What do you use your garage for? Something my FIL noticed when he started visiting here is that people in Houston don't use their garages for cars.
Cars. I refuse to yield ground on this because of the threat of snow. Having to scrape snow/Ice off your car and warm it up sucks.
My wife works from home with her HR job in the house , Then when she’s not doing that she has a craft business with a laser cutting wood and has taken over our garage - we put in a mini split system for heating and cooling, The garage is fairly large - almost 4 small cars could fit in the two door garage back to back and it’s about 20 foot tall so we put in a deck in the back part for storage plus a workbench area originally for me but has since been taken over have a very small section for my lawn business and then she has about 70% of the space for her of course- All the cars stay in the driveway -
Cars and workshop. One car in, one out. One shed for lawn tools. One shed for kids toys/storage. I wish we had a 3-car garage.
This is bizarre to me too. I've always been a nazi about this. Cars go in the garage. Period, end of sentence. You have $50K worth of metal and you're going to leave it in the driveway so you have a place for your junk? It ain't me. It ain't me. I ain't no fortunate one. I just think it's a cleaner look having your cars in the garage with the garage door closed. My wife wouldn't even consider a house with a detached garage when we were buying a few years ago. She watches too much ID Network. She won't even get out of the car until the garage door is fully closed behind her.
I don't keep my cars in the garage. I did at one point, but honestly, a 2 car garage really doesn't comfortably fit two American-style full sized sedans, SUVs, trucks or minivans. You always hit your car door on stuff. To empty the trunk after shopping you generally have to leave the garage door open. It's a PITA. It's weird for me to have an entirely separate, very large room for a waterproof vehicle. I understand if you're where it freezes several months in a row. But if that's not the case, why bother? Think about places like California where a 3/2 is a million bucks. That space is better used as living space or even converted to an efficiency apartment you can rent out. I can see the security aspect, though. Some punks came through a few years ago at 3am and checked all of the car doors in our area and took anything loose. It happens but my hood is relatively safe with cops patrolling 24/7. I guess using the garage for security reasons is a demographic question, too. Sheds and outbuildings are for tools and workshops, IMO. You can get them relatively cheap. I did look at a 7/7 house last year with a five car garage, and if you have a house that big it makes total sense. But I think for most Americans in a 2 to 4 bed house, a garage is a waste of space.
If I lived in Texas I'd keep my cars outside and turn my garage into an all purpose storage locker... Fitness equipment, bikes, toys, power tools, workbench, beer fridge, etc.
2 car garage here - basically use my garage to workout, wrench on my cars/bikes, woodwork, metal fabrication/weld classic truck in garage - daily driver in driveway workout area/squat rack roll around work bench and wall work bench/storage tool box mtn bike storage lawn equipment - (future shed for this crap) other storage shelves
3 car garage. I keep my cars in the garage. Neighbors around me have a 3 car garage as well and have their cars parked outside and on the streets and it also baffles my mind. I came from a lower income home where we didn't have a formal car garage, so I always dreamt of being able to put my cars in the garage. I don't understand how people can have so much junk that they can't even park their car in their garage.
50% car 25% tool and work area 25% junk Most of our junk is little kid related that we just need to trash or donate. Another big pile during the summer is college kid related as they come home and dump all the dorm/apt stuff in the garage.
That's everywhere - especially in suburbia. Families may have 3 or 4 cars, so they can't put them all in the garage. But in most cases, I think it's just most people have too much crap and use the garage to store much of the crap they don't need. I only have one car, but I know I have some junk in my garage I need to get rid of, but it's 1 car, and the usual garage stuff... cans of this, bags of that, tools, garden crap, etc. I don't really use it for storage.
We should be able to check more than one answer. Holds one car, stores a bunch of stuff (with an overhead storage rack), and holds my lawn equipment. I eventually plan on getting a shed to hold all the lawn equipment and other stuff so I can use the garage as a workshop. Is there any money in buying plain, used golf carts and refurbishing them? I live in very golf cart friendly area with multiple neighborhoods where people drive fancy golf carts. There probably isn't any money in it, but I want a hobby anyway.
Yep suburbia is the worst for this. On our neighborhood page every week or so someone complains about cars blocking the sidewalks or parked on the streets making it dangerous to drive. Our security stickers them and has started leaving fines. Basically everyone has too much crap in their garage, too many cars, too large of vehicles and too short of driveways so everyone is perpetually angry about it. I’m a park the vehicle in the garage guy to protect it from the elements and those 3am assholes checking everyone’s doors. Plus when it’s raining I can get in and out without getting soaked and having to run to the door.
Cars can handle the elements being outside. The other half of the garage can accommodate the second car but the wife says it's too tight to park comfortably. But there's space in case of bad weather.
