Above 1200 Sq/FT White Mountains Garage 28x54

[TTA89]

Short version - My wife and I closed on this place today!



Long version - My wife was getting tired of parking in the driveway due to my 67 Mustang project and suggested we buy a vacation home with a big garage. This place is perfect for us, it has a huge garage and a decent 1950s 3 bedroom cottage that we can use for weekend getaways. We love to hike and ski and and this place is in the middle of it all. We don't have snowmobiles yet but we have access to the trails right out of the backyard. It's about an hour and 45 min drive from our primary residence which makes 3 day weekends easy.

The guy who owned and build the garage is a custom home builder and he is an avid snowmobiler. The garage is setup for playing with snowmobiles and storage of an RV. I'm more into playing with cars so I'll have to change a few things around inside.

On to the pics! It's 28x54 and I measured 15 feet to the strapping on the ceiling.



I'm sure why the paint looks bad but it's pretty good in person. Maybe the way the iPhone caught the light?



The side door opens into a workshop that has a propane forced hot air furnace and a 1/2 bath. Here is the workshop. There is rollup door behind the foam board in the back, you can ride your sled into the shop from the backyard.



View from the rollup door.



I guess the guy had some extra kitchen cabinets.



Little half bath.



View from the back, you can see the rollup door to get into the workshop...



The inside of the garage is unfinished, it looks like he started putting insulation in as he came across it. You can see the workshop on the left.



Rollup doors from the inside.





Stairs to get up to the loft.





The storage loft.... Notice the ladder to get up into the cupola.



Going into the cupola.. It has lights on a timer that light up at night. Pretty cool.



View from the cupola looking south into the White Mountains.



We are on about 4 acres...

 

[TTA89]

My first task will be to figure out electrical for lights, outlets, lifts, welders, air compressor etc. I'll rough wire it in and then insulation and sheetrock.. Ideally I'd like to do a 4 post lift between the stairs and workshop with a 2 post lift in front of it. I'm pretty sure I can make that work.

 

[Bob Hall]

Terrific place! That's a garage layout that I would love to have. Oh and the view is killer.

 

[Bib Overalls]

That looks like a slice of heaven.

 

[PugetDude]

Congratulations on your new place. It looks great, and you get to finish it the way you want.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Congrats! You have done exactly what I want to do someday - buy a second property in the white mountains with a large shop that I'd hope to retire to someday. My wife and I are also avid hikers, skiers, snowmobilers, and love being outside in general. Having a home base in the whites literally puts all of that at your doorstep. What town are you in, if you don't mind my asking?

Subscribed, can't wait to see what you do, I'll be living vicariously through your progress

 

[dlcwent]

Nice place TTA89. Conway area? Looks like you'll need to expand the cupola so it can accommodate a chair or two. Nice view of the mountains.

 

[TTA89]

What town are you in, if you don't mind my asking?

It's in Twin Mountain, about 5 minutes from Brenton Woods and 10 min from Cannon.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

It's in Twin Mountain, about 5 minutes from Brenton Woods and 10 min from Cannon.

Beautiful, I love that area, and frequent it often. We have friends who have a condo at Brenton Woods that we visit pretty regularly during the winter months. Wait until you get some snowmobiles, the trails in that area are phenomenal.

 

[iceman510]

Beautiful. Wonderful shop and the views are tremendous.

 

[ODIS]

Nice building and location. Neighbors not so close and tons of potential. Sure you both will be very happy at this property.

Ody.

 

[GDPossehl]

Nice place. The cupola adds a lot. Once you finish up that insulation and put some sort of walls up the interior space will look just as good as the exterior. Nice buy!

 

[BSAschields]

I like it .... A lot !!!!!!

 

[dynahoe]

Nice place congratulations on the view and garage.I live in Gilmanton aways away from you but love the scenery.Set up some trail cams for moose and bear pics

 

[Nighttrain]

Very nice getaway! I like the Northeast look to that shop

 

[nglauer]

Thats pretty awesome! I'd love to have a garage like that. Would it be illegal to hunt from that gun turret overhead? lol. If not.... that would be way cooler than a deer stand

 

[Jokeman]

Great looking place. Snowmobile through Twin all the time. Great area for riding!

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

How did you get my dream garage into your post?
Like the rolling doors, nice touch.

 

[ryanp77]

Looks amazing… and man I really miss New Hampshire

 

[NHDanO]

That place looks great. I like a few of you hope to retire to there some day. We own at Mittersill right by there but someday want to live there. Love the garage.

 

[sbosecker]

It's in Twin Mountain, about 5 minutes from Brenton Woods and 10 min from Cannon.

TTA89,

It sounds like you recently purchased this place as you photographed it. If that is the case you may not be able to answer the following:

I am looking for double doors like you have going to the interior workshop. Do you know anything about them? Manufacturer, etc.

Best regards,

Scott

 

[TTA89]

Hi Scott,

I don't really have any info on them but here is a picture of the door tag.

 

[crawler07]

Love the look of this garage, The amount of space you have there is insane!

 

[GreenMtnMan]

Nice looking spread. I get over that way once in a while.

 

[TTA89]

Not a whole lot of progress so far. I'm trying to figure out the electrical plan for lights, switches, fans, welders, etc. The first step is to try and plan where I am going to install lifts in this place and then work everything around that. I borrowed a truck to drag more stuff up to the barn and I used the truck as a guide as probably the biggest thing I'd ever put in there.

I'm going to do a 4 post lift in the back, mostly for storage but I'll have it accessible to work on things as well. I'm planning a Bendpak HD-9XW (Wide, Extra Height, Extra Length). I used tape to mark off where the posts and ramps would be.

This shows the truck on the lift, the truck is ~19 feet long. You can see the removable ramps tapped off on the ground. The stools represent a Bendpak 2 post XPR-10-LP setup in the "Wide" configuration.



Still plenty of room to walk around the actual posts of the 4 post lift, I think there is 18 inches between the wall and the posts on both sides.



Here is the truck sitting on the virtual 2 post lift. There is about 5 feet on clearance from the front of the truck to the back of where the 4 post lift would be with the ramps removed.





It will be tight on the right side when getting in but it's almost a straight shot and this will probably be the biggest thing I'd put on the lifts.



Up next is a lighting and rough wiring electrical plan.

I also stayed over for the first time and turned the lights on, pretty cool.

 

[C_F]

Judging from the tape marks, you should be able to fit two trucks on that lift...or one school bus.

 

[colt zantop]

That building is great! That's my dream garage.

 

[cmasy]

Awesome place Mike Congrats!! Now where are you going to put the Miata?

 

[TTA89]

Slow and steady wins the race.... Not a ton of progress.

I have a basic wiring diagram figured out.



My brother-n-law and a friend came up a few weekends ago and we finished strapping the ceiling and doing the rough wiring. I bought two 12 foot step ladders and they look tiny... It sure is slow on ladders doing this kind of stuff.



This weekend I started cleaning up and stapling the wiring. Once I'm done running everything I'll have an electrician friend tie it all together. I'm over 700 feet of wire so far... Shesh.



Getting ready to run 10/2 up the wall and into the ceiling for the 2 post lift that will eventually come. That is 8/2 on the bottom for 50 amp welding outlets.



It was slow going around lunch so I took a break and went up the street to the local Ski-Doo dealer. I ended up buying a 2015 Renegade Adrenaline demo with 1100 miles and the 900 ACE for way less than what people are asking on CL.



We temporarily hung the first row of T5HO fixtures so I could make sure I had the romex run to the right place. Need to get some romex connectors and figure out how to hook these up. I was told i can use the lights as raceway.



Had a guy come over to give me a quote to drywall and tape... $6500 bucks. Ouch... That might not happen for awhile.

More soon...

 

[rixtrix1]

What a nice find! Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Nice sled pickups. Did you get them at Garneaus?

 

[TTA89]

Nice sled pickups. Did you get them at Garneaus?

Yep

I need one more for the wife. I'm leaning towards a GSX SE but I think she is going to love the quiet smooth ride of the 900 ACE better than the air ride and heated seat.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Yep

I need one more for the wife. I'm leaning towards a GSX SE but I think she is going to love the quiet smooth ride of the 900 ACE better than the air ride and heated seat.

At least she rides, mine will only tag along on the back of a 2-up!

 

[M-technik-3]

Phenomenal views there and that is quite the nice place. Quite an odd structure was the Garage re-purposed? As the house looks well it doesn't belong next to it.

What town is that? Never mind missed the Twin Mountain comment. Buddy has a condo at Cannon where we ski occasionally at.

We have a 3 season place in Salisbury along the Blackwater reservoir.

 

[TTA89]

The house was a cottage built in 1950 and the garage was built in 2010. The previous owners built the garage as storage for their 40ft RV and and other toys like snowmobiles and ATVs. With the purchase of the property they included detailed plans for the house they were going to build next to the garage.

It was going to be a 4000sqft multistory 2 car garage with a roof deck that would have matched the architecture of the garage. I'm not sure what happened but they never broke ground on the house which is as it turns out works perfectly for my wife and I.

We really wanted a big garage with a small house to use as a weekend base for hiking, skiing, snowmobiling, etc. The house does look odd on the outside but the inside is really pretty nice and open with 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, and a loft.

I try to spend most of my time in the garage when we are up there anyway.

 

[M-technik-3]

Anyway to put a deck over looking the mountains? Must get some fantastic sunrises and sunsets there.

Megalo's look funny anyway as most people don't use nearly the space in a 1600 square foot place and then when you do it's all about filling it with STUFF as George Carlin would say. Nice Place and glad to see you enjoying the outside.

 

[OJ Bartley]

Great place and I am very envious of the view from up top.

 

[TTA89]

There is a large deck on the side of the house. The mountains are to the right and out of sight of the picture. It's not really a "view" lot as I'd have to cut down trees but it's still very nice. A roof deck would be awesome.

 

[TTA89]

Almost a year has passed and I haven't done much in the garage until the past few days. Winter in New Hampshire with no heat in the garage does not make it very motivating to get out there.

Swapped the snow wheels/tires off the cars and bought a couple tire racks from amazon. Put them in the back and under the stairs, there are two racks mounted next to each other with 10 wheels/tires in them right now. Seems to work well as I have a motor on a stand under them in the corner and one of the sleds pushed under up against the wall.




A year ago I could barely install a light fixture and now I have a whole new appreciation for electricians. It's a lot of up and down off the ladders and working over your head. For a desk jockey like me it's fun to learn and understand how to make this stuff work. Youtube and reading the forum has been helpful... and a master electrician that answers my txts on Sundays.

So the finished workshop has two light switches that power the hanging bulbs in this picture. This was there when I got the place and I'm sure the previous owner planned to do something eventually but I'm not sure what.



I've installed 3 new switches that will power the 15x T5HO fixtures in the garage so I've been trying to think about what to do with the current switches and romex runs. In the end, I just decided to install 6 can lights as an alternative to the T5s. This way if I want to run in and grab something or whatever I don't need to turn the T5s on. All the wiring and switches are already installed so it was just a matter of installing the cans and running a little extra wire. I installed 6 cans, you can see the 6th one near the top of the ladder. Seems to work great and I put LED bulbs in that I had spare of... The cans barely even get warm.



I had a friend help me install 14x 8 foot Lithonia T5HO fixtures and 1x 4 foot fixture. The plan is to have 3 sections of lights. The front of the garage near the doors will be switch 1 and power the first 2x fixtures in each row, then switch 2 will power the middle lights in the rows and switch 3 will power the back set of lights in the row.

Having never really done this before, I wired in a few and tested to make sure it worked right. I ended up building an extension cord out of the end of the feed wire that needs to be installed in the panel. I haven't taken the panel off yet to figure that part out.



Hopefully I can get back out there next weekend and finish up the light wiring. I can't wait to see what it looks like at night with all the lights on. I've still got 2x ceiling fans, 2x outlets on the ceiling for reels, outlets for welding and compressor power and other assorted stuff...

 

[wasfast]

It would make a massive difference if you had drywall, painted white, on the wall and ceiling surfaces. They reflect so much light compared to the studs/insulation.