Hey penright --Having lived with it awhile, what are your thoughts?
I have never gave it much thought.
We have live there now for little over a year. We did not build it, it was a year old when we bought it. The owners who built it, work transferred them to another town. So it was what it was when we bought it. I did add the shop.
My old house was a somewhat deep two car. Kind of like the old story where the guy complains about how small his house was. So he went to a wise man, who keep telling him to bring in his farm animals. When the wise man said, remove the animals, the guy was amazed how much bigger it made the house. In the old two car, I kept my wife's car, the Mustang, and the "shop". I got highly efficient at using every inch of space. I would put pegboard on the back of shelves to hang things. At a minimum I would have to back the wife car out if I wanted to work on something, Sometimes the Mustang. Even in the garage I had a cover for it, but I hated to leave it outside. Oh and years of scraping ice and cold car during the winter.
I say all that to give you background on my thinking.
So you are correct, if I did not have the shop, it would not make sense. The one car is not big enough to work on the side of the car comfortably. That is why I had to pull the Mustang out of the old house when I wanted to for example do brakes. Without the span of the third car bay, you are fighting side issues and/or pulling cars out to work on one. But truth is, if you are working on a car, you almost lose the third door anyway.
But...
For me it is all great. The two car is the only access into the house.
So I we keep our 02 Mustang in the one car. It is a convertible, but nothing fancy, just a six cylinder. That keeps it out of the way till time to drive. You can't tell by the picture, but the one car has a garage door on both ends. You could raise both doors and drive straight into the back yard. It would not have worked for my shop, because you either have to have the shop door far enough back that you can make the bend and I would have had to pull the Mustang out every time I wanted access to the shop. My lot is on the outside of a corner, so it is pie shaped, wider to the back. Because of that I had enough room to run a drive down the side of the house. From the back yard door, right now my plan is to put shelves. Then on the other side (facing car) mount sheetrock. This will make a little storage space for mower and such, saving some room in the storage part of the shop. Then looking at it from the car side, it would look more finished space. For the two car, it was important for it to be clear and clean. I always want to have where the cars are park to be decorated. This is where I keep my racing and sports mementos. It is like a room to itself. Oh, and the most important thing, no scraping ice. We moved in Nov 2016, so I have almost two winters of walking out the house, opening the door and backing out with a clean windshield and somewhat warm car. The front of the house faces west. So the two car shields from the north wind. It is such a long driveway, backing out, I can swing into the one car or use the shop drive and pull out toward the street forward.
BTW, here is the back of the house before I bought it. This gives you an idea of the one car's back door.
. And my biggest fun car is a BMW M5 (e39), so I don't "need" a ginormous bay. I like the idea of using the larger bay for working on the cars. Or I'll just park the car I'm wrenching on sideways, between the smaller and larger bays. That'll still leave room for her to park her car.
