I'm still working on my intro post and my case study post but wanted to jump straight to my pants on fire post. I this question could land in a few different areas(DIY, Lanloarding) depending on the outcome we go with so I'm sneaking it into AAM.
We live in an historic and relatively trendy neighborhood close to downtown in Louisville. The neighborhood is gentrifying somewhat and is a mix of smaller shotgun houses, camelbacks and large Victorians but still has quite a few in an unrefinished state. Splurged on our second home, and hoping to stay for the long term. Lots of rentals in the area. One of the main things I was looking for in our new home was a nice garage and finding any garage in this area is difficult, so I settled for a house with room to build one.
The lot is 192' deep and 30' wide. I'm planning to build a 26' wide by 32' deep garage, with an additional slight overhang facing the yard to give us a small covered area and a space I can enclose and make a shed for yard tools. I'm looking into having a friends father do the drawings for us and then trying to GC it myself. If that doesn't work out it looks like an architect will run me close to $2k. I did a full gut and remodel of the kitchen at our last house(with help from friends/family) but that was also pre-kids.
The real sticking point in my head now is that when we were shopping for houses that had garages, I always lamented that they didn't make the extra room upstairs for an apartment to be rented. Now that I am building myself, that was my first inclination, then I didn't want to have a tenant sitting in my backyard. Now I am toying with the possibility of building it so that is an option and we can have a large bonus room above in the meantime(kids play, crafts, poker night?) and a rental or MIL down the road or just making it a peaked roof with tall storage for christmas decorations and other detritus.
Unfortunately it sounds like the extra structure for the second floor could add quite a bit. I want to avoid any columns downstairs in the garage so I am likely looking at a large engineered beam or some steel beams to support a true second story.
The whole thing is a bit of an anti-mustachian splurge, but the garage will be useful in storing the cars and old motorcycles as well as the pile of tools I have sitting in our old garage. I got quotes ranging from 40k to 75k if I turned the whole think over. I think by GC'ing and doing the electric and siding(as time and children allow) will help and while I would like to be at 35k for the whole thing I think with a storage attic I will wind up around 25k and with the second floor it could be 40ish. I really need to get plans to start bidding parts out and get a full picture of the costs and then I have to take it all before the review committee to get approved.
Our house is one of the nicer on our particular block, and the other garages that exist are older block that would not get by with the new historic guidelines. Not sure if I should just focus on getting a functional space as cheap as possible or pay for the extra capacity and details. Might be able to get variances based on the existing ugly garages, but otherwise looking at hardiboard, fish scales, etc and wife is set on a metal roof to match the main house.