Inspiration needed - garage for Victorian house

[DaveBrigg]

A really clever use of the space. It looks great.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Feltwell, that is absolutely lovely. Well done! It's a great building, and fits in really well with the space.

Now, those windows. Nice pink gingham cloud shades with contrasting blue bows would look great for the curtains! :wink:

 

[Jon Maine]

Great job and well thought out, just one question where are the gates?

 

[Feltwell]

Thank you everyone - I was having rather a crisis of conscience as it went up, thinking "Oh my God it's huge, it will dominate it's surroundings too much...." - but now it's up, we're getting used to it. The materials definitely help - reclaimed brick is so much "softer" on the eye than the rendered breeze block monstrosity the neighbours have, for example.

Now, those windows. Nice pink gingham cloud shades with contrasting blue bows would look great for the curtains! :wink:

Hmmm, pink gingham - my favourite, how did you guess??? :wink:

just one question where are the gates?

Driveway gates? We had 1 large gate before, which was so heavy it was pulling the brick pillar over. We've widened the driveway entrance as we had to rebuild the pillar anyway - the entrance was very tight before, only a couple of inches either side of my car mirrors.

So the gate can't go back on (it wasn't original anyway), but I know a good blacksmith and I'll be getting him to make up new double gates. The old single gate will go on Ebay, just as soon as I've got it repaired... (wide digger + narrow gate = repair job )

Or do you mean the garage doors? I haven't got any of the joinery items yet, they are being made right now. Will post up more pics when job is complete.

 

[chuckey]

If you are tight for space for your gates, hang them of the back of the piers, so hinges don't obstruct the opening. :?
Frank

 

[Ushy M]

Hee hee! Well, the garage will definitely have my motorbikes inside, the car only very occasionally if I'm doing something to it!

The garage looks great - and a really well thought-out use of the space. Our garage is full of motorbikes too - the car has NEVER been in it.

 

[MdB]

Can you come around and build one of those in my back garden please?

Thanks. MdB.

(before the New Year would be great).

 

[Feltwell]

If you are tight for space for your gates, hang them of the back of the piers, so hinges don't obstruct the opening. :?
Frank

Not possible Frank - 1 pier has a wall butting onto the back of it.

Not a problem now, we've widened the entrance, loads of room! We got a full size 6m3 concrete wagon (sorry to swear on PPUK) through there, only just though, to complete the garage floor.

Can you come around and build one of those in my back garden please?

Thanks. MdB.

(before the New Year would be great).

No problem, next Tuesday OK?? :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

Our garage is full of motorbikes too - the car has NEVER been in it.

It will be the first garage I've ever had that you could actually get a car in! Slight irony really - after years of running round in old bangers and always fixing them myself, out in the cold and wet on a driveway, I will now have somewhere dry and warm (well, warm-ish...) to fix them.

Only I'm now a little older and slightly (very slightly) more affluent, plus cars have got much much more complicated - so now I just chuck them at a local garage to fix instead!

The motorbikes never go near a dealer though - much rather tinker with those myself. Need some more really, I'm down to just 2, must work on persuading Mrs F ....

 

[Jon Maine]

If you are tight for space for your gates, hang them of the back of the piers, so hinges don't obstruct the opening. :?
Frank

Not possible Frank - 1 pier has a wall butting onto the back of it.

Not a problem now, we've widened the entrance, loads of room! We got a full size 6m2 concrete wagon (sorry to swear on PPUK) through there, only just though, to complete the garage floor.

Can you come around and build one of those in my back garden please?

Thanks. MdB.

(before the New Year would be great).

No problem, next Tuesday OK?? :lol:

Dont believe him I know what his diary is like it is more likely to be next friday :lol:

 

[MdB]

Can you come around and build one of those in my back garden please?

Thanks. MdB.

(before the New Year would be great).

No problem, next Tuesday OK?? :lol:

Dont believe him I know what his diary is like it is more likely to be next friday :lol:

Well Friday would give him a week to complete before the New Year. I'm sure Feltwell would be able to do that. It's only a little garage - it can't be difficult :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

Well Friday would give him a week to complete before the New Year. I'm sure Feltwell would be able to do that. It's only a little garage - it can't be difficult :wink:

Well, it's been 18 months so far to do this one, from the start of the planning - yeah, a week Guv, no problem! :shock:

Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Maybe I should start with small ones!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Chris greatly admired your garage too, and wanted to know 1) Did you design it all yourself? 2) Did you do a lot of the building yourself? 3) Did it cost more or less than a nice new car?

 

[Penners]

Joce - in order to clarify the cost, I think you need to be more specific about the car you have in mind. One like this:-

or one like mine:-

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: :lol:

Somewhere in between? I can't do car conversation - OK let's say this one, a 1960s pink Cadillac at about 20 k:

 

[Feltwell]

Chris greatly admired your garage too, and wanted to know 1) Did you design it all yourself? 2) Did you do a lot of the building yourself? 3) Did it cost more or less than a nice new car?

From the top:-

1) Yes, but I did get drawings professionally done for planning & building regs submissions, to my spec. I did have a slight design argument with the local planners, but we compromised - I got pretty much what I wanted in the end.

2) Building work - for the first time in my life, I got people in to help. I did a garage completely by myself on a previous house, frankly although the end result was great it took forever - and that was before we had kids, so I have much less (read none at all!) free time now. I have done quite a bit myself on this garage, but for example we had bricklayers here to do all the brick and blockwork. I can do bricklaying to quite a good standard, but a professional brickie is at least 10 times faster than me for a similar result!

Sourcing and then cleaning & preparing all the building materials took a long time - one of the drawbacks of using reclaimed. New materials would have looked wrong though.

3) More, in my opinion. A bit vulgar to discuss numbers in public, if you're really interested then PM me. We did keep costs down as much as possible, I did quite a few "deals" to get materials.

A lot of the cost was in the groundworks. If I had a nice level site, I would probably have gone for a good quality pre-fabricated timber building - such as:-

http://www.passmores.co.uk/products/timbergarages/picGallery.html

But - as I had a sloping site (the "uphill" part being made up ground), the groundworks were always going to be expensive - the building inspector will want the same standard of foundations for a timber structure as he will for a brick one. It seemed pointless to spend all that cash on foundations to then perch a timber garage on top, plus I'm not convinced a timber garage would look right sat next to a Victorian brick house. It's not an investment at all, it's for us to use - we're not planning on moving anywhere until the kids have grown up and moved out, so we may well be here for another 20-30 years. It will add value to the house but almost certainly less than it cost me to build.

or one like mine:-

Peak of automobile engineering or vulgar display of wealth? I tend towards the latter, although I do admire the engineering. Not as vulgar as the gold-plated Range Rover Sport that one of my firm's sales reps saw in Abu Dhabi last week though!!

Anyway Penners, I'm sure you'd only have a classic open-top British sports car.........

OK let's say this one, a 1960s pink Cadillac at about 20 k:

Well, I guess that's one way of ensuring that Chris never borrows your car!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

If anyone's asking, I'd quite like one of these (though not in this weather)

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Very nice Gareth.

My dream oak-framed garage will need to be a double garage to house these two beauties:

For fact-lovers, the Jag was the first production car with power assisted disc brakes at each corner, whilst only 38 of the Bugatti were ever made - surely every schoolboy's dream car?

 

[Flyfisher]

I've always fancied one of these:

 

[Feltwell]

As a classic car which I actually have a chance of owning one day, I've always liked these:-

Although I admit to having a soft spot for a nice early series iia....

No original fabric destroyed on that one! Not sure it's got much lime in it though......