Parking Collector cars with Daily Drivers

[Zedder]

Looking for a little garage advice please...We're working with an architect on a house design and I don't know what to do about the garage. The house is going to be in the city on a 72 foot by 140 lot, so we are a little crammed for space and we don't want the garage to overpower the house. So, we are planning building a double deep "2 car" garage (22 ft wide by 40 ft deep). The first 2 bays, closest to the doors, will be for my wife's and my daily cars. The rear bays will be for 2 collector cars on a lift and my tools etc. My concern is will the moisture brought into the garage from the daily cars (snow in winter etc.) affect the collector cars and if so, should I consider putting up another wall and garage door inside the garage to section off the collector cars? Or should I use some other method of protection in the winter(car bags, bubbles etc)? Any thoughts from your experiences? Thanks

[LVCamaro]

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Any thoughts from your experiences? Thanks

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Buy the lot next door, Mark, and build a big boy garage

[Belair62]

I live your problem every day...my solution was to keep the everyday cars outside.....now go fight with the wife !!!It's tough on a city lot to even get the 40 ft length....I imagine a wall with another garage door would work but that would probably add more money to the project that you could spend on parts ! The moisture will get everywhere without some type of curtain..plus you will be re-heating your garage every time you open it to pull in the driver..

[Zedder]

That's too funny Steve . We did buy the lot next door last year and just sold it on thursday. We had planned on building on both lots but needed to cash in some stock options to do so. However, after reviewing the situation again, we decided it was better to leave the options alone and build a house that will suffice for the next ten years or so. If everything goes as planned there will be more than enough cash in 10 years to build a "big boy garage" to rival some of the best on the site! Heck, I might even be able to lease you a little space. Thanks for the advice!!!

[Zedder]

We do that now Belair and if I want to stay married the next house has to have a parking space for the wife!

[Pantera]

First off, if you have the space why not build it a little wider than 22 ft? If you have the room? You will not be sorry. I hate a narrow space when trying to open a cardoor next to another car inside.

Now for the garage. There are people here that build a third seperate single car size garage on the front just to house their yard equipment and other toys/clutter.

This looks nice from the street. There are only 2 Garage doors visable and one is just smaller than the other two. I am talking about a two car 16' and a single car 10ft wide doors.

You then make the single 10 ft. one pass through into the back yard side of your house with another single door on the otherside. This would leave your everyday garage in a totally different room and the mosture and prying eyes would not be a factor.

You could also put single car size OH door on the back inside wall. This could lead to the other side of the house and open to the backyard and still not be seen from the street when closed. You could use the sinle to keep your lawn mower or whatever in the front and move it when you need to get a car out.

This would keep your valuable cars totally seprated and safely out of view from the street when you were working on them. You could then have a big concrete pad at least 30ft wide in the backyard to turn them on and into another 2 car garage say at 90 deg to the outlet and with a OH door for a storage area where you could put them up on Lifts if you wanted.

If you build a totally seperate 2 car storage for your playthings like this, the advantage of the extra pad could be used for Famly dinners or a place for the kids/grandkids to play on. I know if I was doing it I would put a huge Carport type cover on it. I love to work outside on my cars with out the hot sun on me. It is so nice to have lots of room to open the cars doors and not have to worry about hitting another car.

You would also have a second single wide place to park a car in the pass through into the backyard. That way you have even more space and still have a normal looking house from the street.

I hope I am explaining this clear enough. It is easier to envision in my head than to explain. I doubt that it would hurt your resale value as someone could always convert the rear 2 car garage to a game room or hobby shop.

I don't know about where you live but here they don't look at garage space as taxable living areas, so they are not taxed nearly as high on your home taxes. It also leaves less to mow if you are one of those that do that yourself.

That way you will have even more space just for detailing. If you have two lifts then you will hate to work on them on the lifts when you are wanting to detail them.

[bilede]

boy does this hit close to home, I built my house previous to marriage with a six car garage, 3 front, 3 rear. 35x40 so I went extra wide and it still wasn't enough to keep her and kids away from my cars and toys so I kicked her car out and that worked for a while but kids and toys still are clashing so I am building a new garage that is 50x70 and putting my sister who is recently divorced in a small apartment with only external access in a corner of the building. She is going to pay rent and I figure it will be paid for in 3-4 years.. oh, and yes it will be tall enough for a lift.. yeah!!!!! you have to be creative and find a way to protect your toys right!

make it as big as you can because that couple of grand becomes 10 fold when you decide to bust walls out later..

good luck!

[Pantera]

Yeah, I meant to add that you can never build it big enought or tall enough. When you have small kids then you have a totally different problem also to contend with.

[70 copo]

I have a 3 bay on the house, and also built a 72'X 30' off to the side with an exterior design that compliments my main house. I built it to look like a ranch with peaks and brick exterior. You gotta have the additional space, besides most collector car insurance companies frown on Collector cars stored with your regular cars.

Good luck.

Phil

[Zedder]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I agree wholeheartedly that bigger is definitely better when it comes to garages, however we live in the city so land is very expensive. A standard 72 ft by 135 ft lot is $160,000 add another $150/sq ft or more for the house and you can see that this becomes a very expensive project. Also, this is a somewhat exclusive street so having a huge garage just isn't going to fit in. When the kids are older we plan on moving further into the burbs or buying an old home on a nice lot in the city and tearing the house down. For now, I need to live with a 3-4 car garage. Thanks again,