turn a house into a garage

[Oldsracer]

Yes, the whole house. I will try to keep this short
and to the point. I thought you guys might like to see this.
I am buying a house next to where I live.The house measures about 24X30
with a 18x20 garage converted to living space. It has a 1/2 to 1/4
dirt floor basment that leaks water in. My plan is to secure the roof rafters
so I can take out the interior walls. Take out all the floors and beams.
This is sitting on 3 coureses (?) of blocks with a footing.
I am going to fill the basment in then pour a floor up to the bottom
row of block. By doing this the forms will be the block and give me
plenty of hieght for a lift.

how does that sound ?

 

[hank37]

Yes, the whole house. I will try to keep this short
and to the point. I thought you guys might like to see this.
I am buying a house next to where I live.The house measures about 24X30
with a 18x20 garage converted to living space. It has a 1/2 to 1/4
dirt floor basment that leaks water in. My plan is to secure the roof rafters
so I can take out the interior walls. Take out all the floors and beams.
This is sitting on 3 coureses (?) of blocks with a footing.
I am going to fill the basment in then pour a floor up to the bottom
row of block. By doing this the forms will be the block and give me
plenty of hieght for a lift.

how does that sound ?

Sounds like a good plan to me , make sure you support the rafters with a strong beam. You will still need a center support.

 

[uniballer]

I call BS! Never seen that done before, too good to be true. You have got to be single or have an awesome wife!

 

[zcar751]

Look into an engineered beam that can span the 30'. I replace a load bearing wall once by putting a laminated beam tied into the rafters so that the bottom of the rafter was held hanging from the beam.

 

[Oldsracer]

awsome wife sure helps, it will be 25 years next week.I am 46.

anyway here is a picture for now of the out side.

the rafters are 2x8 and meet in the middle of the house. Since this is
load bearing (sp?) wall. coulndn't turn these into a trus and /or run beams
along side what is there now entire length? Which would be 24' long?

I plan to take that lean to thing off the side and put a over head door.

 

[Oldsracer]

double post

 

[Oldsracer]

oops tirple post

 

[uniballer]

ok ,thatil do pig! You want to gut and have huge work space! I like and I apoligize. I believe.

 

[CNGsaves]

Great idea . . . . and generally only allowed if the two lots are contiguous (ie right beside each other).

I tried buying crappy house during worst of recession in 2008/2009 that was on CL for $1,000 . . . . yep that's right $1K for small city block house (with partial fire damage)!! Plan was to gut it and add garage door at the end, similar to what you're planning, so I'd have low cost garage instead of spending money on storage. This house and another by same seller sold within a few days as slumlord was getting pressured by city. Flippers got to these quick and likely invested $10K to $12K and ended up with market value $30K 2BR house for rental.

Even in low income neighborhood, the planning commission would not allow "gutted garage" unless I owned the house next door - - ie contiguous lots (thus house on one lot and garage on other lot). Never did find 2 for sale next to each other, so had to abandon that strategy.

Good luck with your plan . . . nothing better than having the extra land . . AND . . . and nice garage as part of the deal!

 

[Oldsracer]

sorry about the double post, being a nfg my post had to be viewed to make sure
im not spam.

I have a 24x30 now that sits real close to that house.
right on about the space. I been looking to move to put
up a bigger shed. But now I dont have to move all my junk.


The rafters sit 24' long or actualy 12
like this ------I------ . couldnt I plate the center and run some up rights like a trus. Then run a beam
the 30' lenght down the center and put a door header on each end or
one end.

 

[bczygan]

Actually, I would do something different.

There are a lot of shop functions that could use the living space in that house "AS IS".
Office space, storage space, room for supplies, utility space, small equipment and benches and work stations. A paint room. A lounge and break room or just a general man cave. Even a room for guests. Basement would be great for heavy fabrication tools that need a firm foundation and metalworking, tire mounting and balancing, parts cleaning, blast cabinet, lathe, compressor, presses, saws, bench and vise, grinders etc. Might move a few walls or add some upstairs. A lift from the basement would make for easier installation of tools and movement of people and parts.
Garage space would be primarily parts removal and installation. Actually working on the car.
Save a lot of money to work with what you have and use it's features in the way it would best accommodate your functions.

I would redo the existing lean to garage and add on to it and make it taller.

 

[jmlcolorado]

sorry about the double post, being a nfg my post had to be viewed to make sure
im not spam.

I have a 24x30 now that sits real close to that house.
right on about the space. I been looking to move to put
up a bigger shed. But now I dont have to move all my junk.


The rafters sit 24' long or actualy 12
like this ------I------ . couldnt I plate the center and run some up rights like a trus. Then run a beam
the 30' lenght down the center and put a door header on each end or
one end.

Your best bet is to Get a structural engineer involved.
There are a bunch of load points with that roof, and with rafters, makes it even more complicated.
You Could install beams where load bearing walls would be, but you also need to make sure the roof continues with its designed load capacity.

I love the idea though!

 

[pmiranda]

There are a lot of shop functions that could use the living space in that house "AS IS".

This.

I had a plan to build a house on a cheap lot in town with a big garage and a small living area, and a chunk of area that could be either shop space or converted back to living area if I ever needed to sell.
The deal fell through for other reasons, but it's a good basic idea.

Keep in mind that most building codes (and common sense) require firewalls between garage space and living space. Unless you really need all that area to store cars, I'd definitely use living area for shop/storage space and you can always turn it back into living space later.

 

[rsanter]

I wanted to do the same thing sort of.
I was ten to buy the house next to where I use to live. I wanted to open the wall between the garage and the house and use the great room as shop area and the garage area for the cars. The bedrooms were going to be storage and the bathrooms would stay and get used.
The plan was that eventually I would reinstall the wall, put in new carpet tp convert back to a house and sell it if/when we moved.
The house sold for too much even as a foreclosure that needed work for me to do that

Bob

 

[cdcman]

I've toyed with a similar idea... Here in Florida, most of the block homes just sit on a concrete slab and most of them have sliding glass doors... Modify the sliding glass doors and drive in!!! The city would never know!!! Plus all of the bedrooms could store parts and have a spray booth. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

 

[shoot summ]

Good thread, my neighbor keeps telling me I should by his FIL's house that is next door and do the same thing.

I've thought about it a bit, liked the idea of opening it all up, but actually it makes more sense to partition it off some with wide door openings to allow movement of projects to different work areas.

Then I change the thought and think of tearing the house down, doing a reverse lot split, building a nice shop(certain there are some restrictions), and have a great lot for the grand kids to play on.

I like the idea of a dedicated, purpose built building with taller ceilings and contiguous space. I think with the house I would always have the thought of converting it back to a house in the back of my head and couldn't really make it a full fledged shop.

 

[Oldsracer]

lots-o good points here you guys, glad I posted this up. I have one 24x30
that is all open now. So maybe I will leave a few of the interior walls, but I will
have to extend them down. Not a big deal compared to what I will be doing.
I can see making part of it a spray booth. And It will have a bathroom that
I could leave what would become kind of an up stairs thing.

This house is the last house on a dead end street. Both of our lots are
75x100 each. Cant wait to get started.

I can post up some pics of the inside if you want.

And I dont ever want this turned into a house again. The way it lays
out with my place makes it difficult to sell as the owner found out.
thanks all.

 

[cheechi]

Do either of you work from home? Do you need more 'unfinished' garage space or can you store/work with what is in the house? Does your wife want some space for (whatever women do outside the kitchen)? Some good ideas bczygan posted.

Here's what I would do. Fix the issues with the house, leaks etc. Make sure the kitchen is completely functional, furnish one bedroom as a guest room. The rest can stay in its current state as you don't need it 'more garagey' and you obviously aren't planning on doing a real reno anyway. Move your work bench, power tools, etc inside in a room with floor (not carpet) you can mess up. Tear down that car port and build a 'real' garage in its place. If you can work it right, you can 'come in to the shop' from that garage and work on things, rather than a true garage all throughout. Plus it's easier to put back if your situation changes or if your property eventually sold/passed down.

 

[Brad54]

I knew a developer in Florida--he built his house, and then the house across the street was a big two-story, and around the side he had two 2-car garage doors going into the bottom floor.
He finished the outside of the house, and left the bottom floor open for car storage, and had a double-wide staircase going upstairs, where there were also no walls, and he had that as storage.
He said if he ever moved, he'd finish the inside and sell it as a house.

-Brad

 

[cranejon]

I did the same project a few years ago, bought a house on a slab and gutted it making a garage. In retrospect, I should have demolished the house and built a nice new garage. Electric, heat, roof and insulated door were all replaced. I still have a compormised structure with one load bearing wall restricting the clear garage span. Plus it does not make good use of the lot.

A new garage placed on the lot will leave a fully buildable lot when you are done.

 

[InPrimer]

my thought is.. what's the cost of taxes on the proposed garage( to be) house. Depending on the tax value ie if it's $3500 a yr for taxes is it really worth to turn it into a garage, may be more economical to connect to present house as an "overbuilt" garage than to pay *** amt of money for a "garage"

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'm curious as to how you are going to take out all the floors and leave the walls ? Generally, the walls are placed on the sheeted and framed floor when the structure has a basement or crawl space.

 

[dreamingmuscle]

You could put a lamented beam on top of the rafters (before you take out the load bearing walls of course. Secure the rafters to the beam with rafter ties. That should support it just fine.

Put the doors in the back and no one would ever know it wasn't a house any more.

Glen

 

[Oldsracer]

Should be closing the deal Monday. Here is a few pictures to start with.
There have been a few questions on here about supporting the load bearing wall.
I can put supports up along both sides of the main wall first. Then install
a beam to replace the bearing wall.
I dont want it to look like a house as then the taxes and insurance will be higher. The tax on that place are under $800 a year now. So you see its
much more cost wise to do it his way than to buy more property and
then build this much footage.

in this shot you can see how close this is to my garage now.


the back


the inside by my garage...



the dirt floor basement...

 

[Kevin54]

It's going to be an interesting project. The dirt floor basement, as you call it, looks like it actually started as a crawlspace and someone dug out the middle.

Take a close look inside the attic at the rafters, there may be the fact that there is no real load bearing wall inside, depending on how the rafters are made and how the ridge beam runs. If all the rafters and ridge beam are self supporting to the outside walls, then you could gut the inside completely. If you could do it, and it depends on your town, city, municipality, take out the tree, tie the house to your garage seeing that there is not much space between them, and it may yet drop the taxes some more on the property. You may want to also look into having a new description wrote up on your deed that states the properties are one complete entity now.

Where I live, when I checked with the County Auditor, a 24' x 24' addition to my garage would only add $100/year to my taxes.

Good luck and make sure you keep us updated with pics.

 

[A1an]

Very cool. Look forward to seeing how this unfolds.

Something similar has crossed my mind a few times with the house next door. It had a small fire after the tenant's miniature marijuana grow setup shorted in the garage. It has been abandoned ever since with no attempts made by the owner to repair any of the minor damage. Hoping it goes up for sale at a heavily discounted price.

 

[Oldsracer]

Finally got it. There was some delay in getting all the legal
stuff worked out. Started filling the mud hole in, so as I make some
real progress I will post some pictures....Soon I hope

 

[SiGmA_X]

Looking forward to pictures. This project, I would start by getting the excavator out (rented) and knocking the house down. Then build a shop!

 

[Bib Overalls]

I'm curious as to how you are going to take out all the floors and leave the walls ? Generally, the walls are placed on the sheeted and framed floor when the structure has a basement or crawl space.

2x

You are going to have problems with the structural integrity of the exterior load supporting walls when the floor joists are trimmed back.

 

[NUTTSGT]

You could put a lamented beam on top of the rafters (before you take out the load bearing walls of course. Secure the rafters to the beam with rafter ties. That should support it just fine.

Put the doors in the back and no one would ever know it wasn't a house any more.

Glen

You're missing my point.

2x

You are going to have problems with the structural integrity of the exterior load supporting walls when the floor joists are trimmed back.

Bib understands what I'm talking about. The exterior walls sit on the floor, which is built from the floor joists and plywood subflooring.

What's the plan when you try to remove the floor ?

 

[Oldsracer]

one of the ways I am thinking, Look at the 5th picture posted of the floor joists. The 4 rows of block is sitting on a footing that is about 4' deep. that footing has a wide ledge.
This is a condensed version. I don’t type a lot.

1. bolt steel plate 6'' wide around perimeter to the joist.

2.bolt steel tube vertically to said plate.

3. other end to be bolted to footing ledge.

4. fill the crawl space up 6'' to 8" from what the new floor will be poured to.

5. cut the floor joist off within say 3'' to 4'' from the walls.

6. nail / bolt board to the 3"-4" stub

7. pour new floor.

this will be done AFTER I take care of the rafters and load bearing walls.

clear as mud ? let me know what you think.... yes i should knock it down
but i have more time than $$

 

[Oldsracer]

the new poured floor will have about 2 rows of block above and 2 below.

 

[Ray-CA]

A friend of mine did something very similar with a house next to him. California slab on grade house and he had his brother (an engineer) identify all the load bearing walls. The house had vaulted 14 to 16 ft ceilings and he left the master bathroom, laundry room and kitchen in place. Ripped out all the non-load bearing walls, took out a couple of the load bearing walls after running headers for support including the wall between the garage and house. Now he just hits the garage door opener and drives into a 1800+ sqft garage with a full bath, laundry and kitchen. He added a gate between his house and the new garage so he can go between them easier.

Ray

 

[T>D>C]

I am going to fill the basment in then pour a floor up to the bottom
row of block. By doing this the forms will be the block and give me
plenty of hieght for a lift.

I vote leave the basement and turn it in to a pit and don't add the lift. Set up one bay like Oil Express.

T>D>C