First House, First Garage -- 30x28

[LShee778]

30x28 Triple Trouble -- Auto Fab Garage

I will be keeping track of my garage build on here and taking tips/advice from you guys. This is my first house (I've been renting and I'm a recent college grad). The garage is technically a carport right now since it has no garage doors.

Specs: 30' wide x 28' Deep
3 openings each over 9' wide
21' to the rear wall (workshop behind this wall entire width of garage)

Table of Contents:

Page 3 -- Garage Door Install
Page 5 -- Wall Removal/Header Install

Here's the current plan. I quickly sketched this using Sketchup.







Current Progress:







Plans: Frame in for (3) 9' x 7' garage doors.
Remove homasote walls/ceiling and hang drywall
Remove 15' from left side of back wall
Insulate/build workbench/add storage
Eventually figure out some sort of floor coating

Here's what we started with:

 

[1953mercury]

Might be a more useful space if you just knock out that partition wall. Mike

 

[LShee778]

I was thinking about that and it is still a very viable option. It just seemed that it would keep the larger area more organized and cleaner looking if all of my tools/welder/mower/etc. were kept in the back room.

I am also thinking about adding a larger sliding barn-style door to the back wall if I decide not to remove it.

 

[draider]

Looks like there's plenty of potential there. Nice first house.

 

[LShee778]

Looks like there's plenty of potential there. Nice first house.

Thanks a lot. It needs a lot of updating inside so that will come first, but I need to drywall and install garage doors before that so I can store things in the garage while we renovate. I won't be living in the house while we renovate the upstairs.

 

[bobemmerich]

Nice 1st house and garage. I would open the wall enough to get at the stuff without it being seen. Before you open and remove anything, I would recommend seeing if that's a load bearing wall or not. If it is, then you would have to look at options.

 

[LShee778]

Nice 1st house and garage. I would open the wall enough to get at the stuff without it being seen. Before you open and remove anything, I would recommend seeing if that's a load bearing wall or not. If it is, then you would have to look at options.

It isn't load bearing. I have already checked on that. I am leaning toward either removing it and adding lots of storage space to keep organized or adding a large sliding barn door in place of the old ratty doorway there already.

 

[socket_wrench]

if you're closing in the port, you might as well open the back wall. then you'll just have one big-a garage and it would still be secure. perhaps close in one of the three garage doors? so only two ports open and one is closed. that would give you some privacy if you wanted it. but still open the back.

 

[LShee778]

Edit: Changed Plans

 

[bobemmerich]

I think the barn style door is a good idea. More space without the clutter.

 

[Omphaloskeptic]

I like the barn door idea also. You could still use the expanse of the door to hang a bunch of 'stuff' if you so chose and if the door tracks were stout enough.

 

[LShee778]

Good point Omphaloskeptic. I'm really leaning towards this idea now. Now I am thinking of doing roughly a 15' door (if I can find one) so that I can open up one half of the back wall since the garage is a little over 30' wide.

Edit: upon further research it looks like I will just draw up the hardware in solidworks and cut/weld the hardware myself. The door shouldn't be too mad to make either and it should save me some money as well.

 

[LShee778]

After further thinking and some sketches I have narrowed the layout down to this:

I will be removing about 12' of the rear wall to open up the left-most bay for use as my "project bay". I wanted to add some 2'x4' fluorescent fixtures as shown but my father says he wouldnt go with fluorescents. Any input on this? I will also be adding some sort of pivoting/extending dock light to the back wall to assist with underhood lighting while doing repairs. There will be workbench lighting as well (pictured).

 

[dubber]

Wow, great canvas to start working with. GL

 

[LShee778]

Wow, great canvas to start working with. GL

Thanks Dubber. I do a little dubbing of my own haha:

1989 MK1 Wolfsburg Cabby

2002 MK4 GTI VR6 24V

2001.5 B5.5 Passat 1.8T

and a few other stockers have gone through the family as well.

 

[dubber]

Very sweet collection you had, that caught me off guard based on your pics and your sig. Come back to the dark (euro) side!

 

[LShee778]

Eventually. I really enjoy classic domestic stuff but I would love to get back into a B5 preferably a W8 Passat or an S4. I'm also wanting to build a diesel MK1 but that will all have to wait until the house is finished.

 

[Kevin54]

Congrats on the new house. Just out of curiosity, what's the problem with the roof between the garage and house? It looks like someone miscalculated and had to drop the rafter ridge beam down so both would connect together. It sort of looks like they don't have the two roof shingles tied in with each other correctly. It may just be camera angle, but if not, keep an eye out for any water infiltration coming in.

 

[dubber]

Once that monster garage is set up i demand so see an updated pic with a dub project in one of the bays.

 

[LShee778]

Congrats on the new house. Just out of curiosity, what's the problem with the roof between the garage and house? It looks like someone miscalculated and had to drop the rafter ridge beam down so both would connect together. It sort of looks like they don't have the two roof shingles tied in with each other correctly. It may just be camera angle, but if not, keep an eye out for any water infiltration coming in.

The shingle are done correctly. The picture is just terrible. The reason it looks like there is a slope is that the house and garage are not perfectly parallel. Hopefully that makes sense. My father has contracted a few homes and the home inspector checked it out as well and it all checks out just fine. I did notice that when I first saw it and it had me worried as well haha

Once that monster garage is set up i demand so see an updated pic with a dub project in one of the bays.

I will do that. Almost bought a MK1 diesel rabbit all original the other day for $900. Has 138k miles and the only problem was that the interior lights/gauges didnt work. No rust. Needless to say, someone snagged it within a day of it being on craigslist.

 

[kyle@hcb]

Awesome space dude!

 

[LShee778]

Thanks man. I cant wait to make it my own. Just have to work out the details with the mortgage and close the deal in the beginning of march.

 

[Omphaloskeptic]

I like the barn door idea also. You could still use the expanse of the door to hang a bunch of 'stuff' if you so chose and if the door tracks were stout enough.

I'm glad you like the idea; here's another. When you tear out the opening to add the slider, frame out a short jog wall out from the remaining wall. Make it shallow or deep as you like to still allow a car to park in front of the slider. What this will do is to allow a sufficient 'gap' between the backside of the slider and the existing wall to allow both the slider and the existing wall to have storage (hooks, shallow shelves, organizers, etc., etc.) attached to each. The slider rail would attach to the ceiling at a point at the end of the wall 'jog' and extend the total width of the garage. You might not be able to do this depending on the length of the vehicles you have parked in the garage portion. This would lose you 'some' usable depth to the garage, but would allow you to have the entire wall surface for storage of 'stuff'. lol

 

[LShee778]

I do appreciate the suggestions very much but, as the quick CAD sketch shows, i'll be keeping most of the back wall and removing about 12' of it.

 

[LShee778]

Still waiting to close on the house. We are scheduled for the 15th and the mortgage is all set and ready to go. Just waiting it out until the 15th.

New picture while I was measuring for doors:

 

[dubber]

Still can't get over how sweet your first garage is, DAMN!

 

[LShee778]

Still can't get over how sweet your first garage is, DAMN!

Haha thanks a lot. Me and the fiance saved all of our money to put towards a house so I'm proud to say its mine at the ripe age of 22.

Wait until I rip part of that back wall out and you see the full depth of the garage. Its only 20' 9" to the back wall and then another 7-8" behind that where the current "workshop" is.

 

[dare23]

Crazy first garage! Lovin the dubs, the Mk1 on Borbet Type A's fantastic!
The jeep is pretty cool too

 

[K5/TBSS]

Good looking first garage. Wish mine was that big. So wait... there are doors, they're just all up in all your pics? lol

 

[LShee778]

No doors yet. Technically the seller had to list it as a "Carport" haha.

I will be framing in for (3) 9' x 7' garage doors as soon as I get the keys. That way we can lock up our renovation supplies in the garage during the renovation.

 

[CNGsaves]

Great first house and lots of potential with that 3 bay.

First hailstorm you have that might lead to roof being redone (ie paid by insurance), I'd also yank down that guttering and re-do the downspouts. Those 2 downspouts right next to each other is surefire sign that carport portion was added later.

My neighbor actually upgraded his to 5 inch with large downspouts and all the leaves and debris easily flush out through the larger downspouts.

Good luck with your garage build. Keep the pics coming & NICE Dubs!!

 

[LShee778]

Great first house and lots of potential with that 3 bay.

First hailstorm you have that might lead to roof being redone (ie paid by insurance), I'd also yank down that guttering and re-do the downspouts. Those 2 downspouts right next to each other is surefire sign that carport portion was added later.

My neighbor actually upgraded his to 5 inch with large downspouts and all the leaves and debris easily flush out through the larger downspouts.

Good luck with your garage build. Keep the pics coming & NICE Dubs!!

Thanks a lot.

The gutters were recently fixed. They looked even worse. I will most likely get to that sometime this summer. The home inspector gave me an estimate on another 5 years at most till the gutters take a **** on me. I will be cutting down a lot of the large pine trees that have been causing clogs in our gutters and downspout system.

The house was built in 1954 and the carport was added about a year or 2 later. So you are correct. We will be re-siding the entire house and adding a small gabled front porch so I'm going to try to hold off until we get to that at the end of summer if possible.

 

[ishiboo]

Great house, first or not! And a great garage space to work with

The garage was not "added later", it was originally detached and the breezeway between the two was added later. So, they had to make up for the fact that the roof lines/front edges did not match. No big deal.

Impossible to tell from the pictures whether you're in need of a roof, especially with those giant trees raining down ****. I'm sure your home inspector did a more thorough job than we can do here from a distant picture!

 

[ishiboo]

Actually I think the breezeway was likely made larger, since the service for both electrical and phone are on the garage.

 

[LShee778]

The roof was replaced in the mid 90's. I'm sure it doesnt have a whole lot of years left in it being that its about 20 years old but I come from a family of contruction/carpentry workers so we'll replace the roof when needed. Unless the home insurance wants to replace it for us haha

 

[LShee778]

Here's the current plan. I quickly sketched this using Sketchup and it is to scale including my cars (not exact replicas of my cars, just grabbed pre-made sketches of the same make/model):

 

[dubber]

Yup perfect layout. My idea has always been 3 wide and one extra deep. Hat nod to you.

 

[LShee778]

Thanks dubber. That long bay will be my "project" bay. The fiance knows that designating it a project bay will only lead to more toys haha

 

[dubber]

Its nice you give her a spot for her Mazda 3

 

[LShee778]

Haha yea she gets the spot closest to the house door so she doesn't venture too far into my workspace.

Just kidding she comes out and helps occasionally when I need an extra set of hands or if there is beer in the fridge.