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Eastern NC Garage (House) Build

MMehler

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Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
Over the remainder of this year (and hopefully no longer, but I'm not holding my breath) I will chronical the build of our new garage, I mean house, in eastern North Carolina. I will continue the thread once the garage/house are complete since I will then be outfitting the garage in a, as you know, never ending process.

First a bit of background. The garage I envisioned would have been a three car attached with a two to three car detached garage/shop. Unfortunately, the lure of being close to the water won out and my wife and I purchased a lot that was considerably smaller than envisioned and will not accomodate a detached garage. Our lot is .29 acres, but the trade off is that we can walk to our boat slip. I'll live. ;)

We bought the lot for a very good price approximately three years ago (bank owned and mis-listed on the MLS as it did not have the box checked that it included the boat slip). We figured we would eventually build, or we would eventually sell it for a profit. We're excited to be building as we've used the slip for the past three years and are really looking forward to not having to drive to the boat each time we want to use it.

Our architect does whatever I want. He's my father. I have wanted my dad to design a house for me ever since I was a kid and he designed the house that I grew up in since I was 7 years old. I have great memories of exploring that house as it was being built and have always loved traipsing around in houses mid-build. So this is pretty much a lifelong dream come true and a nice circle come complete since he also designed a house for his parents, himself/my mother, and now us.

The compromise on the garage meant I needed to find a way to maximize my garage space, and hopefully, make it suit my needs as best as possible. My goals: Have room for both my wife and I to park our cars and having room/height for a two post lift. This means having one spot for her and multiple for me. She does not currently park in our two car attached garage, mostly due to discomfort with the tight space (I don't know if I'll ever convince her that there's enough room). For me this means hoping to have space to park my DD, my race car, my project/classic car and maybe room for another. The good news is, I like small cars.

At the time we began designing the house/garage I owned a 2006 Miata. This was, other than my DD, the largest car I drove so the idea was to be able to fit 4 third generation Miata sized cars in my portion of the garage and then have room for my wife's vehicle as well.

To be continued...
 
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MMehler

Active member
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
So here's a detail on the garage plan:

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Measurements are 25'x36' for the double and 12'x21'9" for the single. In the double I should be able to fit 4 3rd gen Miatas.

The center post has been eliminated. I've designated the right back portion of the double for the two post Rotary lift that is waiting in a friend's shed.

The left side of the double will likely hold my daily driver and the single is for the wife (at least that's the plan...).
 
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MMehler

Active member
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
This is what the lot looked like as well as the slip when we purchased it in 2012: Trees.


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Prior to a little updating:

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MMehler

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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
So about 2/3 of our lot was in the 100 year flood plain and and if we wanted to avoid paying massive flood insurance on an annual basis we would need to raise the level of the lot to approximately 9' above sea level. This meant one thing: DIRT!

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And more and more dirt until we finally had enough!

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The next step was to apply for a letter of map amendment to officially be out of the flood zone according to FEMA. This took 3 months. And after that we needed to have our plans finally permitted, which took another couple weeks. So....we were finally ready to build!
 
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NeuseRvrRat

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Mar 10, 2015
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That view from your dock looks familiar. I live up hwy 421 in Pender County and fish that area a great deal. Caught some really nice trout just up the Brunswick River from your spot this past Fall. Are you new to the area?
 
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MMehler

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Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
Nice! I've been in ILM since '06. Looking forward to a bit more fishing next year once we're in and the boat is a little more accessible. Right now it's about a 20 minute drive there and back.

Love the screen name btw, I spent several summers on the Neuse!
 
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MMehler

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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
Here are the elevations and floor plans for the house/garage:

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We easily will have a 12' ceiling in the garage since we will have a 4' crawl space. In an effort to save a little money we decided to go with pilings rather than a traditional block foundation, enclosed with batten board. Unfortunately our savings here did not materialize as I will share next...
 
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MMehler

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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
So as the pilings went in it was discovered that the soft ground couldn't support the load they needed so several needed to be collared with concrete or filled and pilings anchored. So much for savings...

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The good news is that while they came in with the concrete for the pilings they went ahead and did the garage floor.

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This meant picking a spot for the two post lift to add footers for the anchors.

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So we have a garage floor! I was pretty excited to see this for the first time!

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MMehler

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Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
This is pretty much were things stand to date. I was there on Sunday and they are ready to anchor the pilings that were cut and then cut them all to the correct height. This had begun prior to my last visit. Hopefully by the next visit they'll start the trusses across the pilings so they can start the subfloor.

I'm excited to see the size/shape of the garage, but it was a little anti-climactic since there won't be much else to see there for a while. I suppose they'll frame the walls for the garage as they are completing the first floor framing as well...
 
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MMehler

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Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
41
Location
Wilmington, NC
So there's been progress on the garage that I was happy to see.

My "holy ****" moment came upon seeing the wall/ceiling height. Yes, yes, yes.

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