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Frank Lloyd Wright liked to design carports for people because he said they fill up with junk. We don’t use our one car garage because our property is so narrow that it’s a real squeeze to even get past the house into the backyard. It would be even tighter if the fence weren’t almost two feet into our neighbor’s property. The garage itself is also only just big enough for one car. It has a rear addition for garden stuff - so it doesn’t need to be full of stuff, but it is. For many years we had a ping-pong table in there.
We’ve owned four houses with attached garages and never stored anything in them other than cars and maybe some lawn equipment.
It seems like people complain about houses being too big, but then if they are using their garages as living rooms/bedrooms/storage areas, they are essentially creating just as big a house as the “big houses”.
I also prefer a carport because it’s less likely to fill with junk.
All these garage options are so location specific. Carports are totally useless in locations with serious winters.
We’re in MD and have had as much as 30" snow storms. We have a lot to shovel, but the cars aren’t buried in snow.
It definitely varies by region. I grew up in Florida. When I moved to North Carolina, my sister was visiting me when I went to donate blood. As a thank you gift, the nice employee handed me this weird plastic thing with the blood bank’s logo imprinted on it. My sister closely examines this odd scooplike tool, puzzled, and whispers to me, “Why did they give you a cat litter scoop?” The blood bank employee burst out laughing and manages to explain that this thing is an ice scraper. This description does nothing to help me and I have to ask what sort of ice I’m going to be scraping and how it will involve this tool…
Southern facing garages are a really awful thing here. Hot, hot, hot.
I don’t like garages at all. They are just too narrow to comfortably open your door and get out, even if you have no junk in there. Maybe if you had a two car garage with one big door and parked right in the middle…
I prefer carports. Big, beautiful ones. Then you can get in and out of the house in the rain and have some shade over your car.
Back to neighbor houses … We are in a historic district, subject to the “5 dos and 3000 don’ts” of the HDLC, lol. We recently had to get a permit to get a railing for our (4) front stairs. They rejected a certain decorative historic pattern that we had in the center that matched the pattern on our fence. They wanted it plain. No biggie, but it makes me think they reject things just to make themselves look important.
But they don’t care about anything that can’t be easily seen from the street. Our neighbors (behind and to the side) put a big addition on that makes me nervous. It’s fine, and well designed, and I like them and all, but ALL of our privacy and shade are now given to us by one giant and beautiful horizontal tree limb. And that limb is partially resting on the roof of a garden shed belonging to an adjacent neighbor. While I don’t think anyone would be foolish enough to cross a property line by even 3" to cut down a big part of a tree, I have many worries that that will happen. While I’m away on vacation or something and they “couldn’t” get a hold of me. Or they might think, “easier to pay a fine later than to ask permission now and be rejected”. Ugh, I would really want to leave if I lost all our beautiful shade.
My experience has been that drivers have difficulty entering the side loaded garages, because the driveway and lot width are insufficient to make the turn into the garage w/o at least taking a couple tries at it. >>>
I have a side load garage. Drive up the driveway, turn into the garage, done. I’m still confused.
I grew up where houses have garages off a narrow alley in back. You had to drive down the alley and make a sharp turn into the driveway and garage. That wasn’t any different than a side load garage.
We have a side facing garage. I prefer this look as the front of the house is— the front of the house. In our and surrounding neighborhoods there are restrictive covenants and people park in their garage. Some park additional cars in the driveway but few are on the street except for visitors. Our previous house was on a corner lot, so the driveway and garage were around the corner, but still a straight shot in and out. That was easier than the few turns we have to make to pull out of the garage, but its no big deal. Pulling in doesn’t require the multiple turns, but backing out does. No biggie.
Be thankful your hoa isn’t turning into the gestapo. We’re being asked to pay $15k for a dock literally right next to mine for the community.
The issue with s side garage is when you don’t have enough clearance in the driveway to easily pull in. Not just that it’s on the side.
Huh? I have plenty of room to get out of my car in my garage.
A two car garage door can be 12 to 18 feet wide. Ours was 18 feet and we had tons of room.
I’ve had an attached garage in every home I’ve ever lived in, even when I was a child. I’ve never experienced barely having enough room to open my car doors after pulling into the garage.
There are a lot of factors in terms of garages.
- size of garage
- turning radius of vehicle
- size of vehicle (minivan versus Miata, for example)
- length and width of driveway
- accumulation of crapola, front and sides
- driver capability or lack thereof
Everyone’s lot and home are obviously different. Architects/designers of most new homes today, that I see built in CA where I live, often see the garage as an unnecessary appendage. So the architect/designer minimizes or deemphasizes it and they become tight in terms of size.
Someday, when I build the home of my dreams, I’m going to tell the architect/designer that I want a “Garage Mahal,” and the rest of house, meh, who cares. =))
I have this book called "Architectural Graphic Standards that tells you just how much turning radius space you need for various configurations of driveways and garages and even car sizes. Unfortunately a lot of houses these days are designed by incompetents.
@sushiritto - my parents had a home with a 2 car garage built in 1968. Our Mercury Marquis of the early 70s was too long to fit in that garage!
I think the only way we’d easily keep two cars in our two car garage is if we put a turntable right outside. I know there are houses with turntables inside the garage!