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The Old House Garages/Workshops Design Dilemma

From Drive Under/Basement Garage to Adjacent Garage?

2 years ago

Hi. We are in NE where old houses often have drive under garages right under the living room. I absolutely do not like them for the obvious reasons (hauling groceries, babies and noise). Most of these type of house plans mean the frame is smaller and there is a certain slope in the lot - at the very least on one side of the house. Is there any clever way to absorb the drive-under garage into the basement and turn it into a walk-out basement? How/where can you add an attached garage at the same level? With these old houses, having an attached garage next to the kitchen is probably impossible ask. Attached is a very typical house we often see all over in old North East homes. Has anyone converted the garage and been able to add a new one in a cost effective way? TIA.

Featured Answer

chispa

2 years ago

Our first house in the northeast had the garage under. We swore we would never make that choice again! We had looked at remodeling and adding onto the house at one point, but it didn't make sense to still have things we didn't like about the property. We sold and bought a house that better met our needs/wants and had an attached 3-car garage!

You can always build retaining walls and bring in fill, but that won't really be cost effective.

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Comments (6)

kandrewspa
2 years ago
Garage conversions have been done for decades. You can either turn the doors into windows, sliders or French doors, or if you want to block off one of the doors completely you have to be able to reside the closed off area to match the rest of the house. I have seen it done where they didn't match the siding but that reminds everyone there used to be a garage door there.

I think usually the biggest impediment to building another more practical garage is lot size and contour. A lot of those houses don't have lots big enough to have another garage built on them, and if you want to have it on the same level as the first floor that has to work on the lot somehow. If it did work it probably would have been done when the house was first built. Maybe some of these houses could have another garage built on the back corner of the lot and connect to the house with a breezeway? This depends on the actual conditions and codes.
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nostalgic, thank you for thinking of our home. I'm sorry if I'm confused and/or have been confusing. We have no livable space under any of our garages. We looked into it at one point and found it very expensive as you need all this support to hold up the cars and such above. We have the 2 car at main level which is unexcavated underneath. Then we have the one car at basement level which is a walk out basement as we built into a southern facing slope. We do love having the separate garages though as the main level one is for our cars, convenient for bringing in groceries and such. The lower level one is great as it includes DH's workshop. The french port door keeps the space well lit during the day and it has a heater so is a great spot for him to work on tractors and such. But most importantly, from a look point of view, the smaller garage doesn't overwhelm the house...so many houses are dwarfed by the size of their garage and we didn't want that. So separating them keeps the proportions of our fairly small home well balanced. Maybe some pics will help explain it better...and I linked to a thread which includes the floorplan of our house. Front facade with 2 car garage on left, unexcavated underneath. (No living space upstairs either...that's all attic where the dormers are.) On the west side, you can see that it is built into a hill with the one car garage (behind the french port doors) underneath...no driveway. From the rear, you can see the 2 stories of the home....the basement level, and then the main level above. The deck is behind the garage, nothing underneath as we didn't want the deck shading any of the lower level rooms...makes them feel too much like basement. The basement starts where the left side of the deck ends. Here is a link that might be useful: Inspiration to reality
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What did you end up doing? I am faced with the same dilemma right now myself. I never park in the garage because of the narrow/steep driveway and the difficulty of backing up out of the garage without hitting the retaining wall. Retaining wall is also crumbling. And rain/snow also directed into a garage drain...
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Sarah
2 years ago
It really depends on cost effectiveness for you. I live 7 miles from Boston with a garage under 1/2 the house and we are considering converting it to living space. We live on a corner so no room to add a separate garage. Our cars don’t fit in our 1930 garage anyway so might as well make living space instead of junk holding space. Could we sell and buy an different place? With $2M we could and stay in the same town.

Construction costs are very high and a new garage could easily be $100-150k right now. Possibly more. If you talk to local builders or someone that’s built one in the last year that could give you a good idea of what you’re in for. Good luck!
D Kay
Original Author
2 years ago
@kandrewspa Thanks for the idea of a breezeway. Probably still impractical for the New England winters but at least something to consider. The lots in many suburban NE towns tend to be giant 1/2 acre to an entire acre while the house sitting on the lot is hardly 2000sqft. (Plus, the bi-laws prevent you from splitting these enormous lots and building more than one unit... one of the key reasons for this insane inventory shortage we have had for over a decade now and things went on insane bidding wars way before Covid made it fashionable in rest of the country. But I digress. Completely irrelevant to the garage question and yet that is one of the reasons why we have to consider a less-than-ideal house and figure a way to make it work for us.)
D Kay
Original Author
2 years ago
@chispa I think that is what my fear was. With the current labor cost and construction cost, it ultimately makes sense to just buy a house with a garage on the same level even with a slight higher price tag of the house.
D Kay
Original Author
2 years ago
@Sarah yep, Boston market has been insane for a while, even before Covid. Sucks.

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