I will say the same!!! "How Cool is that!" I was looking for an idea for my family photo wall, Since we are a Car Guy family, I am gonna use license plates now to spell "FAMILY" in a frame that matches the others..Thanks Linda soooo much for the post!!!! And congrats to the 4H-er on a Job well done! ;)

I've never head anyone say - "We have too much garage space". Garage space is relatively inexpensive compared to sq/ft costs of a home. You don't have to heat it or carpet it or furnish it. The extra cost will be for the extended slab, walls, roof and door. Be careful you don't shrink your garage too much. A Miata is what you have now, but what if you want to buy something else down the road? Remember, too, to allow space to get in, out and walk around your vehicles. It's amazing how big a car becomes once it is in an enclosed space. Especially trucks or SUVs with oversized mirrors. A too small garage can become a daily source of irritation - not to mention the possibility of damaging your cars if you can't open the doors without hitting the wall or another car. If you plan to have a yard, you'll need someplace to store tools and mowers and such as well. Be sure and engineer the trusses/joists above the garage to support the extra weight of your bonus room floor and the storage space.

If your husband is insistent on a 4 car garage, then look at making the garage rear entry instead of front or side entry. It wouldn't look like a commercial auto repair place with a small house attached then. It would also give you the turnaround space as a private "party" patio without having to construct an extra patio. It will only be minimally more expensive for your driveway paving to construct it like that and it keeps the facade looking like a house at least. You will have to have a large enough lot for this, but if you're looking at a 4 car, you're not looking at 50 foot wide lots. Our workshop/garage is side entry and the single and double doors are basically in line with the house's side entry garage. Like all side entries, it's at least only partially visible to the street. We've had the "auto shop attached to the house" comments, even though the house is in front and they are separate structures. We had to do the shop in the rear because of codes, but we have a great view to the rear of the property, so building it in a "L" orientation to the house was our compromise to keep as much of the view as possible and still have the shop. I only wish we had had other more aesthetically pleasing options. Starting from scratch gives you a lot more options.

I am totally and irrationally attached to my old car. We just got a "new" one - a 2008 hyundai santa fe, but I am already thinking about what to get next when we sell this one. We got a killer deal on a low mileage used one and could probably even make money if we sold it today (and would make money if we totaled it). I love having a bigger car with a toddler and I love AWD in bad weather but I do not really love the crappy gas mileage so hoping in a couple of years our options are better for a CUV with better fuel economy (some of the models coming out this year look good so we'll see how good they really are and then look for a good deal in a couple of years). But we just put a lot of money (where a "lot" is relative to the value of the car) our 2001 Honda Accord. NOTHING special about it at all but I just love that car. It needed a new CV joint, 4 new tires, an expensive 100k mile service and new brakes. Somewhat recently it had the timing belt done and a new clutch. It runs like new now and even though it's nothing luxurious or sporty and never was, if I am going somewhere by myself and the weather is OK I will always take the old car. To me it's like that perfectly faded, broken in pair of jeans that are just starting to get good after 10 years. yeah there are a couple of frayed edges but oooh so comfortable. DH wanted to sell it when we got the "new" car and go back down to one car again (we have shared a car for the last 10 years or so that he has been working from home) but it's really much harder to do that with a child... and I just could not bear to give up the old car.