OT: Anyone ever build or own a Garage/Apt.?

Thanks man, those are exactly the kind of pics that will help me work out ideas!

 

Build it all on one level. Shop on one end and a small apartment in the other. Start out with a living/kitchen/dining room, one bedroom and a nice bathroom. If you are not married now you will be. And when the kids come you can convert one of your shop bays to additional bedrooms.

Later, when you are successful you can build your wife's dream house up front and convert the kids bedrooms back to workspace.

Then you can rent the apartment out to a topless dancer or massage parlor girl. You will most likely have to evict the poor babe at some point to save your marrage and make the place available so your mother in law can be close to her baby.

Ya gotta have a long range plan.

 

What a beautiful plan. Man you are my hero.
chuck

 

I had a choice between a small house or a "storage" building. I built a 30x40x14 steel building (using scrap poles) & now have a 16x16 loft room in one corner. Here's my floor plan:
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Hey it beats the moving van I was living in...
Seriously I've seen/heard of lots of folks building a steel building & building a home inside. If you do it right (& have more money than I) you have a double insulated home that requires very little heating & cooling. I still don't have garage doors on my place yet; it's hard as hell to try to work in the winter or a hard rain.... :-(
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Hey old man, have you lived here all your life?
"Nope - not yet."

(edit) Damn the STUPID script that the HAMB uses eliminates all spaces over one that you put in a line. (It's SUPPOSED to be a square) Funny it shows just fine again here in the edit window.

 

Cool, another topic I can help on....

When I was in school I had to do an architectural project for a (mock) client. I was having trouble being creative so I used a few web sites to help get the juices flowing.

The apartment above a garage idea isn't just for folks who are strapped for cash anymore. And it has gone past the build a garage and stick another floor on top of it thinking as well. There are plenty of good plans for an attractive place - hell you might even be proud to bring a *gasp* GIRL over once in a while.

I'll give you the direct link to what you are looking for, but you can always go to the site's home page and look for any other plans you might need as well. At the bottom of the page click the "get page" button to see more pages...I only bring it up because I overlooked it a couple times..


http://www.coolhouseplans.com/garage_apartment_house_plan/index.html#staystill

If you see something you dig but want it tweeked a little to suit you better give me a PM or bump this post again and maybe I can help. They won't let you right click and save the images, but that doesn't mean I couldn't maybe give you a little re-draw.

If you want to keep a pulse on the cost issues you need to find out what the market cost is in your region. Around here it was around $250 per square ft. of living space (I think - it's been awhile). In Cali that would get you an empty garage, in Ohio - who knows? Anyways, it gives you an idea on how much space you could afford to build. Maybe ask some local contractors or someone who has recently bought/sold a new build. And always tack on ten to fifteen percent just for cushion....or take the highest estimate you can find.

 

Remember "Krass and Bernie" in Cartoons comics? Their garage/house was my idea of perfection when I was 14.

 

hardcore traditional hot rodders sleep in thier roadsters.

 

Broman, thanks for the link. This is something I've been thinking about for a long time.

This is as close as I've come to a cool work/play space (sorry, it's an old photo, been posted before)...



Unfortunately it was in the back of a print shop. Hard to heat, hard to cool and stunk of printer inks and solvents really bad. I knew I had to get out when I didn't notice the smell anymore.

 

Do you speak from experience??? If so you are my idol as well!

 

Thanks for the info, I'll talk to some builders and see what they think the market around here is like. That'll help the planning!

 

That is a really neat idea, but unfortunately I live in a county of 54,000 people. So former commercial property is hard to come by and is at a premium price if it is available. Cool idea though, thanks for the input!

 

SCORE!

I talked to a real estate guy I know and there are 2 lots he has that are 5+ acres for less than 25k and are secluded with no zoning. He also just built a 3000 sq ft garage of his own for under 30k. Wow, this idea is coming together fairly quickly. For those figures I would have less in mortgage payments than I pay in rent for a piece of shit apartment built in the 70s. And it would only be 30 min to work!

Thanks everyone for the great input, its totally keeping me motivated to research this. It may delay the building of my Edsel, but it would be worth it to be able to do the car right.

 

Guy down the street bought two lots, 5 acres total. One lot had a house on it, older ranch style. He lived in that while he built a new house next door. When he moved into the new house, he gutted the older house. It was on a crawl space, he removed the floor, and installed a new concrete floor in the crawl space, with a ceiling height of 12 ft. Garage doors in the back, from the front, it looks like all the houses on that street, front door, windows, and all. Most people don't know it is a shop.

 

OK here's my $.02. Your a carguy and single,forget the house. Your looking
at 5 acres outside of town,thats perfect. Put up the largest pole barn you
can afford(it will never be big enough so don't skimp here),also see if you
can get an ag exemption to tilt the building rules in your favor(not sure how
this works in your area but generally lets you build with a lot less government
oversite "ie. cheaper" though you may have to tie a goat outside). Find a
smaller mobile home or RV to put inside,(I'm partial to 50's vintage Spartans
maybe 10x40 or 50 aluminum aircraft"style" construction). Some indoor/outdoor carpet, lounge chairs,party lights,etc,hell I'd even go for
a couple of them plastic pink flamingos and a blow-up palm tree. Park your
daily right there,everthings out of the weather and your good.
Leave enough space out front to build a house in the future,after your
married. Until then,put a pool table in the front yard,tap a keg,and invite
those college girls over.

PS build it as tall as you can,loft space is a very important part of keeping
the floorspace open while housing your ever growing collection of pieces,
parts,etc.

 

Ramblur, that's almost fuggin' genius....

Wish I had thought of that years ago (before marriage). Then I might not be stuck in this hell hole. BTW, I love everything BUT the hell hole, wouldn't trade the wife and kid for nothing.

You could build the Ramblur Barn, move the RV in, then build a really nice bathroom in the corner of the barn (with waterheater and laundry, ect.) and live in the RV. In fact you would be able to sell the RV later (and for more cash if you bought a vintage) to help build the house.

Man, I'd be all over this idea.....need more shop space for a few days? move the RV outside and viola! you got it. Need to get back indoors because of the weather - slide your cars out of the way and back the RV indoors....

It doesn't have the class of some of the designs I have seen, but it is pretty cool, it's versatile and it damn cheap!

 

Old neighbor lived in garage apartment and yes he always complained about the smell.

 

This shop was on our acreage when we bought it a couple of years ago but only partially finished........... ain't divorces great . The interior was finsihed on the main floor. In floor heat, hot/cold water, toilet in the utility room. Right end has room for 3 cars, middle bay is an RV bay with 30 Amp service, hot/cold water and a sani dump, and then the left end has work benches, parts washer, bandsaw, etc. The exterior was unfinsihed so we've sided it in barn red steel. The second floor is currently unfinished but is 1200' with three in floor heat zones. The upstairs will eventually have a bedroom, bathroom, and large games area with a bar/kitchenette area.

If you're going to build a combination shop/home, I'd pay a little extra attention to using well sealed vapor barrier or something to isolate the living quarters from the shop, eliminating the odor concerns expressed earlier. If you went with in floor heat, you would not have to worry about odors coming througn the ventilation system.

Good luck.

 

If you had a decent exhaust blower (which tou should have in a proper shop anyways) you would cut down on odor ia a big way. That plus good sealing/insulation between the floors.

I have been telling the wife that I want a loft above the garage when we build our home (someday), so this thread get's me revved up.

I am going to coolfloorplans.com to look for idears....

I love this stuff.

 

The more I read these ideas of putting a mobile in a big assed polebard, it doesn't seem so bad either, I've got my work cut out for me making a decision.

 

i'm only a little over 2 hours away......stop down and get some ideas.....if you happen to be down this way..

i built a 30x34.......i has posts like a pole barn but i came up with 2 pressure treated tongue and groove 2x6's around the outside to look like a foundation (wish i had laid up to score of block now)....

i have 10ft ceilings downstairs and used a huge i beam to support the ceiling joists for the upstairs....

upstairs, i used rafters instead of trusses....this left it completely open for storage and head clearance.... i brought the posts 3ft. above the upstairs floor....so, in my center i have about 8 foot of head room and on the sides i have 3 ft from the extended posts (knee wall).......i could have brought them up to 8 ft but it would be REALLY tall next to my single story house....

for your situation, i would think about the two garage doors at the rear of the house.....build your living space on ground level......if you have the space...

a buddy of mine did this and he can just keep expanding when he wants in any direction...

done right, it can be done relatively cheap.....

 

"The more I read these ideas of putting a mobile in a big assed polebard, it doesn't seem so bad either, I've got my work cut out for me making a decision."

good thing i'm around to make decisions for you... do it, or i'll call you a girl.

as far as exhaust ventilation, what about pipes in the concrete floor under one or two of your parking spots with hoses coming out of them to vent exhaust outside, like the speedy oil change joints have? kinda thought about that myself. how well would it work? i thought about having a small apartment in the back of my pole barn, well, the one two of my impalas live in here on the farm. nice sealed outer house door...

do it, dammit. then you would by far be the coolest member of the gang.

 

I agree... I have a 28x28, two story garage, and my parents live in the apartment over it (as long as they live under MY roof, their gonna play by MY rules! ).

My dad doesn't say much, cuz he's a car guy too, but if I spray any brakleen, or paint, or whatever, mom complains.

She REALLY doesn't like it when I fire up one of the hot rods... even with the two big doors open, she gets fumed out pretty bad...

Not to mention the fact that the only time I have to work in the garage is when I get home from work (around 11pm), so I have to be quiet so they can sleep... So because of that, I pretty much DON'T work out there any more.

 

Josh, I'm takin off here in 5 minutes to go look at some parcels out in Coshocton Co. would still only be 1 hr from home and 30 min from work.

 

I lived in one once or twice, make sure your car doesn't leak anything that smells bad (or makes you dizzy), because you'll be wearing it as a cologne wherever you go.

Don't come home drunk, you might run over your bed.

Make sure you install a water heater BEFORE you move in, you will not be able to stand cold showers for more than a few days before your "outy" will be an "inny". Your girlfriend wants you to take a shower BEFORE you get to her house, not WHILE you are at her house. And you WILL be going to her house... she won't like yours.

 

shit, chicks can't stand old cars in this general region anyway. not like we haven't totally fucked that up already....