Garage under Garage? Annie...

10 years ago

Well, looks like we are moving our house location over now...too bad I already had the perfect floorplan for the other spot! Now, Garage would be best on other side, and living/kitchen/hearth area all need moved around! This could take a year just to make work!

Annie, I know you have talked often about loving your garage door at your basement level. Our new and improved spot would work very well for this. Since we are on acres, I was thinking a "garage" for our mini-bikes, 3 wheelers, mama's gator (actually going to swipe Hubby's old Jeep!), and such. We won't have a real good close location to get to these otherwise. Other than the extra basement square footage cost, how much extra does it really cost to do non-livable space under the garage? We will be doing an L shape garage, but that probably doesn't matter for this. Also, anything special for the door to get into the basement? If I do the garage below, I will probably to just a one story instead of 1 1/2 story. If I do that, I would have all kids rooms in basement, rather than second story, and do an ICF basement....wondering if regular poured concrete walls are best versus ICF under the garage?

On another note, I really would love to do a 1 1/2 story plus full basement. I love the idea of my girls having their own floor, and a beautiful staircase! However the practical side of me won't be quiet...stupid voices in my head! I'm having a hard time getting the foyer with staircase to come out where I want it, I want to keep my costs low, my oldest is 8, so even if I figure this all out really quick...she will be going to college 8 years after we move in....and my little St one will be 5 years behind her....that's a lot of extra sq ft upstairs that we won't use/rearrange. The voices keep saying I could get everything I want and finish the whole basement with nice bedrooms and a nice rec area for kids downstairs. Plus we will have a 2,000 sq ft barn (1000 per each floor). So its not like we will be lacking entertainment space. I really wish the voices would be quiet...I really want a pretty staircase for garland...but without that second floor I can get everything else I want without going above what I want to spend on the house.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

kwoody51
10 years ago
I asked about doing a room under our garage and it was going to be at least $10-25k more. This was for about 900 feet.

You are paying for the
poured floor in another space
Span Crete floor members or steel beams to carry the load
A membrane over the span Crete
Thin concrete pour over the membrane
Add in all the labor in addition to the materials and you see where the cost come in!

When you don't have the space below the garage you are basically paying for the poured walls/ footings and the poured floor in the garage.
Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago
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
Related Professionals
Beachwood Architects & Building Designers · Franklin Architects & Building Designers · North Bergen Architects & Building Designers · Ronkonkoma Architects & Building Designers · Pine Bluff Home Builders · Eagan General Contractors · Burlington General Contractors · Dover General Contractors · Elmont General Contractors · Kailua Kona General Contractors · Montclair General Contractors · Norman General Contractors · Rolla General Contractors · Seal Beach General Contractors · Signal Hill General Contractors
DLM2000-GW
10 years ago
Annie I thought I'd seen most everything about your house inside and out in various threads here and in Decorating, but the above series of pictures with your commentary just knocks me out. I know you spent forever and a day in design to get it just right and it shows. The scale of your house to setting is just lovely.
nostalgicfarm
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks Annie! I must have just assumed your garage was under the other garage! Moving our house over gives us the best overall view, but completely changes the floorplan. I am having such a hard time working through how we are going to come in through the garage without walking all the way through the kitchen!
If I don't do a second story, I will put all my kids rooms downstairs. Not so sure I want to steal that much space from my footprint for a garage space yet. With all the floor plans out there, you would think this would be a lot easier!
Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago
Thank you, dlm. Appreciate your kind words.
Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago
I know, nostalgic, it seems like someone somewhere should've already solved this, but each site is so specific, each family's needs are so specific, everyone's tastes are so specific and there are so many variables, that it's sometimes easier just to start from scratch.

What took us so long in design was, as you're going along, you keep coming across trade-offs...if you do this, you can't do that. But all of these trade-offs are fixable by adding sq ft. But then the house gets too big. So you rip it up and start over again. We did that countless times before we came up with the right plan.