Ed and Sandra's Garage

Now you've got to admit it's unusual to see a webpage devoted to someone's garage in their house, but this isn't, shall we say, the usual sort of home garage.  Are we car fanatics?  No, not at all, though we certainly like nice cars.  It's more a matter of us wanting everything about the house and grounds to be nicely done.

Those that are interested in the details of what we've done may appreciate a bit of background information explaining how we arrived at the current state.  If you get bored or are not interested, just scroll on down to the photos which may be more entertaining.  Each of the subsequent small photos can be "clicked" to see a larger version.

When we had the house custom designed, we did give some thought to having a somewhat special garage and laid the groundwork though we didn't know at the time what we ultimately wanted.  The three bay garage is approximately 26' x 33' and the adjoining workroom accessed through double doors is 11' x 13'. The workroom houses metal and woodworking machinery and tools; storage cabinets and work surfaces.  The ceilings are 12'+, and in the garage there are two circular steel posts supporting a large steel I-beam above the ceiling.  In the primary garage area there are six 4-tube fluorescent covered light fixtures and in the workroom an additional two units of the same type.  Large Caradco elliptical windows are on the front walls of the garage and workroom, with a rectangular double set on the back wall of the garage.  Consequently, there's excellent light day and night.  The walls and garage doors and ceiling are fully insulated, and finished to the same quality as those inside the living area of the house.  A door on the back side of the garage gives access to the deck area at the rear of the house.  In the garage, treated wood stairs and a landing lead to a doorway to the central hallway on the main level of the house.  The landing also provides access through a half door to the "kitty room".  That's our two Ragdolls' private place with grit boxes, tiled floor with rug, framed prints on the walls, crown molding and a ceiling (3' high) light fixture activated by a motion sensor.  Their entrance is via the kitty-sized arched doorway from the main hallway in the house.  The doorway is a miniature version of the arched full sized ones in the house designed for people.  Fittings were incorporated in the garage for a downstairs washer and dryer to be used just for cleaning dirty gardening attire and such.  They have proven to be most useful.

That was the original configuration.  Subsequently we began adding things with one of the first additions being the controls and backup power supply for the 24 station irrigation system for the grounds.  Next came the design and construction of a 4' x 8' gardening tools and supplies closet with double doors matching those for the workroom.  It was also a nice way to conceal a water heater situated in a corner of the garage.  Vinyl clad cabinets were then added at various locations in the garage.  One interesting feature we constructed was access through the wall on the Great Room side of the house to the rear of the home entertainment system which is located in a built-in cabinet.  That gave us an easy way to reach all of the wiring for the entertainment system including the HDTV.  A hinged door for the framed access hole was made from the door to a vinyl clad cabinet that matches the others in the garage.

Another consequential project was to add an oversized, deep stainless steel sink mounted in a matching vinyl clad cabinet with storage beneath.  A molded counter top such as would be used in a kitchen was incorporated.  The spigot is a stainless steel high rise arched variety with pull down nozzle made by Hamat.  We decided to "dress up" the sink corner a bit by adding a nice matching rod for hand towels, a mirror and a clock.  Other additions for the garage included a full size refrigerator and a set of Bose speakers connected to the home entertainment system.

Then came the big dilemma.  We acquired a fourth vehicle and the garage could not accommodate all of them.  What to do?  We thought and thought and thought about the matter including giving consideration to such things as adding a solarium onto the back side of the garage that would have enough space in it to store the electric garden truck; adding onto the house to include more garage bays; and even starting over by designing and building another new house.  Frankly, none of those possibilities held a strong appeal for us, though we may still do the solarium thing at some point just to house flowers and other plants during the winter.

As things would have it, the solution appeared in a very unexpected way.  We were watching an automotive related program on TV one evening, and coincident to the main theme there was a brief shot of cars stored on a lift in a home garage.  We saw that, immediately looked at each other and both said "Hmmm."  We didn't know there were such things for home garages!  That led to lots and lots of research which revealed a surprising number of manufacturers and various types of car lifts.  We decided upon what is actually an upscale commercial unit for parking garages, the PL-7 made by Bend-Pak (link is to Bend Pak's latest model parking lifts).  It had all the features we wanted including wide ramps and removable center plates that could support the weight of a vehicle.  In our case that latter feature was perfect for the wheelbase of the electric garden truck if we wanted to place it on top.  We also liked the clean lines of the two post unit and its substantial construction, the dual chain / hydraulic cylinder lifting, and the electrically operated safety latches among other important features.

Well, that little decision very quickly led to lots of others.  If we were going to install a super nice car lift, we might as well go "whole hog"!

Actually, the lift itself necessitated a change to how the garage doors operated.  When the house was built the doors were initially hung as low rise, chain driven types.  Because of the high ceiling it resulted in a tremendous amount of clutter in the way of angled steel brackets and braces hanging down to support the door tracks and motor drives - quite ugly and something that had always bothered us.  We were delighted when we learned there was a new product on the market (new since we built our house) that uses a DC motor and belt drive mounted directly on the spring torsion bar of the door to operate it.  The ZAP unit is manufactured in England.  All of the junky metalwork and chain drive mechanisms were removed, and the guide rails rerouted to follow the wall up to the ceiling before arching over a short distance.  This was a huge improvement, not only in terms of appearance and freeing up space, but also in quietness of operation.  Another thing we did was to change the controls to operate the doors that are positioned on the wall by the entrance to the living quarters.  Previously those were three separate, ugly little black boxes with push bars on them to activate the doors.  We wanted something that looked a lot better and less obtrusive than that.  Consequently, Ed custom made a panel incorporating three doorbell pushbuttons as the controls for that location.  He also installed new electrical outlets between each garage door and hid all of the wiring for the motors and control units behind the sheetrock.  Incandescent "courtesy lights" were installed on the ceiling which turn on for three minutes when the garage doors are activated.

And, of course, we totally repainted the ceiling and walls.  Can you believe the blown popcorn type ceiling took over 14 gallons of paint for two coats?!  Thank goodness the others in the house are hard surface, orange peel type.

We also focused our attention on various ways to improve the appearance of the concrete floor.  Our considerable research into this subject led us to the conclusion we simply wanted the very best which we determined from our perspective to be Swisstrax flooring.  We selected the Diamondtrax line.  It was extremely easy to install and we are, to say the least, greatly pleased with its appearance.  Probably our most significant challenge was trying to decide what colors and pattern to use!  We found the Swisstrax distributor in Myrtle Beach, Coastal Organization by Design (843) 903-3360,  to be very helpful.

So what other big decisions did we make?   To have central heating and air conditioning installed for the garage, of course!  A  Bryant hybrid system with gas heat and a 2 1/2 ton electric heat pump air conditioner was selected.

One of our challenges with the car lift was how to receive it and have it installed.  We chose a local company, Custom Design, Inc., for this purpose.  They specialize in designing, building and installing commercial hydraulics and heavy metal fabrication.  A large flatbed trailer truck delivered the lift from the manufacturer in California to Custom Design where it was offloaded at their dock.  Subsequently Custom Design moved the package to one of their trailers which could be negotiated into our residential area.  At our house they moved the components weighing 1 1/4 tons in total up our long curved driveway to the garage using a forklift tractor.  Then the assembly was done in the garage.  It was quite an undertaking.  We were extremely pleased with their efforts - highly competent and very efficient.  In preparation for the lift installation we had an electrician install a dedicated 220v circuit.  The wiring was run through the attic and down through the inside of one of the steel support posts to floor level in the garage which placed it very close to where the console for the lift was to be positioned.  This did necessitate drilling through the lip on the I-beam, the top flange on the post and then into the post where the wire was to exit.  It made for a very neat, unobtrusive installation.

Regarding the Bend-Pak lift, we would like to emphasize that even though it makes it incredibly easy to access the underside of a vehicle at any desired height for maintenance, we're not into that.  In our case, it's just to facilitate storage of vehicles.  Well, that's not altogether true.  It does indeed solve the problem of how to conveniently reach the inside of the deep wheel rims on the Cadillac XLR roadster to clean and polish them - sweet!

So, now you know what we've done with the garage so far.  What's next?  Hmmm, there's a really good spot where a large screen HDTV could be placed and a second Bend-Pak car lift might be really nice...  Oh well, time will tell.

Click on the picture below to see the car lift in operation:

                                                                                                        Best regards,

                                                                                                        Ed and Sandra
                                                                                                        EandS@carolina.rr.com

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