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Building
a Garage Addition on to Your Home
By Mark Donovan
One of the most rewarding home improvements I made to my
house was to build a garage addition. For years I
contemplated building a garage addition while I scraped
the ice and snow from my cars and waited for them to
warm up during the winter months. About 5 years ago I
finally made the decision to build a garage onto my
home.
The first big decision I had to make after deciding to
build the garage addition was to determine how large to
make it. I wanted a large enough garage to fit two cars
comfortably and that would be of proper proportion with
the rest of the house. I also wanted space to include a
work bench and to allow room for the lawnmowers or snow
blowers. I decided on a 26 foot wide, by 24 foot deep
garage. Since my house was 36 feet in width, this gave
me a garage that was about 2/5ths of the entire home
frontage.
I also needed to make sure that the roof pitch and the
elevation of the garage would be consistent with the
rest of the home.
After taking these issues into account, I created some
drawings of the garage including: the foundation size,
the location of the garage doors, the maintenance door
and windows, and the height profile of the roof. From
these drawings I was able to discuss with a number of
general contractors my garage and home plans.
After selecting my general contractor, I generated some
additional drawings that provided all of the framing
details necessary to pull a building permit. Because of
the specific contour of my property, my garage plans
also included a bonus room that would reside above the
garage. Thus, I needed to include additional drawings of
the bonus room, e.g. interior walls, doors, windows,
closet, and entrance way and stairwell to/from the main
house.
After excavation and installation of the foundation, the
framing crew had the garage frame up in about a week.
Three weeks later I had a completely enclosed garage,
with all the outside doors and windows installed and the
shingles installed on the roof.
From this point forward, I took over the electrical and
insulation work, after filing for these specific
permits.
Once the insulation was installed and approved, I called
in the drywall contractor to install the drywall, and to
tape and mud. I also had them apply a coat of primer and
one coat of builders grade paint. It is well worth the
money to have them do this.
I then finished the electric, installed the stair
railing, interior doors and baseboard trim and the
garage was nearly ready to move in.
The finishing touch was the installation of two garage
door openers and a final application of paint in the
bonus room.
The total cost of my garage addition was about $30,000.
I had been quoted as high as $50,000, however with a
little negotiation and sweat equity I was able to get a
lot of garage for a reasonable price.
A few years have gone by since I completed my garage
addition and every winter when I see people standing by
their cars in the driveways scraping, I am reminded of
one of the best decisions I ever made.
About the Author: Over the past 20+ years Mark Donovan
has been involved with building homes and additions to
homes. His projects have included: building a vacation
home, building additions and garages on to existing
homes, and finishing unfinished homes. For more
information about Home Improvement and
Home Additions, and
Home Remodeling and Repair visit
homeadditionplus.com and homeaddition.blogspot.com |
