A Garage for

"The Import Car Garage"

This garage has been planned for many years. Lets say "A" garage has been planned for many years. As with many people who want a garage to work on their cars as a hobby, I couldn't afford to have one built of the size I wanted. I refused to have one built that I could afford. So, having some building experience I decided to build my own. 

You must draw it up on paper first and figure how much material will be needed. I wanted a 40 x 50 garage as I had filled the two car garage in my home in a short time and filled a 10 x 20 shed with my hobby. I drew it up in several versions. In wood frame, block and metal and started pricing. I could build a wood frame garage the cheapest and probably the quickest but I didn't want wood. I priced some steel buildings in kit form and came close to getting one of them. However, none were exactly what I wanted. So I decided to design and build my own. I first called concrete contractors as I could not do the foundation and floor myself.

The average price for the floor and foundation was about $2000. I didn't want to have a bill to pay so I started to stash money aside for the floor. After I saved the $2000. I called a contractor and found the price went up to $2300 in the time I waited. No problem, I didn't mind borrowing that little amount to make up the difference. But, as Murphy's law dictates, something (domestic stuff) ate my $2000. Well, start saving again. By the time I had saved the money again the floor was a little over $3000 so extra saving was required. No problem, I can handle a little wait. I forgot that Murphy and his law was hanging out at my house and he ate the $3000. Hmmmm! I'm not getting any younger and still no garage. I started looking at financing a garage. No way!! Before I even came close to saving enough this time, Murphy and his law struck again. Lost my job this time. Bummer! shouldn't be a problem as I have a resume in my field as long as your arm. Hmmmm! fairly good severance package netted me a little over $4000 of savings in a short amount of time. Of course, the price of a floor/foundation had gone to $4300. too.  I'll find a job any day now and then can use the 4K for the start of the garage.  Well! no job. Too old now. Don't even try to tell me about the ridiculous FARSE of an "Age Discrimination Law". I even had a Chevy dealer come in after I filled out a resume for a service writer's job they had advertised, never said a word to me and just stood there reading the cover page of my resume and threw my application in the trash in front of me and walked out of the office saying "Your Too Old".  No witnesses of course, or I would own a good portion of that dealership. That bald headed creep may never know that I did pay him back years later. Ha! What goes around, comes around.

I didn't have to worry about some home problem eating the 4K this time. With no job, I ate it.

Now I am retired and found a concrete contractor to just pour the concrete and smooth it for 50 cents a sq. ft. and I paid for the concrete. I went to a demolition company that specializes in tearing down metal buildings and measured a bunch of pieces of steel and returned home to design a garage with what was available. Ordered my sheet metal from out of state and am well on my way to my 40 x 50 garage.

The following photos are of the progress.