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I have a newer build (6 years). Technically, I have a four car, tandem garage, but it is really like a one car garage and I don't like parking in it. We have a pop up camper in the tandem fourth bay. The third bay has a single door. We attempted to park the minivan in there, but you have to fold the mirrors in. I don't have patience for that. We park our seven or so bicycles and the lawnmower and other useful stuff there. Traschcans and recycle in the middle. Our other two cars are suvs and don't fit well side by side. I don't like to park there because it feels cramped. HOA approval needed for any shed that goes in the back and it has to meet the design of the house. I'd rather park outside.
Parking outside does have advantages. I'm actually outside once in a while and my neighbors see and know me. Neighbors who park inside... not so much. I don'tneed to be best friends with my neighbors, but I like the feeling of community.
More amused than shocked. My friends have a two car garage. They are hoarders. The garage is full of stuff they haven't touched in years and the vehicles have been parked outside since they bought them.
I would not say no to a house with a carport provided I could enclose the carport and make it a garage (which I did in my current house) but still have enough space in the back yard to build a secondary garage/workshop (which I also did on my current property).
Many builders cut corners and build a two car garage with one double door. I made sure I had separate doors and made the garage 6 feet deeper than a typical garage. That way I can get two larger SUVs in as well as my lawn tractor, lawn furniture, tools etc. in my garage.
I have always looked at one double door as a plus, it gives the garage more flexibility without a divider in the middle of the door space.
In the strange but true category, I've just spent a week in a higher-end subdivision. Large houses (wide). Most of the driveways are L-shaped, meaning the garage doors face the neighbors rather than the street. But the ell part of the driveway is so shallow that it is nearly impossible to get a car into the garages in a single pass - especially the larger cars of today. I have a compact and at one house, I could swing it into the middle and far garage, but no way could I get into the garage closest to the street without some fancy back and forth. In another driveway, I couldn't even swing a Wrangler into any of the garages in one pass. Trying to turn around to drive down the driveway is impossible without backing onto the grass.
As I drive through there, I am amazed at all the cars that are parked near the garages, but not even in front of them. Or sometimes they are parked across the garage doors vs directly in front. If the garages are open, they are not full of stuff (for the most part), they are simply difficult to access with the cars.
Point of reference, I grew up in a raised ranch with an L shaped driveway. One pass in huge 1970s cars is all it took to use either of the garages.
Some of these garages are way too small for large SUVs too, which most of their target audience seems to drive.
Makes sense, keep a $40,000 vehicle out in the elements and keep plastic lawn toys and cardboard boxes in the garage. These are the same people that keep their garbage cans in front of the house. Great neighbors and an asset to the community.
Would you rather I kept the plastic lawn toys and cardboard boxes in the driveway?
About 20 years ago we had about 3 feet of snow which caused the roofs to collapse on 3 of our outbuildings. They were tin on 4”x5” posts and not well-constructed so the heavy load of wet snow destroyed them. Since we had replacement insurance, we were able to have 2 new outbuildings built which combined the square footage of 3 into 2. We also raised the height of the bigger one.
The attached garage is now my husband’s work shop and the bigger outbuilding next to the house is now the garage. It stores our two trucks, a tractor and a truck camper plus tools for the garden and an inflatable boat.
The attached garage could hold our two smaller vehicles we had back then but not what we currently have.
Would you rather I kept the plastic lawn toys and cardboard boxes in the driveway?
Which would be a code violation in many areas. Yes kids, there are places, not HOA, that ban things like kid's tricycles or sandboxes being left out in the yard.
We have a two-bay, two story carriage house, built sometime in the 19th century. When we moved in about 4 years ago, a lot of crap...er...stuff went into it. That first year, you couldn't even walk into the left side bay. SLOWLY we have been going through all of that and now you can walk in it. There is still a lot to go through. Unfortunately, I didn't get out there this year. I can only get out there in the warmer months. Once it is cleaned out, we still won't store our car in it for a few reasons. First of all, there is a 25 foot sailboat in front of it. Hopefully, that will be gone soon. Also, it is far away from the house. Where the car is usually parked is only steps away from the front porch. In bad weather, or carrying in groceries is so much easier than if we were to have to trek to and from the carriage house. Yeah, it is a pain cleaning off the car in winter but not as much of a pain it would be to shovel a path just to get to the carriage house before even getting to the car.
What we would LOVE to be able to do is store our camper van in there in the winter but the van is too tall and the doors to the carriage house isn't. Who knows what we are going to do with it once it is cleaned out.
If my neighbor said something about me not parking my F350 in the garage I'd ask him what else bothers him. Then I'd do that too.
My truck is ensured, and, it's a friggin truck. The weather is so awful here anyway.
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