Inspiration needed - garage for Victorian house

Here goes, first attempt at posting pictures so bear with me if it doesn't work....

My house is at the newer end of the scale for this site, being late Victorian. Currently it has 2 single garages next to it - a very grotty 1950's asbestos sheet covered timber frame garage, which leans alarmingly onto the ugly but functional sectional concrete garage next to it.

I want to replace them both with a double garage, but want whatever I put in to be in keeping with the house, and was hoping that you lot could help with ideas and opinions! And before anyone says it, I know that not many Victorian houses had a double garage.... - but many had outbuildings and stables - and it was this kind of look I was thinking of.

To start with, so you get an idea of the style of the house here's a picture of the front:-



And as you can't see much of it past the trees, here's the house from the neighbour's side (it may look big but it's a semi!)



Yes, my attic wondow is boarded up, the sash is in mid-restoration. I'm desperate for some dry weather so I can get the frame painted! Linseed paint is lovely stuff but so slow to dry....

Anyway, down the side of my house are the current garages



In close up



Here's a general shot of the back of the house - typical Victorian, fancier details and better quality brick at the front compared to the back



And here's the back of the garages - as you can see, the garden slopes away so the ground level at the back is 4' - 5' lower than at the front - the new garage will be longer and situated further back than the current ones.



Still with me? Great! I think I prefer the idea of a brick built garage, getting a close a match to the house as possible, and with 2 sets of double side-hinged wooden doors on the front, rather than 1 huge modern up & over - so a central pillar will be required. It would be nice to put a shallow brick arch above the doors, and either have a fixed curved panel above the doors or arch-topped doors.

Functionally, a single apex roof would be the best, to give lots of storage room - but I wonder if that will make the whole thing look too tall, especially with the ground level being 4' -5 ' below the garage floor level at the back. So maybe a double apex with a central valley (similar to how the 2 single garages look currently but with a 45 degree pitch) would be best, but that could just be my lack of imagination.

House isn't listed and isn't in a conservation area.

Ideas, opinions, inspiration and pictures of anything similar would be gratefully received!

In the interest of authenticity, I would be tempted to build an external Victorian " wash house", "laundry aera", "utility rooms", complete with small chimney then the whole lot"converted" into garages . This could take the form of an "L" shape with two ornate ridges at 90 deg, to each other.

One thing I would do is to "fly" the back of the garage, i.e. have a floating floor, with access doors from the garden at ground level. I have a conservatory that is built about 3' above ground level at the back, its back dwarf wall is carried on cast-in concrete beams (coloured with a yellow dye to give a passing match the the houses ham stone lintels complete with chamfers), running at right angles to the back wall, giving four deep cupboards for garden tools.
If you don't fly the back then you have a lot of back filling to do.
To cheaply match the houses look, how about a shallow pitched tiled roof, front to back with dummy or actual dormer windows finished off with matching facia boards with their big holes?
Frank

Thanks Middi & Chuckey.

I like the idea of adding a chimney - an "L" shape probably isn't feasible due to the shape of the plot, but the idea of making it look like a converted set of outhouses is intriguing. I want a side access door and an externally accessible cupboard to stick the wheelie bins in anyway, so could expand on this idea. Doorways in the style of the one below at Sunnycroft (National Trust property same age as mine and very close by) appeal.



I had thought of adding ground level cupboards at the back for garden tools etc, but dismissed the idea due to the length of the beams required and likely cost - I didn't think about putting the beams the other way so they are much much shorter....

Only possible complication is with building regs - with it being a garage I'll have to show it's strong enough to withstand vehicle loadings. If done well though, the doors would help break up the "slab" look of the very tall wall onto the garden.

Has anyone got any pictures or plans of outbuildings they could share? I tried Google but even on the UK only website option I just got endless American references, of a style totally different to the UK.

One thing that did amuse me though - comments on American websites like "Beautiful Victorian house, built in 1917...."

I suggest you look at designs for stables and mews houses.

You could avoid a central pillar if you use three or four wooden doors which fold back concertina fashion.

The concertina door idea is an interesting one - I know the sort of thing you mean, they run on tracks top & bottom, you sometimes see it on older industrial buildings. Anything more modern seems to have roller shutters.

I had thought about that. depending on how deep the garage is and the length of your vehicle. I was thinking of having a bench/old(new?) kitchen units along the back wall, then as the bearing area of tread on a car is at least 24" back from the front, unless you crash into your units, you will have at least 4' of unloaded floor. If the building insp. is picky put in some vertical posts to tell the driver to stop!
I too thought about the low height arch but while it will work (see the Maidenhead viaduct) it requires good strong foundations, which garages walls can not perform, unless the blank bit of wall at each side of the arch is say 4' deep. Of course you could engineer a fake brick one while the actual weight is taken on a hidden lintel.
Just remembered, I once saw a garage with the "under the floor cupboards", but this had a difference, in that one cupboard had a full height door from the garden, which opened into a full height cupboard from the garden. The whizzy thing was that inside the garage the top of the cupboard was part of the work bench, with another cupboard door under. I can't remember the justification for this arrangement, but the owner opened both doors to show me how it worked.
Frank

As you have observed, Victorian garages aren't easy to find or emulate. :wink:

So, whatever you do is inevitably going to be anachronistic. In such circumstances, I'm a great believer in making the building as "invisible" as possible. Personally, I would avoid a strongly stylised pastiche building, with period "features". I would build something very simple and conservative - probably just a brick building in a brick to match the house, with a simple slate pitched roof. As you have suggested, I would have two pairs of vertically boarded, hinged doors, with a central pillar. This would just sit quietly and comfortably with the main house, without shouting for attention.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and views.

Penners, I'm with you on the "simple" approach - I wouldn't want anything too strongly styled, and wouldn't for example look to replicate the fancy gable end timberwork on the front of the house, or the dormers. However, some plain brick segmental arches over the doors would tie in well with the back of the house, and look better I believe than a modern square lintel opening - and the side of the house has very deep fascia boards with a simple chamfer detail, that I could copy on a smaller scale (perspective - side of the house being nearly 3 storeys up!) for the garage.

I've a brick cutting company not too far away that can produce arch sets, but I have also seen a version where brick slips are cut & bonded to a preformed loadbearing arch - sounds much easier than making the arch on site, so long as it looks convincing.

For the roof, when we re-roofed the house I saved as many tiles as I could - only about a quarter were any good, but it should give enough to do the garage.

For the doors, I do believe that 2 pairs of double side-hung wooden doors would look best, especially if I could make the funds stretch to having oak ones made. The concertina door idea though is one that had never occured to me, and would be more practical, so I will give it some thought. I'd thought that the only alternative to 2 pairs of side hung doors would be a giant modern up & over or roller shutter, both of which would look hideous.

The idea of ground level cupboards onto the garden at the back is a good one, it would help break up a very tall wall and you can never have too much storage space. Similarly, I need a side door to get into the garage and an external cupboard to stick the wheelie bins in, so if they can give the appearance of an outhouse from the side view, all well & good.

Well, to drag an old post back up again.....

Got my planning permission today, finally! Plans went in for a relatively plain building, brick to match house, reclaimed plain roof tiles etc. With 2 days to go before the deadline being reached (council target - planning decision in 8 weeks) they come back to say that the size would be "detrimental to the street scene" - despite the fact you can hardly see it from the road - as the roof peak was too high.

You then have to submit modifications for approval before the due date - otherwise they reject your application so they can meet their deadline :roll: So a last minute panic ensues to get the modifications discussed with planning officer and drawn up before he turns down the application.

A reduction in 3' to the width (which will make next to no difference to the roof height - 15' down to 14') and an insistance on the fancy gable end woodwork on the house being replicated on the garage were the alterations. I think the woodwork will look a bit false on what is a "working" building, but never mind, it got it through.

The daft thing is, the original plans had a roof with a hipped end - the idea being to draw the eye down and stop it looking too tall. The new plans have an ordinary gable end, which despite being a foot lower due to the width reduction will look higher I reckon.

Feltwell said:

Got my planning permission today

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Congratulations! That didn't take long then. :roll:

this looks quite nice , perhaps a scaled down version is what you need?
the big doors and half round windows give it lovely detail while the red brick would blend in with the rest of your house.
add a chimney and bish bash bosh , victorian garage.
i am by no means an expert but most victorian outbuildings ive seen have usually got more industrial style detailing than the houses from the same period.



have you checked to make sure there are no sewers etc passing underneath the plot?



edit = sorry , just realised how old this thread is.

Noooo it is an updated thread, he has finally got planning permission.

My parents park their car in a Victorian coach house and stables .

robgil said:

this looks quite nice , perhaps a scaled down version is what you need?
edit = sorry , just realised how old this thread is.

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That looks very nice indeed. A bit too rustic for next to my suburban house though. Don't worry about the thread age!

robgil said:

have you checked to make sure there are no sewers etc passing underneath the plot?

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They all flow the other way luckily, I know where all the services go. But, the map I have of the plot before the house was built shows a well underneath where the current 1950's garage is! So if one day a mini-digger disappears with a splash I'll know why! The map has proven to be inaccurate already on other matters so I hope it is again this time.

Well, to drag up an old post, here's an update on progress:-

Old garages came down - the sectional concrete one I put on Ebay for 99p, it finished on £100 and they had the hassle of taking it apart and taking it away! One man's rubbish is another man's treasure and all that. The other garage, the asbestos clad timber frame one that was leaning alarmingly, well let's just say it didn't take too much effort to get it down......





Then the chaos began as we dug out for the new foundations:-



Fortuneately, the weather stayed very dry which helped stop the site becoming a quagmire!

Foundations in and walls going up:-





And then fast forward to a couple of weeks ago - basic structure of garage up, badly leaning garden wall taken down and by now completely trashed tarmac driveway taken up, new retaining wall going in:-



And finally as we are today:-



Drop kerb still to be sorted (Council in no hurry to grant permission.....), but otherwise the driveway and garden / retaining walls are done, basic garage structure is up, just waiting on joinery now - plus other jobs like getting new gates made up.

Garden wall as it was, far end from picture was leaning at a dangerous angle, plus it had the world's worst repointing job only covering the top half of the wall:-



And as it is now, having been taken down and rebuilt:-



New garage - done the same way as the house, better quality facing bricks on the front, cheaper commons on the side & rear. Brickwork looks a bit blotchy in this picture, it was damp and of course it's still weathering in.





And the back end of the garage - bit of a scarily large wall, as the garden is around 4' lower than the front of the garage. Under-floor storage goes under half of the garage floor, thought we may as well use the space! Double doors will be going on each opening to hide all the junk inside.



Salvaged (from a skip!) windows came out well I thought - and yes, they do still need glass!



And finally, the roof, which is lovely reclaimed tiles honest! (it's so cold today....) - plus bargain rooflights, 8 for £500....



So there we go - still work to do of course (joinery, rainwater goods, electrics, paint the inside etc etc) but we're well on the way now. It is quite large, but we are getting used to it - and the comments from neighbours have been favourable, particularly about the use of reclaimed brick, which definitely softens the impact of that huge gable end wall.

Feltwell - what a super job. I love the windows; would never have thought of that for a garage.

Thanks also for posting pics of the whole project - maybe more of us should do that rather than just a before and after.

Well done!

Thank you! The windows were a fluke find - I wanted cast iron windows, much smaller than the ones I've used (which are 8' x 4') but no one seems to make them any more. I had an eye-wateringly large quote from a foundry to make some up. Apparently reclaimed ones are much in demand to be turned into mirrors...

Mine were fished out of a skip, the top section of one was missing so I got a blacksmith I know to make up a new section. I'm afraid to say that the windows came from a Victorian school chapel, and they were in the skip as they had (literally) been ripped out and replaced with UPVC.... :evil:

Lovely building. The detailing makes all the difference to what could have been a very bland garage. I particularly liked the storage 'bays' at the rear - how was the garage floor above them constructed? Was the double-insulated-wall construction a building regs requirement? It seems a little OTT for a simple garage, although not at all OTT for the uses I could think of for the building. Indeed, 'garage' seems a rather inadequate name and I hope you plan to take heed of the PPUK A-Z definition:

Penners said:

Garage - a building occasionally used (incorrectly) for the storage of motor vehicles. The garage should, in fact, be equipped with a cursory selection of woodworking tools to act as a disguise, a tortoise stove, an old armchair, a radio and a selection of crossword puzzle books.

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Hee hee! Well, the garage will definitely have my motorbikes inside, the car only very occasionally if I'm doing something to it! However, I have a hankering for a Rover P5B Coupe, if I get one it will definitely be going in there. Shame I've spent all my money on the garage really

The floor is "block and beam" - precast concrete T-Section beams, going across half the width of the garage, so there is a central sleeper wall. Breeze blocks just drop into the gaps between the inverted T section beams, then 4" of concrete with steel mesh goes over the top. Getting the vehicle loadings was no problem, so long as I had the sleeper wall. Without the wall, the beams would have been very deep and I would have needed a large and expensive crane to get them in place.

The floor worked out about the same cost as a "traditional" slab, by the time I would have had to bring lots of fill material onto site. The entire floor is block & beam - the storage bays go back to about halfway along the garage, so they're quite deep. The front non-accessible half took all the spoil from excavating the driveway.

The walls were double skin so I could guarantee to keep the damp out. If I'd gone single skin I would have needed lots of piers anyway, due to the size of the walls - it ended up being about the same cost as going for cavity construction, and with cavity if I or a future owner want to do something else with the building there is more flexibility without major work. Although they are cavity walls, we cut the bricks so the outer skin looks like English Bond - i.e. alternating rows of headers and stretchers, so it looks like a solid 9" wall, as per the house. Walls all in stretcher bond in reclaimed brick just look wrong I think.

Similarly, the roof is constructed with attic trusses, so they will take the weight of a floor being installed. Only cost an extra £200 over standard "storage" trusses.