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 Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Crisp

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.

For more info visit : Garage organization Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

Garage Apartment Plans

We have garage door reviews that can keep you a smarter way on how to make a fantastic garage, but before that you must plan your garage for example garage in an apartment. Garage apartment plans is very difficult to do because, you share with other tenants for a particular place but there is a good way to do that.

You buy your garage door parts and other things to accomplish your garage like woods, steel, cement etc. if you have already this things in place, you can start building your garage in an easy way. You must think also the future of your garage, most especially your garage door, garage door repairs is very often than the other parts of your garage because it is the only part that you always used.

Do it Yourself Garage - Apartments

With the current credit crunch, households around the world are coming up with an unexpected source of additional income: they simply convert their garage into an apartment and lease it out. Garages are no longer repositories for the family car.

Thinking of it, that's not a bad idea, is it. Even if the idea of leasing out your garage does not sound very good to you, there are still ways of taking advantage of the garage extra space and put it to some productive use.

An apartment garage plan is pretty easy to design, and with a bit of know-how, to build.

What is it for?

Obviously the first question to be asked is what will the garage future use be. Traditionally, garages have doubled as storage space for anything from gardening tools to old books. It is also being used as workshop, office or even as an additional room for the boys. With a bit of imagination, there is no limit to the good uses one can put his garage to.

Once you have made up your mind about the intended use, you are in a better position to design the garage layout.

Here are a few design tips:

• If you plan to use the place as storage space, a good idea is to place wall shelves to accommodate gardening tools like the lawnmower, brooms, hoses, shoes etc. Try also to group these in categories, based on their respective frequency of use: normally the most used items should be of easy reach.
• Place hooks. These will allow you to gain as much space as possible on the the wall and even on the ceiling.
• Remember accessibility. If the intended garage apartment is located next to your house, try to create a direct communicating door between them.
• Create autonomous units. If you intend leasing out the space, integrate a small kitchen, a bathroom and a maybe couple of additional rooms.

Can you do it yourself?

If the idea sounds interesting, you may choose to hire the service of a prefab contractor to build an apartment garage for you. While their technical expertise is valuable, designing your own garage plan is easy, provided you apply some basic design factors.

In general an apartment garage plan should provide for one or two doors, and depending on the number of rooms, a few windows too.

How about the budget ?

The cost of building home additions depends largely on the region where you live.
Once you know exactly what suits you best, you are in better position to work out the financial side of the project.

The building materials

The building materials to use will also influence the overall cost as well as the durability of the construction. I have found that prefabricated kits that come with an instruction manual often cost less.

Finally, remember too to take into account aesthetic considerations. A good apartment garage plan should not only look nice on paper, but it should also be practical and usable once build.

Additional Apartment Garage tips can be found at Homes By Olga. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amene_Katanda