pull down won’t get used much. Add 8 feet of depth to the garage, to provide storage space for the bikes, strollers, tools, sink, workbench, etc. Go to a small portable air compressor, or install in the attic or doghouse outside to save valuable garage space. Eliminate the bowling alley mud room, and block it out into a smaller, more usable space. Use the remainder of the space to provide workbench or cabinetry or storage, and a corridor inside the garage to the back door; you’ll have the same functionality and more usable space. Eliminate the lift. If you can’t do that, you’ll need to increase ceiling height, use scissor or vault trusses to make lift height, and eliminate most, if not all, of the attic storage space. Or, make the garage a lot bigger. It’s a hard trade off to make, and only you can judge what is most valuable to you.
 

andyvh1959

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Location
Green Bay WI
The smaller you build the more critical the planning for storage and what you want to do in it from day to day. Budget allowing consider some creature comforts like insulation and heating/cooling (depending your locale). The bigger you build the lazier you'll end up being just because you have the space, But without planning the space luxury will easily fill up just because you thought you had the space.

My previous garage I built was detached 1350 sq ft, and I was loading it up with stuff before I really planned out the workable details. Right now I am building a 24x28 detached garage, keeping it smaller to keep the budget reasonable and also to make me plan it out better, not just load it up with ****.
 
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