[montea]

i found a link on this forum to this website with garage plans.... i seen it had plans for garages with apartments ontop. i want to build one of these out on a acreage. http://www.justgarageplans.com/plan.php?planID=152

i think i would add on another space for 1 more car on the side of the garage but with no door(storage of a project or whatever) and put in a bathroom in the garage. to build one of these i would think it would be fairly cheap since u dont need to dig a basement. just get a garage floor put down and build up. what do u guys think??

[johnnymopar]

i hear ya...

there was a building that i always wanted to buy, it was a garage at one time and had a second floor. it was in a town about 20mins from where i live and unfortunately i never had the $$ to buy it, although i think it probably would have sold for about 1/2 of what it cost to buy a house. it was about 25'x40'. i would have loved to have a small apt. up top and a nice shop in the bottom. a couple years ago somebody bought it and turned it into a HOUSE!! that really bummed me out.

JB

p.s. still looking

[adtkart]

There are financial advantages to "building up". You do have to have a substancial foundation, it is only under part of the floor space, but has to support all of it. With land costs what they are, you can save there by needing less space. If the garage is heated, the house part benefits, since heat rises. Our local building code requires that walls (ceiling in your case)between a garage and living space be finished off with drywall. That does help justify the expense of finishing the inside of the garage.

One downfall of a garage of that type is that dirt and such gets tracked into the house. Typical of the problem of any attached garage. There is also the noise that makes it into the house from the garage being right under it. My garage is about 50' from the house and we can hear my compressor at night if it starts up. It is nice when it rains, if you are one of those that is able to park your "driver" in the garage.

Just my thoughts.

[Turbo Indian]

one thing I can tell you from experience if there is a female in the house an you have a shop downstairs you will here the nagging about the smells from welding, gear oil, paint any thing with an odor. I had 1600sq' of shop under my house but I had to have a mans room with a stocked bar that took up about 500sq' now I'm hearing about the smells in MY BAR.

[Dubz]

Originally posted by Turbo Indian
one thing I can tell you from experience if there is a female in the house an you have a shop downstairs you will here the nagging about the smells from welding, gear oil, paint any thing with an odor. I had 1600sq' of shop under my house but I had to have a mans room with a stocked bar that took up about 500sq' now I'm hearing about the smells in MY BAR.

my long term gf of 3.5 years is wanting us to get my "garage house" plan that i thought of about 2 years ago while looking at garage packages, saw one that was a 3 car garage 1000sq ft garage with 950 or so sq ft loft. swapped ideas to a 4 car garage and it's been in the works ever since

i was working for and insurance claim company for the past couple years while going to university, doing cleanups from floods, sewer backups, fires, ect, and i don't think the garage house could be any better for possible water damage....you won't have ground water seepage into the basement, if the water tank blows, your garage floor gets wet and that's it, no carpet to replace, no drywall to replace (usually the cement foundation would be a couple inches higher than the floor).