This is a really big deal to me too.

Since you are in the country and have the space, I would do a detached or offset garage behind the house. (I am in the country in a relatively mild climate and am planning this myself.) Look at the renderings of the plans Sand Mountain House and Calabash Cottage.

Put the garage on the far side of the house from where most traffic comes along the street, and on the far side of the driveway entrance, so you have to drive past the front door to enter the garage, and have it no more than even with the front of the house, set back is fine.

Dropped my son at a friend's house recently and honestly, when I came up the street I saw only the garage, not the house which was set back on the far side of the garage. Coming from the other direction it might have been okay, but it was a dead-end street so most people wouldn't do that.

This post was edited by bpathome on Thu, Oct 16, 14 at 21:35

Plan for the garage to be on the side of the house so you drive in and make a hard right turn to park in the garage. In the front of the house ,have only a main front door. If you want a mudroom door, put it in the back of the house and from the garage.

I studied this quite a bit when planning our house. The only way it really works so that guests will come to the front of the house is if you have a circle drive in front with an offshoot to the side load garage for you.

I looked at tons of neighborhoods and houses, and all the ones which were approached from the front by guests either had a circle drive, or a front load garage.

The garage shoud be a side entry, pulled back from the front plane of the home.

My parents have a long thin house with a detached garage that kind of forms an ""L" and a circular driveway. You drive in and are at the front entrance...then you drive a little farther around the circle and are at the garage. Directs all traffic to the front door. Only works because the house is fairly big, though.

Personally, I'm not sure I see this as a big problem. I like the idea of an elegant formal front entrance and a mudroom/side entrance between the house and the garage.

I see the main issue with garages being the attached vs. detached decision. (Do you want the risk of pests, cold air, and carbon monoxide getting into your house through an attached garage...or do you want to have to walk along an icy walkway in the rain to get inside from your car?) Personally, I see the best solution being a covered walkway/corridor connecting the house and garage with external doors at both ends.

This post was edited by edlincoln on Fri, Oct 17, 14 at 10:54

In the North Country, placing the garage behind the house means you have alot more snow removal and difficultly stacking the snow to get there. We passed on several good homes that had triple the driveway to blow out to get to the garage in back. The shorter the driveway, the less concrete and less snow removal. Many home's livingrooms are oriented to face the back yards here - for the views.

In our current remodel, we are placing the new garage at a right angle to the house. Drive in the curved driveway, and you go straight into the garage. The "Formal" door of house is directly to the left of driveway. You will enter a livingroom/den. This is actualy considered the back of the house. This side faces the road, and has nice sunset views.

If you wanted to go into the designed "Front" door, you'd have to go all the way around the house and enter from the lake side via the full porch and patio. That is the lake view side. Frankly, we have to put in a doorbell that rings on the lakeside porch area or else we'd never know we had visitors!

Frankly, I prefer that attached garages be set back slightly from the front of the home, and the first exterior door you see should be the formal front door. You should have a landing area in tile with closet and seating to kick off snowy/muddy items before you enter the house further. (My relatives for some odd reason prefer you go through their garage to enter from the kitchen/mudroom door.)

I guess most people prefer the aesthetics of a side entry garage as opposed to a front entry, but I don't mind them at all. It's the most efficient location and closest to the street. You have less concrete/asphalt, so a cheaper driveway to build and maintain.

We live in a part of the country where we get a decent amount of snow each winter. For that reason, we insisted on having a short driveway and never even considered a detached garage which would damage the property value too. We also have been in homes where you drive up to a side entry and then have no idea if you should go to the front, the back, or through the garage. (In fact we've been to houses with side entry garages where they don't even have a sidewalk to the front door!) But we wanted our guests to know where to go, so we wanted the front entry to be prominent on the facade and visible from parking spaces. But we didn't want the garage to be overwhelming. I'm typically not a fan of a circular drive as it means more snow to shovel, but I also am afraid it means a car will always be parked out front for convenience, but it always reminds me of the new car sales brochures with the new car parked in front of the house....not a look I like.

So we did a number of things to make it work for us. Our driveway is short, to the front entry garage, but has a curve in it so it's not cookie cutter tract look.

We separated the garages so we have a 2 car garage up and a 3rd down below...so the size of the garage is more diminutive than the house.

We have the garage recessed from the front entry, an extra gable over the front entry so it's most prominent on the front. We also dropped the garage a few feet so the garage roof is subordinate too.

AnnieDeighnaugh, do you happen to come from Ireland or Northern Ireland? Just wondering...

Annie - what do you mean one down below - does the driveway go all the way around the house??

peeve,

I'm guessing Annie is a fan of Chuck Jackson and Burt Bacharach.......just 'sayin.

Cute....but no, just a fan of puns!

We wanted a 3rd car garage, but for infrequent use....a place with a workshop for DH where he could fix tractors and such and a place to park our vintage jeep. So we put it under, used french porte doors so it looks like french doors when it's really a lift garage door, and no driveway, just a permeable apron.

Lower level garage:

But I suppose if you wanted to detach a 3rd garage to be used for sports gear, and gas grill and all the other various non-car items that get stashed in a garage, that would work ok too.

Interesting to hear all the different thoughts on this issue. I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering about it.