I'm finally getting started on a garage addition. We live near Tahoe and we get tons of snow. We've lived with parking 2 cars out in the snow while the 2 911's we own sit in garage bliss.

We decided it was time to get every car under cover.

Existing home background:

We bought the house 17 years ago, and remodeled several times, including adding the current garage, replacing all the windows, siding and roof. We plan to stay here as it is the only house our kids have known and frankly, we're attached to it.

I'm an Architect with a small, but strong practice. I get to design some really fun, very expensive custom homes, but for me, I need to be somewhat realistic.

The addition will be 776 sf giving me a total garage area of 1400 sf on a 3000 sf home. Perfect proportions.....right?

I plan to have some very nice LED lighting, lots of work space, a bendpak SP 7X recessed lift, and probably a bunch of beer in there somewhere.

So to start off the build, here is an animation of the exterior I prepared for our home owner's association. The addition is the left bay of the home, featured in the video.

http://vimeo.com/72125406


Construction will start in about 3 weeks!

 

Nice animation. Beautiful design. Your HOA would be crazy to stand in the way.

 

Finalizing some decisions:

I am struggling with the lift placement and how it would affect my flooring. I want to go with Race Deck.

The best position for the lift is as shown in the photo of the plan. The plan shows the recess in the slab for the SP 7X. Having it at the angle provides the easiest access and most room around a car when raised.

The big questions for that position are:

1. can you have a single wheel parked over the lift when in the down position for any extended period of time? - I'm guessing yes and posed the question to Bendpak (hopefully have an answer shortly)
2. how the heck can I cleanly set Race deck in this type of configuration?

 

First hurdle complete! Received the design review approval and variance approval in one meeting today.

Trees come down tomorrow - sad as two of them are gorgeous pines - one over 100 feet tall.

 

The trees are down. Big respect to these guys!





Earthwork starts on Tuesday

 

Concrete perimeter walls and foundation poured. Forms were stripped yesterday.

Backfill and wood delivery coming today. This thing may be framed by the end of the week!

In talking with my earthwork contractor, we decided to replace the entire driveway to improve the garage approach. More money, but the asphalt is 13 years old and pretty beat.





With a camera lens so small on an iPad, how the hell did I get my thumb in the way?!

 

Things are moving now. Our area is crazy this time of year, so material availability has been an issue

 

Cool project- can't wait to see the finished product.

 

What software did you use to design and produce that exterior demo of the garage addition? That was pretty realistic and well done. Looks great by the way.

 

Question sir:

Looks like you stick built your cement wall forms?

In Michigan, we generally utilize steel forms in various heights w a set up time of a couple of days. Wondering why the differences, and so must be missing something here and appreciate your time to answer this basic question.

Awesome build you are doing!!

 

I use Sketchup Pro and LumenRt4. Amazing software. I use it for all my projects.

Thanks

 

Yes, it is called "board form" concrete. The forms are set with the outlying perimeter of 2x12 boards with a 1/2 " gap. The concrete is then stained. It gives a more rustic look that fits our area.

Thanks

 

Some more progress. Redwood siding is progressing. Thankfully the weather is holding out!

 

Man it's going slow. I hooked up the lift, just need to wire it.

 

Looking great so far!