Hello everyone. I live in the thumb area of Michigan. Ive been checking out this site for many years gaining ideas and such. I created an intro a while back and figured Id share some of my garage build.
My previous house had a great 60x40 workshop and when it came time to relocate the out buildings were of great concern...Well my wife and I fell in love with a 1952 California styled ranch that had an attached two car as well as an 18x18 detached shed. It was quite the downsize from what I was used to but the pros on the property itself outweighed the few cons. Shortly after moving I finished off the attached garage for my personal workshop with plans for a future build...fast forward about 3 years and I was finally able to make that dream a reality. Heres my approach to a somewhat documentation of the building....
Our house sat in a valley with a large hill to the west tapering off around the rear of the property. I wanted 12 foot ceilings to acommodate a hoist, but did not want the out building to loom over the house. So it was decided to dig out the hill and "set" the building into it. Of course the initial cost was more for excavation as well as concrete, but my wife and I both felt it would be worth it in the end... The township allowable size with my existing building was 1900 sq/ft so I went as big as I possibly could go. 36x52 was decided upon.
I cleared the build site of a massive amount of brush, bushes and small trees. And with the help of a few buddies we cut down 3 super tall trees- 2 of which were dying, so I didnt feel too bad clearing them. My property is heavily wooded and that was one of the things we liked so much...Finally The excavator was getting started. The building sticking out in the corner of the photo is the existing detached. The driveways will be shared to each building.
In the end about 40 dump truck loads of dirt/sand/soil were removed to gain the floor level that we wanted. Here my buddy and my wife are walking in the "hole"...
My previous house had a great 60x40 workshop and when it came time to relocate the out buildings were of great concern...Well my wife and I fell in love with a 1952 California styled ranch that had an attached two car as well as an 18x18 detached shed. It was quite the downsize from what I was used to but the pros on the property itself outweighed the few cons. Shortly after moving I finished off the attached garage for my personal workshop with plans for a future build...fast forward about 3 years and I was finally able to make that dream a reality. Heres my approach to a somewhat documentation of the building....
Our house sat in a valley with a large hill to the west tapering off around the rear of the property. I wanted 12 foot ceilings to acommodate a hoist, but did not want the out building to loom over the house. So it was decided to dig out the hill and "set" the building into it. Of course the initial cost was more for excavation as well as concrete, but my wife and I both felt it would be worth it in the end... The township allowable size with my existing building was 1900 sq/ft so I went as big as I possibly could go. 36x52 was decided upon.
I cleared the build site of a massive amount of brush, bushes and small trees. And with the help of a few buddies we cut down 3 super tall trees- 2 of which were dying, so I didnt feel too bad clearing them. My property is heavily wooded and that was one of the things we liked so much...Finally The excavator was getting started. The building sticking out in the corner of the photo is the existing detached. The driveways will be shared to each building.
In the end about 40 dump truck loads of dirt/sand/soil were removed to gain the floor level that we wanted. Here my buddy and my wife are walking in the "hole"...
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