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View Full Version : Opinion wanted.



Don Baer
06-16-2006, 6:07 PM
I am getting ready to meet with my builder in AZ and am toying with my options. The house will be a 5 Bedroom 2 1/2 Bath. The plans call for a 2 car garage but for about 10k more he will add a third car garage with door on both ends for access to the back yard.Theres not enough room to drive into the back without the second roll up door. I plan on building a 24 ft square shop and using the 2/3rds of the garage for my shop in the mean time. It would be nice to have the third car garage but with the money I save I figure I can get the stand alone shop sooner. BTW I haven't discussed the shop yet with LOML..:(

Here's a picture of what I have been playing with.



Whats your opinions ?

Sorry I posted the sketup version so I reposted a jpeg for those who don't do sketch-up

Matt Meiser
06-16-2006, 6:25 PM
I wish our garage had a 3rd bay. We keep two cars, a tricycle, wagon, various Little Tikes toys, power washer, generator, fridge, freezer, shelving, etc. in there. If we had a 3rd bay, it would be a little easier to walk through. Either that or the 3rd car wouldn't have to sit out.

If you do go with that design, make sure you park a car in that bay so that it doesn't fill with junk that keeps you from getting to the back yard easily.

Ron Jones near Indy
06-16-2006, 6:43 PM
I have a stand alone shop and a two car garage. I really wish I had a 3 car garage. It would be, on a daily basis, more beneficial to my family than my shop is. However in 3 years or so, when I retire. my shop will be of more benefit than the extra bay in the garage. I feel that if resale value is a factor, go for the larger garage.

Lee DeRaud
06-16-2006, 6:46 PM
It partly depends on what you had in mind for landscaping in that sideyard, but I think I'd go with the third garage bay as drawn. If you want direct access to the shop from the front of the house, you'd have to pave that area anyway and it would be a lot more useful enclosed.

You might also want to consider putting a wall (with connecting door) between that bay and the "main" garage.

In any case, it provides some privacy (from the front) for those two windows on that side of the house and maybe some shade, depending on which way the house points.

Want us to help pick the tile for the master bath? :D :cool:

Don Baer
06-16-2006, 6:59 PM
I wish our garage had a 3rd bay. We keep two cars, a tricycle, wagon, various Little Tikes toys, power washer, generator, fridge, freezer, shelving, etc. in there. If we had a 3rd bay, it would be a little easier to walk through. Either that or the 3rd car wouldn't have to sit out.

If you do go with that design, make sure you park a car in that bay so that it doesn't fill with junk that keeps you from getting to the back yard easily.

Trikes and such can be a bit of a problem but only when the grand kids visit. But we will have a freezer in the garage and LOML seems to be able to store a lot of junk in my garage/shop everytime I clear out any spare room. Thats why I want the stand alone shop.


I have a stand alone shop and a two car garage. I really wish I had a 3 car garage. It would be, on a daily basis, more beneficial to my family than my shop is. However in 3 years or so, when I retire. my shop will be of more benefit than the extra bay in the garage. I feel that if resale value is a factor, go for the larger garage.

This is to be the house we retire in so resale will only be a factor to my to sons when were gone. Right now I have to work for a few more years (8)and the shop will be my escape. Later the shop will be used as my escape and I plan on doing commisioned pieces out of it when I retire.


It partly depends on what you had in mind for landscaping in that sideyard, but I think I'd go with the third garage bay as drawn. If you want direct access to the shop from the front of the house, you'd have to pave that area anyway and it would be a lot more useful enclosed.



The entire yard will be desert landscape




Want us to help pick the tile for the master bath? :D :cool:

That job belongs to OML...:D

Joe Pelonio
06-16-2006, 7:23 PM
I wish I had a 3 car garage, as do most people. For the extra 10K I'd go for it even if it does delay the shop. In that area you'll want to keep at least 1-2 cars garaged out of the sun when possible, and if your spouse is anything like mine there will be a lot of storage taking up a good part of the garage over time. That 10K will be more later, not only because of the
added cost of tearing out the wall, but inflation, and many contratctors won't want to do such a small job.

Jerry Olexa
06-16-2006, 8:20 PM
One of the reasons I bought this house 7 yrs ago was a 3 car garage so i could have my shop in one of the bays...Well, my shop is now 90 % in the basement and I like it there. I only keep TS and planer in the garage for sheet goods, etc. Planer because of chips, dust etc easier to clean just MHO.:D :) I'm thinking of moving planer to basement also where i have DC...

Don Baer
06-16-2006, 9:13 PM
Well it looks like the 3 car garage and the shop later is the opinion. I was leaning that way from the start but I wanted to shake the bushes and see what fell out. Additional comments are welcome.

Jim Becker
06-16-2006, 9:34 PM
It's hard to say to you to spend or not spend the extra $10K...I like the idea you posted a lot. Extra room in the garage without eliminating access to the back yard is very nice. And I suspect that $10K realistically isn't a huge uplift in the scheme of the total project cost.

It's easy for me to say that 'cause it's not my money' however...but I'm sure I'm going to learn my own lesson in that respect with my own upcoming addition project. $10K isn't much, but adding it multiple times is! LOL! Sheesh...

Joe Mioux
06-16-2006, 9:55 PM
I think you have a bigger problem looming if you are planning on filling five bedrooms and having only 2.5 bathrooms, especially if you have teenagers! :D

With that said.....

Lose a bedroom gain a garage! lol just kidding.... well maybe not. How many little "knot heads" (said with love and woodworking affection!) do you feed?

You have a dilemma similar to mine. I have a three car garage but with only two garage doors. LOML says we have a two car garage because there are only two garage doors. However, garage is 24 x 32 .... I don't own any vehicles 24 feet long, so its a three car garage.

LOML is begging me to add on to our garage to get my woodworking stuff out of her two car garage. There is only one problem, ..... allocating those scarce resoures......:rolleyes: to fund this project.

Anyway, like Jim Becker has mentioned you are already on the higher end of a regular house, ask yourself if the 10K is going to adversely affect your living style or long range plans?

Sorry I couldn't be more help, but I hope I made you smile

Joe

Art Mulder
06-16-2006, 9:58 PM
Well it looks like the 3 car garage and the shop later is the opinion. I was leaning that way from the start but I wanted to shake the bushes and see what fell out. Additional comments are welcome.

Don...

You don't say, but is it safe to assume that there is no basement in the picture? That would obviously have a big impact on the available storage.

Five bedrooms seems like a lot to me. Since you don't care about resale, you want to be sure that you don't put in wasted space. Only build what you are going to need and use.

If you are sure that you want an outbuilding... then what will you need those three bays for once you do so? If you are going to retire in 8 years... will you also drop down to being a one-car family? Then, even a 2 bay garage should have plentiful room. Maybe for the next 8 years you can make do with leaving a car in the driveway.

With five bedrooms, I'm guessing that you expect family to visit fairly frequently? I can't imagine why else you'd want five of them. But even so... what is the percentage of time that they'll be full versus empty? How much space does a guest really need? When I visit my folks all I need is a bed and a closet, and a minimal amount of floorspace. My kids can double up and even sleep on the floor. Can you make those bedrooms smaller and save on space that way? Can you make the space do double duty by putting in a murphy bed? Or bunk beds in a smaller room meant for kids? Or can a wall of closets turn a large guest room into a smaller guest room that also has lots of storage (or even the freezer.)

(For example: a room can be an office for 11 months of the year, but the other month, when family visit, the bed can fold down, and you can use the laptop at the DR table with the wireless network)

Just my thoughts, hope some of them are helpfull to you.

best,
...art

Bill Grumbine
06-16-2006, 10:03 PM
Don, if you are anything close to what I am like, if you build that third bay, you are going to fill it up with stuff. Any time you want or need to drive through to the backyard for anything, you are going to have to move that stuff to do it. If you don't build it, you can't create an obstruction to the backyard.

I would love the space too (and I have it in a manner of speaking), but this is my take on the layout. Good luck with your decision.

Bill

Don Baer
06-17-2006, 12:22 PM
Thanks for all of your thoughts.

First of all since this will be our last house and we are fortunate to be in a position to pay cash I made the mistake of telling LOML that she can have any house she wants. LOML wants to use the 5th bedroom as her office. My youngest son and his wife and baby will be moving in for a few years :confused: while they complete there degrees so for the near term future that will use up two of the bedrooms and leave us with the fourth bedroom as a guest room. That also means 4 cars or in our case two cars and 2 pickup trucks. Originaly the 3 car garage was to allow LOML to park her car inside which she cannot do now since my shop takes up all of a 2 car garage. I would eventually like a seperate shop that is only a shop since using a gagare as a shopmeans sharing my space with all of the other junk that seems to accumulates in the garage. I guess I'll build that later on.

I'f it were me I'd have a 576 sq.ft. house and a 3000 sq.ft. shop but I guess I'll have to settle for the reverse.:D

Karl Laustrup
06-17-2006, 3:05 PM
As I've just completed our house, I'd like to weigh in on this discussion if you don't mind.

First, I say go for the third bay. Let LOML park her car [or yours] in that stall so it doesn't become obstructed to the back yard. Having access to the back yard with a vehicle and/or trailer could come in very handy down the road. Think how easy to get materials for your shop into the back yard. :)

There are always [at least when we did ours] things popping up and decisions to be made about additional work not planned for. I thought I designed a pretty good floor plan [overall it was and is] and had all the stuff I wanted, but as Jim said, 3k here 5k there and the next thing you know you've added up another 20-30k. This is our last house, so I also tried to plan for our later years [almost completely handicap accessible] as well as try to think what our grand daughter would be comfortable with when it becomes hers.

One last thing Don. If you can afford it now, do it. That's the way I looked at building ours. And I didn't want to look back and say, I wish I'd done that then, because I probably won't be able to afford it later.

My $1.398 worth of opinion.

Karl

Art Mulder
06-17-2006, 3:24 PM
If you build the third bay of the garage, then the only access to the back yard is through the garage... That isn't going to work when it comes time to pour the slab of your backyard shop.

Lee DeRaud
06-17-2006, 3:43 PM
If you build the third bay of the garage, then the only access to the back yard is through the garage... That isn't going to work when it comes time to pour the slab of your backyard shop.Maybe where you are, but out here they dig and pour swimming pools in the back yards of houses with side yards narrower than that. His shop slab will be a piece of cake.

Jim DeLaney
06-17-2006, 4:38 PM
If you build the third bay of the garage, then the only access to the back yard is through the garage... That isn't going to work when it comes time to pour the slab of your backyard shop.


Two words: Concrete pumper!

The bigger hassle, though, would be delivery of stuff like trusses, roofing materials, etc. Carrying all that stuff back there one-at-a-time could get tiresome!

BTW, DON, Karl made a very goo point about doing what you want now, not fretting about it later. Also, his remarks about handicap access are very much on point. You're retiring there, right? So, you'll be there until thay cart you off to 'the home.' Having the place handicap accessible might prolong that for a few years. Regardless, it's not a bad idea, and it's cheaper to build it in now than it will be to remodel it in later. Think particularly about wider doors, turn radii into bathrooms, assist bars, higher toilets, lever type faucets in bath & kitchen, etc.

Rob Russell
06-17-2006, 5:02 PM
Lots of interesting feedback so far.

Something you might consider is asking your builder for a quote to build the shop as part of the construction project. You might be surprised at how little extra (relatively speaking) it would be to have them do that now. While excavation is going on for the house, dig footers for the shop slab. Have them pour it all at once. They might actually frame the shop first because it would give them a secure place to store construction tools and such - he might give you a real break on that pricewise because of what it could do to make the house job easier for him. The drywall for the shop doesn't need to be done until the house - the point is to get it framed and secured.

Best of luck on the project.

Mark Rios
06-17-2006, 5:50 PM
Go with the 3rd bay.

Norman Hitt
06-17-2006, 6:53 PM
Lots of interesting feedback so far.

Something you might consider is asking your builder for a quote to build the shop as part of the construction project. You might be surprised at how little extra (relatively speaking) it would be to have them do that now. While excatation is going on the the house, dig footers for the shop slap. Have them pour it all at once. They might actually frame the shop first because it would give them a secure place to store construction tools and such - he might give you a real break on that pricewise because of what it could do to make the house job easier for him.

Best of luck on the project.

I think Rob has a very good point, and I would Definitely go for the Third bay, BECAUSE...........that's where all the LOML's stuff can be stored, INSTEAD.....of miracuously finding it's way into YOUR Shop, no matter whether you build the shop now OR later.:D

Karl Laustrup
06-17-2006, 8:44 PM
Lots of interesting feedback so far.

Something you might consider is asking your builder for a quote to build the shop as part of the construction project. You might be surprised at how little extra (relatively speaking) it would be to have them do that now. While excatation is going on the the house, dig footers for the shop slap. Have them pour it all at once. They might actually frame the shop first because it would give them a secure place to store construction tools and such - he might give you a real break on that pricewise because of what it could do to make the house job easier for him.

Best of luck on the project.

Rob has a very good point about building the shop now. The crews are there. It's a little more lumber, shingles, concrete, drywall, etc., but it can come on the same trucks as the rest of the house.

Karl

Art Mulder
06-17-2006, 9:24 PM
Two words: Concrete pumper!

Jim, I've seen concrete pumpers before, sure, but almost never on residential construction. Regardless, I knew that there was a solution, but whatever solution there was, it was going to cost more, or be more work, than simply driving the truck up and dumping the concrete down the chute.

I guess, if I were to post that again, I would point out that things like this would, I suspect, ensure that the cost for that 3rd bay is probably not just $10,000 more.


Something you might consider is asking your builder for a quote to build the shop as part of the construction project.

Now THAT is the best bit of advice I've seen yet in this entire thread!! It is certainly at least worth asking the question!

Art Mulder
06-17-2006, 9:30 PM
... My youngest son and his wife and baby will be moving in for a few years :confused: while they complete there degrees so for the near term future that will use up two of the bedrooms and leave us with the fourth bedroom as a guest room.
...
I'f it were me I'd have a 576 sq.ft. house and a 3000 sq.ft. shop but I guess I'll have to settle for the reverse.:D
Here's possibly a crazy idea... You need two extra bedrooms for a "few" years. Consider this. How much extra are those two bedrooms costing you? Remember, it isn't just the up front building costs, it is also the increased taxes (forever) and the upkeep on those rooms (you need to clean them, dust them, and maintain them, and probably pay to put furniture in them) and so on.

So take that number. Then consider how much it would cost you to rent a 2 bedroom apartment or small condo, for your son's family for the next "few" years. (on the plus side, you both gain a bit more privacy and ability to "do your own thing. On the negative, your children don't get free builtin babysitting...)

So which number is higher?

Just a thought.

best wishes,
...art

Rob Russell
06-17-2006, 10:11 PM
Forgot to post about the concrete pumper. If you decide not to do the shop now, you can definitely pump concrete for your shop later. We needed a pumper for the foundation for our addition. The pumper was parked in our driveway and had this huge articulated arm that went up and over the house. Imagine a monstrous praying mantis, except that instead of grabbing bugs this thing spits out concrete.

One thing to beware of in general with concrete is that they want a place to wash everything out to. If you do the shop later, they're gonna dump that washout in your yard. It's not something you have a lot of choice about - they need to clean things out right away or it'll clog everything up.

I'd seriously think about the shop now. Even if it meant taking a small mortgage - think of what that would allow you to do. $50K over 30 years @ 8% is under $350/month.

Regardless of what you do with the shop, I'd definitely go with the 3rd bay in the garage. I wish we had 5 bays. Front and back doors is a really neat way to give yourself backyard access - just use oversize doors everywhere to make that access as easy as possible.