Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More Than a Garage

Today's garage, in some ways, is simply an update of the nineteenth century carriage house. Compared to today, those structures seemed more important and therefore more time was taken for planning both the look of the buildings and their relationship to the home. Often the carriage house was part of a barn or stable and occasionally included living quarters above.

I consider the character and placement of a freestanding garage as important as locating the house on the property since the addition of a garage begins to make an isolated house into a compound. A garage structure can be used to block winter winds, an unsightly view or to simply provide an attractive element in a landscape composition.

When a client asks us to design a garage for their home, one of the first questions we ask is: "Do you think you would ever need additional living or storage space?" and most of the time the answer is "Yes". Compared to building free standing guest quarters or studio space, the second floor of a garage is the best deal in town. Since you already have a roof and foundation, the additional costs include taller side walls, a stronger ceiling/floor, and a stair to create usable raw space for storage.

Once the building is framed, finishing off the space can be accomplished modestly or at great expense just like you would any room in your home. A living space over an unheated garage does present some unique challenges. First the floors as well as the roof must be very carefully insulated. Secondly the water and septic lines must be insulated until they are in the ground below frost line. The garage space must be separated from the living space by fire rated sheetrock and any door into the living space from the garage must also be fire rated.

As far as taking care of cars, we have designed garages with radiant heat in the slab as well as air conditioning. For one car collector we included lifts and an oil changing pit as well as a two story viewing gallery.

Whether you need a simple structure to cover a car, a place to display a valuable antique, or a multipurpose building for cars and guests, the architectural details and the relationship to existing structures is as important to consider when designing the garage as any building on your property.

http://www.crisparchitects.com/

James M. Crisp, AIA is an architect working in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. To see photos associated with this article go to:http://crisparchitects.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

James Crisp - EzineArticles Expert Author

Garage Organization - Add an Aesthetic Touch to Your Garage

Garage organization - seems like a chore, does it? After all, isn't the garage a place to dump and store anything and everything that cannot be stored in the house? Wrong! The garage is defined as a place for housing automobiles. And where does your automobile rest? Is it outside? Or is it parked in one remote corner of the garage while clutter occupies the rest?

Sadly, this is the sorry state of most garages in the country. They have slowly changed into dumping grounds from storage solutions. However, spending a little bit of time with garage organization can bring about a significant difference to the way it looks as well as functions.

The key to garage organization is planning. Picture how a hardware store is arranged and organized. That should be the end result that you would want to gain after organizing your garage.

Group it

A simple but smart approach to garage organization is to organize like things with like things, chuck out any unwanted and unused items and create seasonal zones within your garage. Start off by taking everything out and putting it on to the driveway. Now, start creating piles or groups of items that you feel are unused. There will be items that you haven't touched, forget used for the last five years. Time to dispose it or donate it.

Duplicate items are best disposed off. There might be a sense of nostalgia attached to some items but keep your goal in mind. Very soon, you should have separated the items that need to be stored and the ones to be disposed off.

Garage Storage Solutions

If you haven't heard of garage storage solutions then this is the time to invest in it. There are garage cabinets, overhead storage racks and concealed racks that are specifically designed for optimum space utilization of your garage. You can arrange and store your tools, sporting goods and seasonal items in separate zones in your garage.

All it needs is a bit of planning and on days work to transform your garage completely.