Planning attached garage, I'd like some input

[Woodsmoke]

We are in the planning stages of a new home and I would like input about the garage layout and size. Right now, I have the classic 30'x22' (exterior) three car garage on my house and I absolutely hate it, just way too small everywhere I need to be big, basically I have a cramped two garage with a nice little storage area on the side. The new house will have a separate pole barn shop, that will allow for large item storage and a workshop, I don't really plan on working on cars in this garage but it will still have very basic general tools for home and car maintenance and be used for storage of all the stuff we want nearby. My current plans have room for a 38' x 28' interior dimension garage with a small deeper alcove on one section on the back wall that will allow cabinets to be inset. We always have a large heavy duty pickup (22' long) minivan and sedan, so three cars currently but we will add a second sedan at some point (doesn't have to fit in the garage though). The way things are with the house, it would take a lot of costly changes to get the garage bigger but I also don't want to build it and not love it. The way I see it now, we could have room for 18" deep shelving on the sides of the garage and with all of our vehicles parked, have room for about 3.5 feet of walking space in between all of our cars and garage sides, even the long pickup would have three feet in front and back to get around if I park it in the alcove. This doesn't seem overly generous but WAY better than what we have now. My gut says that this will be plenty for us to be happy with even if we could do with it larger, it won't make sense to pay the small fortune to expand.
Does anyone have a similar situation? I tend to see people wanting the space larger for that many cars but that typically is for having room to work on cars or hobbies which I really don't plan to do in here. At the end of the day, I could always put the pickup outside, I'm just getting tired of that.

 

[ericm]

Usually dimensions are exterior. 39x29 (assuming 6" thick walls) would be kind of unusual as they're usually even numbers. 38x28 is already larger than the standard 3 car garage.

If it's just for parking and any serious work will happen in the shop, that sounds like plenty of garage for parking three cars. Unless the truck is a mega cab with 8' bed it should fit in there fine with room in front. Make the garage doors high enough for the truck. Do you want room for bicycles?

It's probably cheaper to make the shop larger than to expand the attached garage by the same amount.

 

[Mikes61]

I just finished adding a 40’ x 23’ garage to my existing two car garage. I had room to go bigger but I didn’t want to totally fubar my nice backyard. I have my 28’ boat, golf cart, Harley, crew cab dually, and a 4 post lift inside the new garage. The 4 post lift allows me to park two cars in the space of one. You may want to consider a lift instead of going larger on your build.

 

[Woodsmoke]

I just finished adding a 40’ x 23’ garage to my existing two car garage. I had room to go bigger but I didn’t want to totally fubar my nice backyard. I have my 28’ boat, golf cart, Harley, crew cab dually, and a 4 post lift inside the new garage. The 4 post lift allows me to park two cars in the space of one. You may want to consider a lift instead of going larger on your build.

Honestly, I'd rather just park my truck outside than mess around doubling up cars on a lift, they will all be used most days, so that's a lot of messing around.

 

[Woodsmoke]

Usually dimensions are exterior. 39x29 (assuming 6" thick walls) would be kind of unusual as they're usually even numbers. 38x28 is already larger than the standard 3 car garage.

If it's just for parking and any serious work will happen in the shop, that sounds like plenty of garage for parking three cars. Unless the truck is a mega cab with 8' bed it should fit in there fine with room in front. Make the garage doors high enough for the truck. Do you want room for bicycles?

It's probably cheaper to make the shop larger than to expand the attached garage by the same amount.

The walls are ICF so they are thick, about 1' depending on how we finish them. The truck is indeed a mega cab dually so space around it will be a tad tighter, 3' in front and back, 3.5' around the wide hips on the sides. Considering that last winter I parked my truck touching the front of my garage wall and I had to walk behind it with the door up since it only had 3" behind when it was shut, I think 3' sounds pretty nice.

We have a ton of bikes and kids toys that will be in there but I think we can put them in the front on the wall where the sedan will park

 

[billconner]

I built a 2 car garage a couple of years ago and after measuring cars - chalk on driveway - I decided on 14' wide for each space (outside dim with 6" walls). Allows storage on/next to the walls and ability to open doors fully and not hit anything. (Not on both cars at one time.) Length wise I wanted to be able to walk all around car and open hatch. I also wanted storage so went 32' but 26 or 28 would have been ok.

 

[CombatNinja]

No matter how big you build it, it will seem tiny once all those vehicles are in there. My rule of thumb is 12' wide for each space if we're talking about small, sporty type cars and 14' if we're talking big SUVs or pickups. I'd try to go a couple of feet wider if I were spending the money. Nothing worse than buyer's remorse on a huge expenditure before the ink even dries on the paperwork.

 

[T444e]

Honestly, I'd rather just park my truck outside than mess around doubling up cars on a lift, they will all be used most days, so that's a lot of messing around.

Hell, I have an 1800 SF shed and can just fit the lawn tractor, there's no chance of me putting a vehicle in it. I need another building, just for the additional shop equipment I want; a third building would be required to have any hope of putting a vehicle inside.