- New Garage Site
M&J are building a garage. Not just any garage, this is a very exciting project. I am almost more excited about this project than they are, so they agreed to let me snoop around, take pictures, and write about their roughly year-long journey. But don’t worry, you don’t have to wait a year to see the results. They’ve already done months of planning, plotting, and prepping, so now you get to read about the three months of construction that just started. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Why is this garage project so special? M&J, like many of us, have a nice house with an attached two car garage. And although they love their house and their neighborhood, things could be just a bit better with a few tweaks. So they’ve decided to renovate their existing two car garage in to a new family room, opening up their floor plan and creating some much needed family space with an open kitchen.
But with that change, that leaves all of their three cars out in the street, so to speak. They’ve decided to build a freestanding garage. But the footprint of the property only allows for a one car garage, so they’ll be adding a car lift to the one-car garage, which will make it a two car garage. And they’ll add some additional space to the garage to create a separate man den (ahem, I mean workspace) for J.
They started planning last January, about 7 months ago. They just broke ground, and things are happening fast. M&J are going to let me hang with them, and they’ve offered to share the process, as well as the problems and pitfalls that come with any large-scale project like this.
Why would you care about this project? Well, I can tell you that M&J are not your typical homeowners. J is an engineer and a bit of a car buff. And Melissa has lived in enough homes to know what little tweaks and twists will take a home from nice to great. Oh, and she has great style, did I mention that? These two together have thought through some very specific issues that most people might not consider when taking on a project like this. For starters, how many people consider installing a lift to increase the size of the garage? That was brilliant! And as far as home improvements go, they are doing some things that are very cost-effective. It looks to me like they are on the path to getting a very high quality product from a moderate renovation budget. There are also a lot of moving parts in this project, so they are going to cover a lot of ground, literally and figuratively, before they are done. They will have to deal with everything from setting foundations to moving staircases, plumbing, and finally- the fun stuff-storage and decorating. I hope you will subscribe to this feed by clicking here to get updates on how this project is progressing, and hopefully getting inspiration and guidance for your project or dreams.