Garage walk through storage

[joallen001]

I am currently working with a designer on house plans. He has our 3 car garage with 23' deep and 42' long. The doors are 9'. I know I want it deeper than 23' but I have also considered having a walk through closet for storage. Possibly using almost the entire length of the garage with an entry door on each side. This would be used for pool supplies and toys, holiday storage, etc. I picture several storage totes with labels on one wall and the rest is the walkway. Would this be a good idea and how wide should I go?

 

[BDT/NWMN]

I am currently working with a designer on house plans. He has our 3 car garage with 23' deep and 42' long. The doors are 9'. I know I want it deeper than 23' but I have also considered having a walk through closet for storage. Possibly using almost the entire length of the garage with an entry door on each side. This would be used for pool supplies and toys, holiday storage, etc. I picture several storage totes with labels on one wall and the rest is the walkway. Would this be a good idea and how wide should I go?

Work with the designer on Garage Plans!! The house can be designed to match and mate with the MAIN structure... Keep your priorities in order..

 

[jkwilson]

Full length walking space is pretty wasteful, like a hallway

 

[Playwme]

Silly idea. Walk through anything is a waste of space cause you need a lot of room for walking and manoeuvrability. Better off having those storage shelves behind nice doors along one wall of the garage, or even better put a Compactus unit at one end.
If you have unlimited space available and a nice open ended budget then go for it, but you'll need discipline to ensure the walkway doesn't get used as a dumping ground for things. It's too easy when it's an out of sight area to just keep putting stuff there. Speaking from experience, once toys go into a storage area they don't get used again. Just get rid of them from the start rather than storing them only to get rid of them 5 years later.

 

[Ray916MN]

There are a couple of reasons you might want to do this.
- Increase the amount of wall space for storage
- Make secure or rodent proof storage

But, making a segregated space, is space inefficient since it requires walkway space to be set aside. If you do go with walk through storage, I hope it is used for stuff that get used often because if it isn't, the walkway space will really be wasted.

 

[70redbee]

Tell him to lengthen the garage to at least 28ft or 30ft if you can work it into the design. You will thank me later when you work on your car.

 

[bww_mnm]

Forgot which garage, but someone put multiple "walk in closets" along a side wall of garage. Looked nice and kept it very clean looking. Could be cheaper than cabinets lining a whole wall and looks cleaner?

 

[sands35]

I am currently working with a designer on house plans. He has our 3 car garage with 23' deep and 42' long. The doors are 9'. I know I want it deeper than 23' but I have also considered having a walk through closet for storage. Possibly using almost the entire length of the garage with an entry door on each side. This would be used for pool supplies and toys, holiday storage, etc. I picture several storage totes with labels on one wall and the rest is the walkway. Would this be a good idea and how wide should I go?

Go to a big box place and decide on the size of tote you want to use (or measure the biggest totes available). Then make the "closet" about 2.5 times as wide as the long dimension of the tote. That will give you enough room to store totes end in and enough room to carry them in and out of the closet. I'd either use a 36" man door or a double man door depending on what you want to put in there.

If you get this in the plans, then you can have the builder put in poured wall footers to get the base of the wall above the poured floor so you limit the possibility of water ingress. Simpler to hose out the working side of the garage and avoid getting water under the wall.

Knock together shelves out of dimensional lumber and OSB or use wall brackets or pre-made shelves.

 

[joallen001]

I guess a few feet of walkway is kind of wasted but I just feel like some type of walk in area or areas will keep things out of the way. I can easily frame up some walls and build some storage shelves vs. buyin a bunch of cabinets. Lots of good points you all made. I am still undecided on what to do though. Thanks for the tip on the base wall above the poured floor.