Building a Garage Addition to Your Home

One of the most rewarding home improvements I made to my house was to build a garage addition. For years I contemplated building a garage addition while I scraped the ice and snow from my cars and waited for them to warm up during the winter months. About 5 years ago I finally made the decision to build a garage onto my home.

After excavation and installation of the foundation, the framing crew had the garage frame up in about a week. Three weeks later I had a completely enclosed garage, with all the outside doors and windows installed and the shingles installed on the roof.The first big decision I had to make after deciding to build the garage addition was to determine how large to make it. I wanted a large enough garage to fit two cars comfortably and that would be of proper proportion with the rest of the house. I also wanted space to include a work bench and to allow room for the lawnmowers or snow blowers. I decided on a 26 foot wide, by 24 foot deep garage. Since my house was 36 feet in width, this gave me a garage that was about 2/5ths of the entire home frontage.A few years have gone by since I completed my garage addition and every winter when I see people standing by their cars in the driveways scraping, I am reminded of one of the best decisions I ever made.It makes no sense to have flimsy weak doors on your house, what you really need is something that a House Breaker will bounce off when they try to force it. In the next article in the series I will deal with the locks and hinges fitted to your doors but for now I would like to concentrate on the physical construction of the actual doors themselves.After selecting my general contractor, I generated some additional drawings that provided all of the framing details necessary to pull a building permit. Because of the specific contour of my property, my garage plans also included a bonus room that would reside above the garage. Thus, I needed to include additional drawings of the bonus room, e.g. interior walls, doors, windows, closet, and entrance way and stairwell to/from the main house.Some doors have a decorative glass panel this can make it very easy to break into, it's only a few seconds work to break the glass and unlock the door. If you decide to keep this type of door why not fit a break-resistant plastic panel, or decorative grille over the glass installed with non-removable screws, on the inside of the door of course.In the next article in this home security series we will be looking at the locks and hinges fitted to your doors, see you then.The next area to consider is the soft under belly of your home, your garage door. This should be kept securely locked at all times, even when you are home, particularly if the garage is attached to your home. Once a burglar has got inside your garage they are out of sight and can work uninterrupted to break into your home.I also needed to make sure that the roof pitch and the elevation of the garage would be consistent with the rest of the home.Once the insulation was installed and approved, I called in the drywall contractor to install the drywall, and to tape and mud. I also had them apply a coat of primer and one coat of builders grade paint. It is well worth the money to have them do this.

A few years have gone by since I completed my garage addition and every winter when I see people standing by their cars in the driveways scraping, I am reminded of one of the best decisions I ever made.

Author: Mark J. Donovan