Technical When is your shop/garage finally big enough?

I built a 32x54 at our lake house so I would have plenty of space to work when I retired. Ran out of space immediately, so I bought the house next door , which had a 24x32.

Ran out of space again, so I bought a 48x75 a mile from the house.

That worked until I bought a fifth wheel, and ran out of room again.

We’re selling the house next door, so I am losing the 24x32, but we downsized the rv so I can ditch the fifth wheel.

Don’t know if I should build a lean to (16x50), or just install a four post lift.

 

WHEELS!! Wheels make square footage. I have been in my 30 x 36 with a 10 x 30 lean-to on one side and a 10 x 20 on the other side for almost 35 years now. I am not a hoarder, so I don't have that problem. Almost everything in my shop is on wheels. Even my lift can be moved around. My shop can be a hotrod shop, a woodworking shop, or a stained glass shop in a matter of minutes. I'm pretty comfy in my space, but I would love to have separate buildings for each hobby. That just ain't in the cards.

 

I started with a 14x20 attached garage. I never put a car in it. It worked good for tools and parts storage and the occasional small project. Most of my work was done in the driveway. Next came a 20x26 carport that was "gifted" to me so long as I got all of my stuff that was stored at my parents house ( my excuse was that I didnt have adequate storage....so they gave me adequate storage). The carport was a nice upgrade from the weathered driveway. Next , I decided to close the carport into a garage with a concrete floor. It later became crowded with stored stuff and projects, so I put up another carport 18x20. That is now full and running over. I now have 3 projects out in the weather. I am in the planning stages of building a shed off the back of my garage to store all of my accumulated junk and extra parts. Once I declutter, my garage should be the perfect size for me to work out of. I think I need more storage space though

 

It's big enough when you have to use your cell phone to talk to someone else on the far side of the garage. HRP

 

I hope to break ground this new year, already talked with the county. Been looking at a 30x41 with a 10 or 12x41 lean-to. I hope this will be just right for a working shop that I can afford to heat and cool. Going to work on a rule that the only parts that will be in the shop are for the project that is in there. The big problem is that I am moving my equipment from the shop in town and now will have doubles of most everything.

 

Reading this thread reminds me of George Carlin's routine called "Stuff"...he really nailed it with that one!

My uncle's place started out with a two car garage that my Grandfather built. It was later extended into a four car garage and room for his toys and shop space. Then my uncle built a big barn to hold six vehicles, more toys, and a man cave upstairs. Now he's adding on to the original garage to create room for four more cars, more toys, and more shop space.

Myself, my garage is 20x32, big enough for my VW, the tractor, the battery bank and controllers for my slightly bigger off grid house, and some shop space. My biggest problem is my parents, who persist in trying to fill it up with crap that I don't want or need.

 

I finished my "barn" earlier this year. At 30' x 50' it was all I'd ever dreamed of and more. I just finished emptying out the last storage locker earlier this week. Guess what? It's full!

Lou Manglass

 

But getting rid of the storage lockers and having all your stuff at your own place is an achievement. It allows you to go through it and organize or downsize it.

 

Just need two more bays. Maybe three, wait ok three


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I run my business out of my garage. So a storage bay or 2 or 3 makes it doable in a building that`s to small.

 

Like the one Swede Ralston flew the T-6 through !

 

My shop will be big enough when I'm dead.

 

When is your shop/garage finally big enough?....That's a good one...

 

Never, I have to store stuff at other peoples shops too

 

A shop is never big enough, I thought I was in tall cotton when I had a one car "car port" with a little locked storage at one end in 1968 or so. In the 80's I built a 40x45 bldg attached to a corn crib and there was a barn too. After I moved from there (still regret that) I thought I'd never have a shop that big again. Now I have a 40x50, it is two story and a two car garage for the driver cars. It's packed, I am too old to add on I need to get some things sold and we need to load a trailer for the iron recycle-rs....if money was no object we'd put up another building

 

Already out of room and it's not even finished yet. Why this? 'Cuz the 2 ar just can't work anymore, and we finally can.......

 

There`s never enough room!You has to expand all the time.

 

Great video, Mr T Body.
Looks like you've got the biggest building in the neighbourhood. Very nice shop, and it's so huge, it will always be cavernous and never fill up.

Also no doubt a good time of year (as in not too hot) for construction in your part of the world.

 

I got 1069 sq ft of usable space and It has worked for me for the last 20 years, painting, fabricating ect........ sure beats the ol two car garage............

 

As long as you can afford it there probably isn't a shop that is just flat too big. On the other hand "big enough" would be one where you had enough space to have specific work areas for each project without having to move those projects to work on another one or work on a daily or park a daily. The hassle of having to move everything out of the way when you are done so there is space for something else is real for a lot of guys. A comfortable stall space for a project with a dedicated work bench and dedicated storage for parts would go a long ways.

Plus a work area for your shop machines that was separate from the actual work on the car area.

 

There really is no such thing as too big. I have approx. 3400 sq ft. between 2 buildings and I find it difficult to maneuver sometimes. Tools take up a lot of space, as do project cars, and finished cars also create a storage issue when you want to keep them out of a working environment.

 

Current are 24x30 and 32x40. Wanting to convert the 60x80 storage building to a shop, they are never big enough...

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When I built mine, the truss engineer introduced me to light attic trusses. They have a 2x6 bottom chord. With a 5-12 pitch on a 32' span, at 5'11", I can walk down the middle. It gives me a 10'x16' deck on each end bay of my 32'x48' shop. I kicked up a dormer on the middle bay to give me a 12'6" ceiling for a lift.

 

Been suggested on multiple occasions.

 

This would work for me.

 

I have a 60x40 Barn that I built when retired it is full. My shop is T shaped 30 x 60 & 28 x 28. Still run out of room. Wife says no more. I am 77yrs old, maybe she is right.

 

Big enough, when your Grandkids take their claim to space and ya don't seem to mind. Stretch

 

I'm still on the fence on size, but have been thinking about what direction the doors will face when open.
It has been my experience that a shop with north south doors have better air flow than a east west doors, or at least were I live.

 

Oh this is easy your shop or garage is the right size when your estate sale can be layed out in it and people have enough room to move around without tripping over stuff. Just ask your wife she will know.

 

VNak photo

Hello,

I have been looking at this great color 35mm Ektachrome slide from 53 years ago. My wife took this one at our old Westside Long Beach home one day we were visiting my mom. I have seen the photo plenty of times and just thought it was a superb photo. (Remember this was 1968 and color slide film and a Pentax 35mm film camera.) So, my wife was responsible for this great, long time memory photo.

It wasn’t until I made a super enlargement that I finally noticed my mom’s
(our old backyard Rumpus Room ) fairly empty, backyard garage on the side of the red El Camino. We had never noticed that background on the side of the El Camino, before.

(PHOTO TAKEN WITH A GRAFLEX 4 X 5 PRESS CAMERA 1957)
1951 Oldsmobile Sedan in the garage

For many years from 1953 to late 1959, that backyard Rumpus Room was the center of our pre-teen hangouts. AM music from table radios, a redwood table and benches provided plenty of eating space for parties and gatherings of kids for the late night or all day fun.

Our mom was able to grow this fabulous rose garden across the yard and it covered most of the view of the rumpus room. The rumpus room had many opening casement crank windows. It had two windowed French doors for the entry. The best thing was, it was far enough away from the main house that noise was not a problem. It was “party central” most of the time for the two brothers and friends.


The rear rumpus room was an addition that the former owner built in 1946. It was handy for our parents to have the two brothers away from the tiny main house for those quiet adult days and nights.

Jnaki

By the time we were teenagers, the place had been used for weekly gatherings of my brother’s friends with their hot rod and cruisers parked out in the street. My younger friends came over at different times for our own gatherings. It was a well used place and worked well from 1953 until late 1959.

When my brother and I decided to stop racing the 58 Impala and build our first street legal hot rod, we needed a place to do work and store our speed parts. So, down came several casement windows and the French doors. We built a new plywood garage door in the opening and it was our first garage for hot rods.

Inside, were a couple of new workbenches and the large redwood table and benches were relegated to the outdoor area under an apricot tree. The inside was now an open concrete slab with plenty of area to work on our engine builds. We could roll in the 1940 Willys Coupe sideways to fit for work or storage. While the Willys Coupe was inside, there was still room to do some engine parts work or welding on the other end of the concrete floor. When we were finished, the Willys Coupe was in place and the garage door could be lowered to lock it away.



But, for our mom to be a part of what her two teenage sons were doing, she had to give up the rose trellis and her multiple rose bushes. A part of the deal was that I would dig up all of the rose bushes and move them across the yard to an area in front of a block wall. Her soil was the 1920s and 30s overflow soil from the L.A. River when the flood control channel wall was not around and this whole area was under water as an alluvial plain.

So, anywhere I wanted to plant one of her plants, it grew like a weed without doing anything other than a little water for huge growth and longevity. Beyond the Rumpus Room garage door, there was a huge 7 foot block wall. We bought several gallon Escallonia plants and within a year, they reached over the top of the wall. They covered the red brick blocks quite well, thanks to the great 100% soil that was left over from the very early days of the Westside of Long Beach history and the fast flowing L.A. River.

The backyard garage was just big enough for two teenagers to create their own hot rod/drag race build. We worked with what we had and it fit right into our neighborhood. The one thing we both learned is that no matter what size garage is there, you only work with a small section at one time and if the shoe fits... etc.

From 1965 to 1998, it stood empty, except for our dad's fishing equipment. Despite having a lightweight door installed for easy access, our mom would not go into that backyard garage, because it gave her bad feelings about what was built there and the result to her oldest son.