Help with location for detached garage
Wise Houzzers, I would like some opinions / advice. We live on approx. ½ acre lot which is sort of a wedge shape, wider in the front and gets narrower in the back. Due to zoning / being in a historic district, garages must be detached and behind the house. Our current “garage” is in desperate need of repair/replacement. We are unhappy with the current location which essentially cuts our back yard in half and blocks our view from our back porch. We are proposing moving the garage to the left side of our property so it would be a straight drive in from our driveway.
Our current garage is approx. 20 x 18. We are thinking the new garage would be 20 x 30. We live on a busy main road, so we need to be able to turn around and head out face first, backing out is not a viable option for every day. We do not park in our current garage. One car is parked between it and our porch and one is parked in front of it. We are able to back both cars up to turn around and head out face first currently.
Due to the size and shape of our lot, any place we build a new garage will require a variance, so for arguments sake the setbacks / lot coverage does not matter.
My questions:
Does the proposed location make sense? As an aside, to the left of our property is a “community garden” which I would be happy to have screening from. The rear of our property is wooded and we would like to see as much of that as possible.
How much driveway do you think is needed to be able to back out of the garage, turn, and be head first down the driveway?
Is 20 x 30 big enough to reasonably fit 2 (possibly 3 cars) plus lawn mower, snow blower, etc. I say possibly 3 cars as we have a 2 seat roadster which doesn’t get daily use we planned to put horizontally across the back (on car wheel dollys). Is this a crazy thought?
Any other comments / suggestions?
Thank You!
Rough outline of property
Comments (10)
6 years ago
PRO6 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (11)Hollysprings, you made the following statement "You can't have bathrooms in two different structures share the home's main sewer drain." Can you show any zoning/building laws that agree with your statement? I believe you statement is not true. I just built a detached guest house and the bathroom was tied into the main home's existing sewer drain. All the guest houses and pool houses in this area are hooked up in similar ways to sewers or septic systems. If the structure is part of the main property and not a second home/apt that might be rented out then it is all hooked up together. They actually don't want separate hook ups with different meters because that would make it easy for some homeowners to rent that space out, which the town does not want at all....See MoreHelp with detached garage with sliding doors
Comments (2)Thanks vancleaveterry! I found a website where someone had rigged the opener crosswise across the garage ceiling and then attached a post to the garage door, so maybe something like that would work. You don't see too many sliding doors anymore, but there are a bunch of Eichler houses in this area who have the original sliding doors, so we may be able to find an installer. I think that we are thinking replacing the doors would probably be the best solution , though, and then we'll need to add a door to the garage. $$$. Of course, we also have a gated driveway, so we'll need an opener for that if we want to leave it closed when we're gone. Our COE is not for another week, so I'll have to wait until then to look closer at the doors....See MoreWater Supply to Detached Garage/Living Space
Comments (1)Contact your local utility about separate utility services for the detached building. You will need a separate sewage hookup and supply as well as a separate gas supply if that is planned. On a separate meter. That is if local codes even allow a separate detached living quarter. Many do not, to keep people from violating the single family zoning for the property. They don't want people creating rentable structures....See Moregarage. attach, detach, ? help
Comments (17)Visually, you definitely don't want that narrow recess on the front of your house. I would add to Virgil's and PPF's suggestions that, depending on the style of your house and your climate (as in whether you think you would ever use it) you could also build an exterior wall between the garage and your bedroom, add a patio door somewhere and have a private courtyard off your master suite with a garden view from the tub. Then you wouldn't need the blinds closed in the bathroom all of the time to retain privacy. I know someone on this Forum who is adding on to their Mid Century Modern house has one of these private courtyards....See More
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Virgil Carter Fine Art