As I am the grandson of a carpenter and
dabble in some carpentry myself, I admire the architecture of homes. Of
course one of my favorite parts of any house is the garage. Even though
I do have a garage large enough for all of our cars, with ample storage
room for all of my tools and stuff it is no showpiece. What is the saying,
you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear? So I daydream abaout raising
the current structure and building a much more appealing and functional
garage.
Over the past three years of my serving
on the Board of Directors for our club I have gotten to see a lot of our
members homes and their garages. It is from these visits that I have been
able to come up with my idea of my perfect garage.
First the outside appearance should be
pleasing to the eye, but not so overwhelming that it detracts from the
rest of the landscape. It also should match the architectural style of
the home. I would love to build a garage in the style of Kim Saal's. From
the outside it looks like an 1800's carriage house, including the paving
stone driveway. Unfortunately this won't match my house, which is a single
story ranch. So, I will have to stick with a long single story building
and delete the Victorian accruements that I admired on Kim's garage.
Inside the floor plan should be laid out
so that there are separate rooms for parking the cars and working on them.
Each bay should have it's own overhead door. This way it is easier to get
to a car that is running and you don't have to push out the car that is
not. Murphy's law dictates that the car that is not running will be the
car that is blocking the exit door.
As I enjoy woodworking as much as I like
working on a car I should have two separate workshops, one for the cars
and one for the wood. This is to keep the sawdust out of the carburetor
that is left on the workbench and also to keep that same gasoline-leaking
carburetor off of the new finish that was just applied to the new bookshelf.
The auto shop must have a lift so that I don't have to crawl around on
my belly under a car anymore and be equipped with a large air compressor
and MiG welder.
I like what the Weber's did with their
new garage so I will steal two of their ideas. Dave found a European made
tile that feels like rubber but looks like nice linoleum. This stuff is
resistant to most chemicals but I hear that brake fluid spills should be
wiped up quickly. The other thing that they did was to have radiant heat
installed. This is perfect for a car junkie's garage, as the usual forced
hot air blowers would move too much dust around. It also makes it nice
for those times I am too lazy to set up the lift and I am crawling on the
ground.
All of the walls should be painted white,
to reflect as much light into the room as possible. Also, on the walls
must be displayed all of the trophies I have one in my amateur racing career
as well as the picture from the movie "LeMans" of Steve McQueen holding
up his two fingers in a backwards peace sign.
So, that is my dream garage. It is what
I would like to have someday. If there are any details that I have overlooked
please let me know. I still have plenty of time to make sure I get it right. |
