Shop with Living quarters

[YJeeper]

So most of y'all know i moved to Charleston last year. Im really enjoying it so far except for one thing.. I live in an apartment, have no storage, and own a boat, zuk, and ATV that i don't have down here with me... Sucks big time... The other half and I have pretty much decided this is the place we are gonna stay, as she will be finishing up a MUSC soon and the health field is unlimited down here and i have a pretty good gig at Mt. Pleasant.

So to get on with it I'm tired of paying rent. I'm looking to buy some property soon, (3-10 acres or so) but don't really plan to build a house until a later date. I've always wanted an actual jam up shop. 3-4 bays, 2 post lift, and plenty of room, but i also wanted a place to live.

What Im figuring is combining the two for now. I will build a house eventually on the property, but I got to looking and there are some pretty good ideas for shops with living quarters up top. They would be about the same size as my apartment, roughly 1000 sq ft or so. Anybody know anybody else who has a similar set up.

My idea is: I live there for 2-3 years and pay as much into it as possible to instead of dumping money into a shitty apartment, then build that dream house or whatever she has been blabbbing about, then when all is said and done I will have a pretty bad *** man cave/ place for her mother to stay when she comes to visit. Plus it would give us a place to live while the house was being built, again not dumping money into an apartment...

I have found a few ideas, but it would be somewhere along the lines of these.

 

[97TJGUZZY]

one of the guys down the road from me did that. He bought a metal building and closed off one half of it for a house. I think he used Hoover buildings.

 

[YJeeper]

Why have you decided against it? Cost?

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[LBarr2002]

If you really plan to use it as a mother-in-law suite / guest house, make sure you consider accesiblility for them when they're older. Something like that second one that's built into the hill would be ideal so they have their own entrance without many stairs.

 

[LBarr2002]

If I was single when I built, I probably would have done that. Burgundy says that if she wasn't around that Me, Tripp, and Michael would have been living in a shop.

The key to comfort is going to be insulation. For temperature control and noise. If your living space is over a non-controlled shop, it will be very hard to regulate temp upstairs. Also, your wife probably won't be happy when you're in the shop grinding at 2:00am and she can hear everything.

 

[LBarr2002]

Pretty much cost. I wanted it a little nicer than just a shop with an apartment in it, so I could live there a few years. Plus the cost of a septic tank and a well was about 10k. I just figured I'd have more in it than I wanted to spend. I'm just gonna buy a smaller house and build a shop now.

But you could size the septic system appropriately for the future house and tie in to it and the well later.

 

[LR Max]

I was looking at doing the same thing. There are a number of neighborhoods here in Atlanta that have old garages and storage buildings. Right down the road are $2 million houses. My thought was get one of these garages and make it into a work area with living space. I could live in the neighborhood I wanted to but be able to have room to do whatever work I wanted.

Overall I decided against it when I thought about how much time I actually spend in there and what projects I'm doing. Ended up getting a townhouse with a nice 2 car garage. There is space in there for a work bench and a storage closet. This has worked out fantastically because I have a place to change oil, or pull a cylinder head, or rebuild an axle. But I go upstairs and I have a nice house. Its been a popular item with the womenfolk and considering I have people come crash for the weekend, the guest bedroom has been extremely useful.

My location is pretty epic and being able to get everywhere I need on the weekends without driving a car is fantastic. Especially when big events come into town I don't have to worry about finding a spot, I just go.

Considering how much my garage stinks, I would hate to have that lingering throughout my entire living space. Also with the limited space, I'm not filling it full of crap. That helps out when you don't have crap everywhere.

Right now I'm just maintaining and doing small upgrades. Not doing a full frame off or anything like that. My schedule otherwise doesn't really allow the vast dedication of time to make big projects happen. Kinda sucks but I'm not rock crawling or KOH'ing or anything like that. Just wheeling when I can. Which is fine.

If it were me, I wouldn't own a place like what you are considering if you are only going to have it for 2~3 years. By building it like you want to, when you sell it, you'll really only be able to sell it to single young guys who are heavy into automotive stuff, like yourself. You are excluding couples and families. Considering the fact that you'll be alienating the vast majority of people who would be looking for a house, this wouldn't be a good financial decision as resale might be down and you'd be sitting on the property for a while instead of getting rid of it and making $$$.

Now what you could do is setup the property such that the shop/living quarters that you plan on building would be planned out as a "secondary" building on the property. So when you sell it, you sell it as a lot that already has a barn/workshop/guest house on it. That said, this is assuming you can get a significant amount of land. Dunno what your budget is but at least 3 acres would be a starting point.

If I was looking in an area were land was fairly readily available, I'd be looking for a house with enough space to put a shop out back. A number of my friends have this and its pretty awesome. Great that you have space behind said garage to put your crap so its out of the way. My friend has his project tractors behind his along with his trailer.

Dunno, just an idea. Living in ATL is a lot different from where you are at.

 

[YJeeper]

I wouldn't be selling the property later, my idea was build shop apartment first, house later on same plot once settled... once I buy and build im not leaving unless there are extreme exigent circumstances...

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[LR Max]

Oh well then do it.

 

[jimbo92]

That's what my brother did. It worked out well.

 

[Steve97tj]

Garagejournal.com has all kinds of info about doing this.

 

[JoesJeep]

Id do it.