My house was built in 2000 and I bought it in late 2002. It has an attatched 2-car garage, but it's only 20'X20', 2X4 construction. It works well as a one car (for the wife's Explorer) with a freezer, my ATV, snowblower in winter, tool box, etc. taking up most of the rest of the space. There's no way my BMW 5-series or '07 F-150 would fit in there with her Explorer. Heck, the F-150 won't fit lengthwise anyhow! Luckily the previous owner had the driveway done so that it extends over and beside the garage, so there's enough room for me to park one vehicle there and the other in front of the garage, but off to the side enough so she can came and go from the garage.
I don't have any pics specifically of the garage but here are some through the years so you can at least visualize it, the direction of the peak of the roof, etc.
I'm at the point where I'm finally sick of brushing off snow and chipping ice off the windsheild here during our N.E. winters. I'm also sick of having to move her Explorer out to do any work in the garage. I need to do something. I need to expand my garage, or knock it down and start over, so that 3 vehicles can fit and that I'll have a decent amount of space for things like the ATV, snowblower, a decent workbench, etc.
I have roughly 30' plus a couple of inches from the outside of the side wall of my garage and my property line. I need to have "at least" 10' between any structure and the property line, meaning I could add on a maximum of 20' more width. I have about 250' from the back wall to the rear property line, so no real constraints there.
A relatively easy idea would be to build an exact duplicate of the current garage right off of the side of it. I would imagine a beam with support colums could take the place of the header of the existing garage's outside wall to support the existing and new roof trusses, and allow me to knock down the wall between them. However, this doesn't solve the depth issue. Idealy I'd like to have at least 30ft of depth front to back...if not the entire garage, at least with the new section.
Another would be to keep the same width, but expand the back out another 25-30 feet. Perhaps after it expands backwards a bit, bump it out into the backyard, making the rear portion wider. Not sure how all the roof sections would tie in. I could possibly do this with a roll-up door on the side, facing my property line, where I would park the truck perpandicular to the car and Explorer up front. I would probably have just enough room to pull my truck out and turn left 90 degrees without hitting the property line, to then drive alongside the existing garage. If all storage/tools/mantoys/etc were moved from the existing garage into the new section, my car and Explorer would fit side by side in the existing section.
I can't help but think the best way to really get what I want would be to demo the existing one altogether, and start over. Build something along the lines of 36' wide, with 3 individual doors, and another 36'-40' deep.
One of my closest friends is a part-time fully licensed electrician (full-time town police officer) so I know I won't need to hire an electrician to wire it up how I want. I also have a good amount of help I can rely on for doing the framing myself. I know I'd need to hire for all the concrete work from the footings to the floor. I'm pretty sure I can handle the roofing myself too. Still, I can't even fathom how much something like this (any of the options) would cost me.
I'm just looking for any input anyone might have...maybe some better ideas I'm just not able to see yet.
I don't have any pics specifically of the garage but here are some through the years so you can at least visualize it, the direction of the peak of the roof, etc.
I'm at the point where I'm finally sick of brushing off snow and chipping ice off the windsheild here during our N.E. winters. I'm also sick of having to move her Explorer out to do any work in the garage. I need to do something. I need to expand my garage, or knock it down and start over, so that 3 vehicles can fit and that I'll have a decent amount of space for things like the ATV, snowblower, a decent workbench, etc.
I have roughly 30' plus a couple of inches from the outside of the side wall of my garage and my property line. I need to have "at least" 10' between any structure and the property line, meaning I could add on a maximum of 20' more width. I have about 250' from the back wall to the rear property line, so no real constraints there.
A relatively easy idea would be to build an exact duplicate of the current garage right off of the side of it. I would imagine a beam with support colums could take the place of the header of the existing garage's outside wall to support the existing and new roof trusses, and allow me to knock down the wall between them. However, this doesn't solve the depth issue. Idealy I'd like to have at least 30ft of depth front to back...if not the entire garage, at least with the new section.
Another would be to keep the same width, but expand the back out another 25-30 feet. Perhaps after it expands backwards a bit, bump it out into the backyard, making the rear portion wider. Not sure how all the roof sections would tie in. I could possibly do this with a roll-up door on the side, facing my property line, where I would park the truck perpandicular to the car and Explorer up front. I would probably have just enough room to pull my truck out and turn left 90 degrees without hitting the property line, to then drive alongside the existing garage. If all storage/tools/mantoys/etc were moved from the existing garage into the new section, my car and Explorer would fit side by side in the existing section.
I can't help but think the best way to really get what I want would be to demo the existing one altogether, and start over. Build something along the lines of 36' wide, with 3 individual doors, and another 36'-40' deep.
One of my closest friends is a part-time fully licensed electrician (full-time town police officer) so I know I won't need to hire an electrician to wire it up how I want. I also have a good amount of help I can rely on for doing the framing myself. I know I'd need to hire for all the concrete work from the footings to the floor. I'm pretty sure I can handle the roofing myself too. Still, I can't even fathom how much something like this (any of the options) would cost me.
I'm just looking for any input anyone might have...maybe some better ideas I'm just not able to see yet.
Last edited:
