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I'm looking to build a garage with an apartment above it. We live in VT and our house is a white colonial
The garage will be a barn-ish style with brown vertical pine siding. So we're going for the whole white house brown barn kind of look.
My concern is that by the time we put in garage doors big enough for a large vehicle 9' doors (We don't have a big vehicle but you never know) 10' garage ceilings, then regular 8' ceilings on floor 2 and a normal Vermont roof pitch, the building is 32' tall .
It is actually taller than our house (which is about 27'), but our house sits 5' above grade compared to the garage. So the roof heights will almost be exactly the same with the garage being TALLER, but the house being situated higher up.
The garage will be off to the side and about 15' back from the rear line of the house.
I'm really trying to figure out how to tell whether this is going to be too big and imposing? Perhaps it matches the large stature of our house!
Here is an example of a house nearby with garage next to it and the garage is the same height, HOWEVER, the house is a 1.5 story, ours is 2 full stories. One thing we would have going for us is that the garage would be set back BEHIND the house and to the side, making it look (by perspective) slightly smaller than it really is.
Not an expert, but I'm not sure about the window size or placement. Is there a loft in the apartment that is lit by that top window? If not, why not just make the 2nd floor shorter with sort of a cathedral shaped ceiling in the apartment? And 4 windows in a row, plus maybe an upper window 18 x width of two middle windows. I like the concept of making the garage look like a sophisticated barn to the rear.
Thanks -
There is a loft, but perhaps getting rid of it would help with our crazy height.
Then we could do say, say, 6.5 ft walls and cathedral ceilings (they are already planned to be) like you mentioned. That does start to seriously affect where you can put things on the outside walls such as stairs , stacked washer dryer.
We could give up 1 or even 2 foot height on the garage doors. 7' garage doors would not be the end of the world.
If we did 7' garage doors and 6.5' 2nd floor side walls then we could drop the whole building height by 3.5 feet.
The loft was supposed to be sleeping space for kids with parents in the bedroom.
Last edited by joe moving; 06-15-2017 at 06:34 PM..
Assuming sleeping quarters in this 2nd floor area. I doubt the windows as drawn will pass code. Might look at the IBC Code for egress and window sizes. In regards to the height of the structure, it is what it is. You can cut the 10' ceilings and put normal garage doors on it or you could lower the pitch of the roof. But that might compromise any snow load or ice. My personal, if you end up with a large vehicle, you can always put a shed roof off to one side large enough to cover it. If the possibility is high you'll have this vehicle and pouring a slab for it, just drop the shed part of the slab 3.5" and pour it with the main foundation. You can always use the area for a Bar-b-q area until you buy that large vehicle and then enclose it.
Assuming sleeping quarters in this 2nd floor area. I doubt the windows as drawn will pass code. Might look at the IBC Code for egress and window sizes. In regards to the height of the structure, it is what it is. You can cut the 10' ceilings and put normal garage doors on it or you could lower the pitch of the roof. But that might compromise any snow load or ice. My personal, if you end up with a large vehicle, you can always put a shed roof off to one side large enough to cover it. If the possibility is high you'll have this vehicle and pouring a slab for it, just drop the shed part of the slab 3.5" and pour it with the main foundation. You can always use the area for a Bar-b-q area until you buy that large vehicle and then enclose it.
Yeah I was gonna say those double hungs are too small- code is 5.7 clear square feet of opening- and they just look too damn small aesthetically (if you wanted a smaller window in the loft that still met code you could go with a casement that had a matching muntin pattern as the doublehungs). I would go with standard size garage doors, 8'-6" ceiling height in garage and about 6'-6" knee walls -as in the example picture, but taller and keep the loft space more constrained but still doable as a sleeping space. You could have one large shed dormer on one side (presumably the sunny side) for more windows and the area where you would need a full height wall that could also gain some head room at one end of the loft as it engages with the roof peak.
interestingly. I think the tall garage doors help with the proportions
A barn is typically has big tall doors and a smaller wall height above the barn door. Something like 8' down and 4' above seems more normal although that only gives you 12' total side wall height. No where near what I'm looking at doing.
So by shrinking the garage doors by 2 ft (assuming standard is 7') and shrinking the upper level by 1.5' I'm actually making the proportions look less Barn like... I think.
I definitely agree on pulling down the wall height upstairs, although I think 7' instead of 6'-6" might make life easier, with being able to use a normal door (My entry door into the apartment upstairs is on the outside wall....). This would only take 1' off the whole building though. Not sure if its enough to make it look "right".
In this picture I chopped something like 1.5 ft (not exact) off the 2nd floor wall height. I do feel the proportions look better.
Regarding the windows... not sure about egress code, will have to look into it. I think the builder copied my houses window size (?) but mine are casements.
Is it detached and behind the house or is it an attached at the rear of the house. If it is truly detached that should be more forgiving visually. Having it in a contrasting color/material like you described will help as well. You could also switch the direction of the roof pitch so the gable front doesn't present as much height in the front. Or run a trim band across the gable end and switch siding material above it.
Never skimp on ceiling height since that and foundation are the two things you can never change.
I think those windows meet requirement- 3'x2.167'= 6.5 sq ft. If you ran an arbor
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