As of yesterday, we have officially applied for development permits on The Everything Garage! This is a rather monumental step as my wife and I have been discussing the garage design for several years now, and as always, other projects seemed to get in the way.
Well no more- the summer of 2020 is all about The Everything Garage!
Much like our other major projects here at The Homestud, we want to bring you along for the ride. The only difference is this time, we are venturing outside of our comfort zone and building completely from scratch. I know it isn’t a house, but for us (and I’m sure others), a detached garage will be just as important in improving our daily lives.
Our current detached garage
If you came from The Everything Garage page, you likely already have a good idea of the state of our current garage. It’s not pretty…
We have done nothing with the it since we purchased this property in 2015. The only car parked in it with regularity is our 74′ MGB roadster, and even that found winter storage elsewhere.
As of right now, the entire space is filled with a tent trailer, because well nothing else actually fits. The only other things trying to call it home are the mice I am constantly at war with.
Garage demolition
We’ll get into the garage design below, but I wanted to take a minute to discuss demolition.
I have never had to remove anything large enough that required a demo company before this project. We called around and received a few quotes for removal and disposal. They have ranged anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000. Don’t be surprised about the wide range, it’s like this with almost all contractor services in my neck of the woods.
As with any project, I rarely recommend choosing the cheapest option. In almost every case, you will be giving something up. Whether it’s professionalism, cleanliness, or the actual ability to get the job done properly.
Regardless of which company we end up choosing, we have demo lined up and ready to go for the spring.
Our detached garage design
The garage design is something we have agonized over for months and months. It may seem silly, but the overall budget for this build will be in the tens of thousands of dollars and I wanted to get it as close to perfect (for us) as possible.
The checklist:
Must haves:
- Park my wife’s SUV
- Store the tent trailer
- Park the MGB
- Rock climbing wall
- Workout space
- Outdoor gear storage (canoe, bikes, climbing gear, ski’s, snowboards, etc). This sort of stuff starts to pile up in a family that loves the outdoors like mine.
Wants:
- A place to add a 4 post car lift in the future
- A place to work on project cars
- Extra storage space for those odds and ends
- Some driveway space for extra parking
The first garage design:
Our initial plan was to go up and add a complete second story to the garage. This could serve as storage, a workout area, and an indoor bouldering wall.
Turns out I should have done a little more research, as the city development office shut this option down pretty quick. Turns out in Edmonton, you can only add a complete second story to a garage if it will be a living space (ie. garden suites).
In Edmonton, the midpoint of the roof line needs to be under 4.3m (14 feet). So we altered the design slightly in height to meet the local bylaws, and after discussing the plans with our engineer, we decided it would be easier to start from scratch. Our engineering costs were creeping over $5000 dollars (cement, engineered walls, and roof trusses), which seemed crazy to spend for a detached garage.
The current detached garage design:
This brings us to the current iteration and the garage design we used to apply for our development permit with the city. We live in a mature neighborhood and therefore have specific development bylaws that need to be followed. Among the standard bylaws like setbacks from property lines, two other important bylaws are height and site coverage. This iteration of the detached garage pushed the setbacks to the max, and actually goes beyond the allowable site coverage. However, we hope to get a variance from the city with regards to this issue.
In particular, the bylaw states that secondary structures do not exceed 12% of a properties square footage. Our garage design sits at just under 18%. Luckily, we have a few aspects working in our favor, like the lot coverage of our primary residence. It is well under the allowable 28% coverage.
Looks like a pretty normal garage right? This isn’t how the exterior will be finished, but it gives a pretty good idea of the design and scale.
A top down view shows exactly how our square footage will be laid out. The double car bay is 21′ wide by 32′ deep, while the single car bay is 12′ wide by 20′ feet deep. The spaces aren’t huge, but they are as big as we can physically push the limits on our property.
Interior layout
You might also be thinking, how in the heck do we plan to fit all our must haves in this space. With some careful planning in Sketchup, you might be surprised how much you can store in a well organized space.
Here is a rough idea of what we have in mind for the layout:
We also hope to have 10′ foot ceilings which gives lots of height for storing the canoe, bikes, and any potential seasonal gear above head height.
Think about your roof truss layout
We spent a while deciding what type of roof trusses to use in the garage design. In the end we plan to go with a combination of fink trusses over the double car portion, and scissor trusses above the single car side.
The bottom chord of the Fink trusses will be bolstered enough to hold a small amount of storage in the major triangle. While the scissor trusses will vault the ceiling above the single car, giving some extra height for the four post car lift.
That’s how we plan to get all of our must haves and wants into the garage. Turns out you don’t need to go with a crazy garage design to get everything you want. It just needs to be thought out and well organized.
So for now we sit and wait to to hear from the development office about our demolition permit and our development permit.
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