Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Anyone out there with a small 2 car garage?

[slomaro3.4]

So I'm moving again and back to Pittsburgh. Since I'll be working from home I wanted to live at least sort of downtown. I'm considering putting in an offer on a townhome with a 17'4" wide 18'6" deep garage with 7'6" ceilings. At least for now I'll be parking a C7 corvette and L494 Range Rover Sport in it. I have a basement room that I'll be turning into a mudroom / tool room. But for those of you with similar sized garages how have you been making it work?

 

[Bulldog13]

It’s a pretty tight fit…..truck and Jeep are outside to make room for tools and bikes . I try to maximize floor space by hanging a lot up high

 

[cliffcharb]

Couldn’t make it work for me with two cars.
One car it was doable. But I have all my tools stuffed in there also.

 

[Adam12367]

Mine is 18x18 but with an 8 foot door, so I can't relate to trying to get two regular size cars in there. Although I did have a Sprite and a Spitfire in there for a short time. Here is a thread with what I did with my space.

The 18x18 -ish

Hello everyone, I've been lurking here for awhile and picking up some great ideas from everyone so I figured it was time I gave back a bit. And hopefully be prodded into doing some more work on the space. Awhile back I posted about spacing and layout for a new garage, well, the prices i...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[rmmiller]

Grab a drink and a snack, you'll be here a while!

The 12-Gauge Garage

This is a long thread. I won't try and stop anyone from reading all of it. But for a more-concise tour of the place, it'll only take you 10 minutes to go through this video: And here are some recent pictures. If you go through the thread from the beginning, you'll be able to see the...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[Dumber than lumber]

A two car garage will always be SMALL in my opinion!
My adult son told me that he learned at university the maxim that Limitations require/encourage creativity.
I had been yearning for a bigger place, but for now I think I will have to become more creative.

 

[runwhatyabrung]

17.5 x 20 here, I treat it as a big one car garage for 3 seasons and only use it as a 2 car during the winter, The Z goes as close to the wall for winter storage and snowblower right against the wall next to my door entrance, it's a tough fit. Everything that can gets hung up on the wall

 

[DeeDubz]

Prior to building my shop I had all my tools in the wifes garage. Its considered a two car but only one car could fit. I had all my tools air compressor, welder, fridge...ect. It wasn't perfect but I made it work.

 

[ddawg16]

Oh.....we are supposed to put our vehicles 'in' the garage?

I've been doing it wrong all this time............


My jeep won't fit. Too tall
And my garage is full of stuff.....and it's 2-story.....such is life

 

[Beelzeboss]

Mine is 17.4ft x 17.7ft and I've abandoned trying to put a 2nd car in there with all my tools. Everything is arranged down the sides and I have a huge storage area under the house where I keep all my car parts/raw materials. The end of the garage is left free because my Volvo is almost 16ft long, not leaving much room to walk around it when working on it.
When I start working on my hot-rod project that's quite a bit shorter so I'm looking forward to having more room to walk around.

 

[Badgerstate]

So I'm moving again and back to Pittsburgh. Since I'll be working from home I wanted to live at least sort of downtown. I'm considering putting in an offer on a townhome with a 17'4" wide 18'6" deep garage with 7'6" ceilings. At least for now I'll be parking a C7 corvette and L494 Range Rover Sport in it. I have a basement room that I'll be turning into a mudroom / tool room. But for those of you with similar sized garages how have you been making it work?

I make mine work by only parking 1 car in it and having the rest of it be for my tools, equipment and work space. It works fine, the only bummer is that I had to agree to brush the snow off of my wife's car during the winter.

 

[jeep63]

I make mine work by only parking 1 car in it and having the rest of it be for my tools, equipment and work space. It works fine, the only bummer is that I had to agree to brush the snow off of my wife's car during the winter.

I just entered into a similar bargain with my wife. Lol.

 

[Badgerstate]

I just entered into a similar bargain with my wife. Lol.

Yeah, I mean its the best that I could do. Theres just a lot less worries by agreeing to clean her car off during the winter. I could see her leaving for work and leaving the door open, driving into the shelf on the back wall of the garage and driving into the garage door itself.

 

[nicholam77]

@slomaro3.4 do you have a bunch of tools and stuff or just the cars to fit? 17'4" x 18'6" will be pretty tight either way.

Mine is 18' x 20' and I park two cars year round, albeit they are on the compact side (VW mk7 golf gti and Mazda CX-5). Workbenches and woodworking tools go on the back wall, as well as hanging storage on the side walls.

There is very little space to get in and out on the sides. I have two young kids in car seats and I always have to pull out of the garage to get them seated. A pain, but still worth it to park inside to me.

One thing I did since I can't open the doors fully, is installed some door protector pads on the walls where the car doors touch.

Here are some pics to see what I have been able to fit:







Cars come out, and it's actually pretty spacious for the type of projects I do.

 

[Bucklagrim]

I remember those years, some pictures of my former mess. Still got alot done in that garage.

 

[slomaro3.4]

Dang I kept reading this thread and failing to reply. I do have a decent amount of tools and such, but luckily I live alone so I'm going to turn a bedroom that is right off of the garage into a bicycle / tool room which I hope will help. I'm glad to see a few folks make it work at least for 1 season per year. I'm definitely at a bit of a disadvantage with 2 wider cars.

I think I'm going to have to figure out some storage on the walls in the back to get some cleaning equipment in the garage. I was over with the home inspector too and to be fair I took very conservative measurements. There is a largish pipe that intrudes on one side, but not counting that it's more or less 18' wide and 18' deep on 1 side 19' deep on the other. I figure if I get fed up with it I can always swap the range rover for something smaller, I really like having both of my cars tucked away inside though.

 

[rmckee]

I had an 18x17 in Boston with low ceilings. It was, as others have stated, a 1 car storage in the summer and a 2 car in the winter, with zero space left for anything more than squeezing by to close the door. I could fit 2x Jeep SUVs in there but it truly was tight.

 

[joey1320]

Mine is 22' x 21' and it's tight fit. Two cars in and you can't really do much of anything other than walk around them. For actual work, one car must come out in order to get enough clearance around the car being worked on.

Find ways to utilize as much wall space (Height) as possible in order to clear as much lower space. There are many threads here with good info. Since your are in Pittsburgh, consider a heater. I'm using a 220v Dr. Heater unit that I got from Amazon for $110 and its a great little heater.

 

[cowades206]

Any serious work probably requires the door to be open and one vehicle parked outside. I gave up on the second car in my 20x20 but I can fit several motorcycles, tool boxes, work bench, lathe, air compressor. I usually have to move something outside if I'm doing more than an oil change or replacing a belt. I can swap out the summer/winter wheels on the wife's car, with the door closed, but it is tight and slow. If the weather is halfway nice, I'll do it in the driveway. Here's a pic of replacing a wheel bearing. One motorcycle is outside and it was summer so I could work with the door open. The winters can get really long. But it is WAY better than a parking lot, car port, or on the street!

 

[slomaro3.4]

Well I pulled the trigger on the house and am in the process of moving in. I agree with everyone that I won't be doing any work with 2 cars in the garage. I'm also looking at downsizing the range rover to a wrangler since I'm not commuting anymore which should help space wise.

 

[pwschuh]

I use lots of wall-mounted storage: shelves, cabinets, can racks, peg hooks, etc. It's harder for you with cinderblock walls.

 

[rixtrix1]

Mine is around 17.5X18.8 with an 8' ceiling. I've had my '66 Chevelle project inside since we moved in 30+ years ago. The front end is off and there is only 30" behind it to move around. Add in 3 welders, torch set, drill press, fab table, 4' workbench, toolbox, press, brake lathe, bicycle and a ton of parts, materials and there's barely room to move. My Suburban is too long to fit, our extended roof GMC van is too tall, my extended cab S10 is too long. and only my wife's new Buick Encore could fit if there was any open space. If you just plan to park, you should be fine!

 

[v6buick]

I'm working out of a 22x19.




I still haven't decided on whether or not to expand this garage and commit to living here for the long term or just buy a new place with more land and a shop. Neither one can happen any time soon though. Either way, this barely functions as a useable space for my car projects.

 

[m6z]

I'll be building a small workshop/shed in the backyard when funds allow. It's either that or only park one car inside, which is fine right now since I've only got one car at the moment.

 

[Bessy]

All of these photos and stories make me incredibly glad for the space 23×29or31 (I don't recall the total depth) that I have had for the last few years. Ceilings are only 7' but with the wagon as my only vehicle I've been able to make very good use of the space. It makes me even more sad that I'll be giving it up very soon to move to an indeterminate garage/shop situation, that is still tba.

 

[Klokwerk]

@slomaro3.4 That's a good space and if you have reasonable expectations then I think I'll be just fine in there.
Congrats on the new move!

 

[Relax]

If you have enough space between the doorway and wall there, you could use one of these on each side (they're 7' x 2'):



My father-in-law has two of them in front of each other (so 7' x 4'), and set the lowest shelves high enough to park hood-first underneath.

 

[mepstein]

My friend was going to sell his house with a 1 car garage to buy a different one with a two car. He liked his house but wanted more garage space. I added up his cost to sell; real estate commission, transfer tax, etc and cost to buy: mortgage cost, closing cost, transfer tax, etc. He took the estimated $25-30K in moving fees and put a nice shop in his backyard. He is very happy how it all worked out.
I’m not saying this is the solution for everyone but it is worth adding up the cost of the move and how much more you will pay to get the extra space.