Garage how small is too small?

[petrolhead611]

Its not the garage is too small, the US cars are unecessarily large. I had a 18'by 8' garage in my first house, and was constantly working on my GT6 therein until I got sick of maintaining it, then worked on my comparitively larger Scimitar GT in there after that.
Current garage is 18' by 20' and I work on my 924S or my Vulcan (only 12' long, but nearly 6' wide) whilst the other car is in there. Only trouble is, roof beams are too low to allow me to remove Vulcan engine/gearbox in there,as they must come out together.. Will have to do it outside.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rich76_911s

Here is a photo of the house:

Cute house, look at the mortgage survey and check with the city to see what the setbacks are. A little bump-out for work space and cabinets may be possible.

[KNS]

For Sale:

15,000 sf, four car garage. Features 1) two post lift, overhead lighting, installed 60 gal compressor, center floor drain, wash sink, refrigerator, heat/AC, cable ready. Comes with attached 3bd/3ba house.


This is how we should shop for a house..

[vash]

10 feet wide is pretty tight. mine is a one car garage, but i have about 3 feet on either side of my car. i have enough room to do whatever i want. i have removed the motor, and put the motor on the side for the work. the real danger is body damage. you have to be really aware of your surroundings when moving tools and parts around.

i have done some major work with a friend. he has a two car space, but half of it is taken up with a classic vette. during bad weather, all the work happens inside. i bet he has 1.5 feet on either side. we move sloooowwww.

that house has fantastic curb appeal!

[Shaun @ Tru6]

looks like a beautiful house Rich, charming, perfect for you two.

it sounds like you can't widen the exist garage. how about adding a wider garage behind it and just take out the back wall, so the current garage becomes an antechamber? you drive through it to get to your real garage/work area. just make sure you add something for her to sell the idea!

good luck, keep me posted.

[Hugh R]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

I did manage to build an ultralight in my parent's two car garage many years ago.... where there is a will, there is a way.

But like I said, no garage can ever be big enough

Effin A Tim, you can adopt me you know. I'm still pretty young and cute, I'm only 56 years old!!!

[Scuba Steve]

That roof on the 924S... I see what you did there.

[Rich76_911s]

Thanks again gentlemen. I do appreciate your thoughts. This is my first time around the home buying block. Never thought it would be this difficult. There are things we love about the house, it has a golf course in the backyard, it's cute inside and out, in a good school district and neighberhood. But the Garage and the Kitchen are really sticking points. Plus lots of deferred maintenance and shoddy work that would need to get redone. I'll confess to being nit-picky, but I hate crappy work or half-baked DYI repairs.

The Garage could potentially be extended backwards. It is a deck right now. That would have to be a way down the road project, we don't have excess capital for big stuff like that.

Thanks again,
Rich

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

That roof on the 924S... I see what you did there.

That is my old '77 924 with a dealer installed aftermarket sunroof..... My 924S is not pictured as it is with my daughter at college right now.

[Tim Hancock]

All I can say Rich is that if you enjoy working on projects and you intend to make this your permanent home, look for a place with a bigger garage or a place that will allow you to build a decent workshop on the property at a later date.

[jwasbury]

I rock a 1 car garage. Here in the concrete jungle, I am one of a lucky few. Most people around here don't even have offstreet parking. I drooled over this property for years because of the garage and jumped on it as soon as it hit the market...



Its sort of an oversized 1 car (would fit 2 Smart cars probably), so is larger than what you're looking at there in PA. Its enough room for me to do some projects--->

[Rick Lee]

I didn't even have my one-car garage particularly well organized and I still had room for a lot of stuff while the car was on jackstands and under the knife. In this photo, the car was behind me, but still well within the garage, down for a full susp. redo.

[Rich76_911s]

Well Gentlemen it took a while but we finally found a suitable garage to go with a house. Not quite Tim's airplane hanger, but darn good for our budget in our neighborhood.

Soon to be the home of the 1969 911E:

[mossguy]

And do you live nearby?

Best,
Tom

[VincentVega]

Nice. Looks like you have lots of room to add-on.

[Rich76_911s]

Originally Posted by mossguy

And do you live nearby?

Best,
Tom

Yeah the garage is 15 steps from the house.

Here is where we'll be sleeping:

[masraum]

I had a '69 Buick Riviera in a 10x20 storage unit once, rebuilt the engine in that unit behind the car. It was very tight.

[Tim Hancock]

Congrats! It looks like you could easily add a lean-to on the side for additional parking if you end up filling the garage with projects. Looks like plenty of room for overhead storage also.

[kach22i]

Twice the property, twice the garage, twice the house of the first one you posted.

Guess mortgage rates at historic lows is an advantage for a buyer right now.

Congrats.

[Rich76_911s]

Thanks guys. It's pretty exciting (and frightening) buying our first home.

We got very lucky with our mortgage rate even surprises me how low it is on a fixed 30 year loan. Rarely does dumb luck fall into my favor but this time it appears to have.

Our house is only from the center of the chimney to the left, it is a twin. So it's probably about the same sqr feet as the earlier home, but everything else you noted is 100% correct, and this is a much nicer neighborhood than the first one I posted as well.

I like that the pelican community is already planning an addition to the garage. Great minds do think alike.

Rich