True, but (a) we have other RV parking, albeit not covered; and (b) we call this the Terminal House because I plan to leave this place in a body bag. Ms. Corgi and I made the conscious decision to build it exactly the way we wanted it without worrying about resale value. Houses with views are becoming increasingly difficult to find and expensive, so I think the kids will be alright no matter how much I screw it up. And who knows, my grandson might just be interested in inheriting a fully-outfitted garage with a couple nice cars inside.

Yes, Tim, good thought. It's actually shown that way on one of the plan sheets and the builder and I have discussed this very thing.

Good luck. Hopefully you are on Garage Journal--there are so many ideas over there and I have been studying for years.

No, it's just the building code out here, which leans towards overbuilding because we are in earthquake country. I don't know about other places, but my deck has pretty serious lateral load straps to keep it from falling off the house in an earthquake, and the garage design has a lot of similar horizontal bracing that is intended to keep the structure from shaking off the foundation. Number 4 rebar hooks have to extend down to the bottom of the footers.

A couple thoughts that might be useful to others: Javadog mentioned earlier that there was some cut and paste on the plans, and he's right. Hence a number of inconsistencies. Like lawyers and I expect lots of other professionals, the folks who do design drawings plug in a lot of boilerplate. And since it was my earnest desire to expedite the permitting process, I didn't want anything outre, novel, or creative that might cause an administrative panic. I wanted something simple and comfortingly bland, familiar gruel for the civil servantry.

The plans show what Boeing called a 90% design release. In actuality, 90% was as far as it ever got, the last 10% being available for running changes (if Higgins reads this, he can correct me if I've mangled this explanation). This summer, I got the deck on this place redone (a long story), and we had many fairly significant running changes. I concluded that this was a better-to-ask for-forgiveness-than-permission situation. I'm pretty sure they won't make me tear it down because of a slight change in framing.

Thanks and good luck to you too. I am on GJ. ;)

The Cayman is 1:43 scale against the drawings in 1:48, so it's a bit oversize, but useful for planning where the lifts are going to be. The garage is long and narrow due to site constraints, so I'm thinking about mounting the lifts on a diagonal. Alternatively, may put the embedded scissor lift right at the opening to the door, since it will be retracted into its recess unless in use. The downside to this arrangement is that a car on the lift here will block access to other vehicles.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575391830.JPG

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575391830.JPG

I would move the door in the upper right side of the garage to the middle of the right wall. Perhaps put a window where the door is now.

I would also suggest that you put two garage doors in the end, not one.

I would allow for four cars to be stored in the garage, two side-by-side in the front, two side-by-side in the back. I would put the two lifts at the back. It’s tight, but doable.

I'd agree with the two garage doors, and having a single entry door at the lower right street/house corner so it's a shorter walk inside would be more accessible.
You could frame the street side with a heavy beam to allow for a single big door modification in the future.

The shed against the back hill doesn't seem practical, if I'm reading those plans correctly.
Extending the entire garage and dividing inside with a separate door to the right corner would give a lot more space.

Both my passenger cars are 17' long and 6' wide.
-End-to-end makes 34' long. The exact length for the current plans.
There is not enough room for four cars unless they are smaller or semi-parked under the lift.
Oopsy dropsy onto the hood of the daily driver...

-24' wide (-) 6' (-) 6' leaves 12' between cars and side walls.
12' (-) 3' for each door swing on either side leaves only 3' along one wall for storage and working counters.

You want to have your tools near both the lift and counter.
Also sufficient natural light for both if possible.
Some kind of cross-ventilation will be nice when working with dust and chemicals.

He's constrained on size, but the usual toys are shorter than 17 feet. A typical Porsche, Ferrari, etc is usually under 15 feet long. One of my garages is 31-6 long and I easily parked cars two deep in it for 20 years.

16' Overhead door put the scissor lift to the left or right and it should give you room for the two cars side by side. I've seen guys recess the scissor lift and have metal panels that cover it when not in use. It'll up your cost for the door and the header over the door. Move the 3/0 LH hinge door around the corner and change to a RH hinge, wont have to worry about smacking the cars when you open it.

240 V AC?

air line runs in the studs?

overhead hoist?*



* you will want one for the next Lamborghini

I would NOT put the lift next to the rollup door, but rather farther into the space. You're correct that a vehicle on the lift will block the rest of your work space.

I would say use heavy rebar and concrete, as you may find later that you want to work on a larger vehicle, or drive a forklift into the space for example. I probably wouldn't go the scissor lift route unless space becomes an issue. Are you planning to add a washer/ dryer later? You should plan for it. Also, a shop sink, 220V compressor, welder, and some sort of outside 220 plug. I have overhead air, overhead power, floor drain, and inside the wall hose bib in one of my shops and love it.

I put it in cad, here are a few configurations. Let me know if you want to try anything else.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575429136.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575429160.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575429180.jpg

I like 1 angled, 1 straight in, much easier to maneuver, less floor space needs to be open.

No door between storage and garage? Think about framing the header/opening, and covering with sheetrock, so if you change mind it can be opened up easily.

Appreciate everyone's thoughts. Lots of good suggestions here. I will say that this is primarily a car building garage, rather than a storage garage. So maximizing space for cars is lower on the list than creating a good environment for the kinds of moderate to severe car builds I do.

Putting two doors on the front of the garage would require some fairly expensive earthquake-proofing. Even going with a 12 x 12 door on this wall was a challenge. The precise reasoning for this is beyond my depth.

Good suggestion about swinging the man-door out, cabby. The man-door out of the garage is fairly fixed, as it is located just opposite the back door to the house. I'll likely build a breezeway between the garage and the house to provide cover during monsoon season.

Wow--much appreciate this, dad! Very cool and generous of you. I too like the one straight, one angled. That's where I'm leaning, although putting the scissor lift right in front of the door would be good for use as a car wash station. I like to put cars up in the air for washing/detailing, and the slab will be sloped for runoff.

There will certainly be a door between the storage and garage. I think it will likely be toward the house side (where the side an door is). We have removed the man door out from the storage area because the slope of the hill will block it, and have a man door about even with the right front tire of the straight-in car in your diagram.

Here's a shot looking as if you were standing at the garage door looking toward the inside and back. The circled hill cut is 8 feet high, so we'll be building the back concrete wall of the storage area that high.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1575435162.JPG

is that English Ivy?? if so, get a backhoe to rip it all out while you still have access

It's definitely ivy, though I don't know its nationality. Good thought about removing it. I'll get them to do that when they backfill.

The two, smaller garage doors wouldn’t be any real issue, with regards to earthquake regulations. You may have an idea now of how you would use it, but a garage and its uses can evolve, so I would encourage you to do the double doors in the front so that you don’t lock yourself into wasting half the space in the garage, should your needs change.

The smaller door in the front serves no purpose whatsoever. You don’t need Two entrances into a space that small. Reversing the swing of the door as suggested above exposes the hinges to the outside, which makes entry into the garage a 30 second affair to any thief. If you choose to do that, at least use welded hinges to make their job more difficult.

You’re going to have some issues with moisture infiltration if you don’t pick a good waterproofing company. Make sure they know what they’re doing.

I disagree. What would end up happening is they'll use the overhead door as access from the front without a walk in door. I can point to countless numbers of 24x24 garages with two walk in doors simply because people don't want to walk around to the other side of the building to get in.

Locks only keep honest people out too. Hinges out our hinges in, it's a 30 second endeavor however you slice it for someone determined to get in. I freaked my wife out once when I used a credit card to get in our garage. I told her "the deadbolt might have slowed me down just a bit but they can be overcome too"

Likely reason for difficulty of a double door or wider door is the header that would be required along with sufficient framing at the corners. I remember helping my brother build his garage and thinking "this is bullsh.t" The way we had to frame the wall with the overhead door struck me as nuts but he's in a "hurricane" area so the header went from wall to wall IIRC and there wall had extra framing as well.
I would guess that width of the wall is his limiting factor in doing two doors with sufficient stud framing for code.

That is correct.

We have two large glue lam beams that will be used as headers above the garage door and the opening to the rear room.

Two separate doors are no big deal, as they afford the opportunity to put a column in between them and you can make a stiffer wall with two small openings as opposed to one larger one.

I can't see the smaller door in the front getting used much. Most of the traffic in and out will be from the house. Leaving the front of the garage, with the big door not open, will be for what purpose?

Since we're talking about beams, make sure the framers don't use dimensional lumber for the door and window headers. Use sections from an LVL.