Beginning the Project – Deciding if and what to Build

Starting a blog is the most difficult part, so this sentence will accomplish that. With that out of the way, the rest of this post is about the decision to build an addition, and what that addition would include.

Background

In 2010, My dad built our “Shop” behind his house. This building is 34×46 and has four 10×10 doors. Initially, we installed a single 10k two-post lift. I was living at home during this, so I got to play a significant part of the construction process. This was a wonderful learning experience and gave me sweat equity into the process.
In the past 14 years, we have gotten incredible utility from that shop. So much time has been spent there, and we continue to use it as the home base for all automotive maintenance, repair, and restoration work. It has an oversized HVAC unit which keeps us comfortable year-around. It has attic trusses, providing a TON of storage accessible by exterior stairs.
We have added 2 Lathes, another two-post lift, Tire mounting and balancing machines, MIG and TIG welders, a plasma cutter, and many more capabilities. Behind the shop we have two connex containers full of spare parts and tools, and a 24′ trailer full of more spare parts. Moving all of this would be impossible! At the time of this writing, there are no plans to leave that property that I am aware of. My parents will continue to live there and I hope to purchase it if they every decide to move. It’s a dream shop by any measure.

With my growing business, along with having a 3 year old, more space was needed at my house which is 10 miles away. Finding full days when I can drive over and get involved in major work has become challenging. I don’t like performing work on customer cars at that shop, It has personal significance to me, as well as being a disturbance to my parents. In addition to adding Garage space, adding heated interior living space to my home was needed as well. Due to COVID changes, Lexi (wife) works from home a majority of the time, and she does not have a workable office space. Her current space is really an entry area with no privacy. My current “office” space is really a bedroom that we need as a guest space for her father, who lives with us during the working week. He is currently living in the “bonus” room above the garage, which would make more sense as a children’s play area. It all added up to making sense to build an addition here.

At the time of this writing, there are still so many un-answered questions about how to organize and configure moving forward. For example, which tools will stay at the old shop, and which will move? Will I move some of the E30 race car work to the new garage? If so, will I attempt to move some of the spare parts? Should I put the Dyno at the old shop or the new addition? Reality is rarely neat, so we are left with only one option – move forward and figure it out as the time comes. It will take years to sort this all out, and I have made my peace with that.

Design Decisions

On January 1, 2024, Lexi and I made the decision to commit to building an addition here. By committing to that decision, we agreed that we would stay at this property for the foreseeable future, instead of planning to relocate or upsize. That was an easy decision with current interest rates and property values, for what that’s worth. The next decision was WHAT to build.

Originally, I had looked into building a detached shop. I looked at new designs as well as the exact “shop” dad built. This was not workable for two reasons:
1. It did not add viable heated and cooled interior space to the house. I could have easily moved my office into an area of the detached building, however Lexi did not want that, and it would not have given her a good space for work. 2. The Government is involved, and of course there are rules. In Wake County NC unincorporated (no municipality) area, a detached structure may not exceed the size of the main dwelling. This is complicated by how one measures square footage. For example do you include the garage area of the existing structure? In reality, there is a very complicated method to determine this, and the answer left me with having to “attach” the proposed 34×46 shop to the house via a breezeway to make it fit the guidelines. Based on the layout of my property, this was less than ideal. In order to have the new structure truly detached, the size would have been limited to a standard 2-car garage size. Because of these issues, the chapter was closed on this option.

Raleigh uses something called “Gross Floor Area” (GFA) to calculate floor area.
This is NOT what Wake county has on the tax website.
GFA does include attached garages.
GFA does NOT include porches, patios, etc. on either the Primary or Accessory structures.

GFA is included in the Definitions Section:
The sum in square feet of the gross horizontal area of all floors of a building
measured from the exterior walls or from the centerline when 2 buildings or units
abut. Gross floor area includes basement floor area when more than 50% of the
basement height is above the established curb level or above the finished lot grade
level where the curb level has not been established. Elevator shafts, stairwells, floor
space used for mechanical equipment, attics, internal balconies and mezzanines,
and floor area devoted to accessory uses are included in the calculation of gross
floor area. However, the following shall not be included: any space devoted
exclusively to on-site parking; outdoor loading, display, storage, utility service areas;
and/or uninhabited enclosed space on tops of roofs; or attic space having head room
of less than 7′ 10″. Attached garages shall be included in the calculation of gross floor
area.

That left us with the Attached option. It was clear to us that the left side of the house, next to the existing garage and bonus room, was the clear location to place the addition. The next step was deciding what to add. Cost is obviously a big concern, and determining how much it would cost from a preliminary sketch was remarkably hard. Actually, I would say impossible for someone of my background. Therefore, we discussed what options would really improve our lifestyle and make our living better “must have”, versus grand ideas and dream items which we could add later or live without – “Wishlist” things.

For interior space, we both agreed that a dedicated office area was on the list. For cost reasons, we agreed that adding another bathroom was not in the scope. By adding a bathroom, one of the “offices” would get labelled as a bedroom, potentially requiring septic system updates. All of this sounded like $$$. So no plumbing it is.
We also agreed that storage was a priority. We have a great attic, however its accessed via pull-down stairs which makes getting things up and down a challenge. Its also an attic, so no temperature control. Therefore, we wanted to include multiple closets within the conditioned envelope to store frequently accessed items, as well as space for some temperature sensitive long-term storage items.

For the garage area, I started laying out the tools that I wanted to fit, as well as considering my spatial needs to operate my business. I wanted a dedicated workbench for doing ABS pump rebuilds, a dedicated fabrication table for adding new products, and obviously a lift to allow for both personal and customer cars repair. I wanted to reserve space for machine tools, either a small CNC or a manual Bridgeport style machine. I wanted a media blast cabinet to improve my restoration capabilities. Lastly, I wanted to include the possibility of placing my Dyno in this garage. It’s still up in the air as to where this will be permanently installed, and if it will be placed in a pit or above ground, but I wanted options to be available. Using BlueBeam, an engineering software I can access via my work, I created many layouts and finally settled on a 32×32 size. Slightly narrower than my Dad’s shop, but much deeper than half of his shop to compensate. (What I did not account for at the time – 6×6 wall construction – means this will end up as a 31×31 finished space)

Lastly, I have wanted an exterior covered storage area for a long time. Lexi and I began our relationship spending time on our old boat, which has lived its life outside under a cover. It would be a luxury to have covered storage for the boat, meaning we could leave it uncovered to air-out during the summer between lake trips. During the winter, we would still cover it, but the expensive custom cover would last much longer. In addition to the boat, this area could serve as a covered lumber storage area (racks on the wall), a cover for an air compressor, and potentially protect my skid-steer as space allows.

Armed with this preliminary sketch, we discussed the plan at length and decided to make some changes. Neither of us liked the appearance from the front with the “shed style” dormer, which didn’t match the existing dormers. The roofline in the rear also did not match the existing, and limited the space. After doing some measuring, we also determined that steps would be required to increase the elevation between the existing bonus room and the new second floor area. The existing garage is 11’6″ height, but has a steel beam running width-wise down to 10′ even, preventing any potential lift install. This resulted in a second floor re-design, which is what we ended up going with. We bumped out the rear roofline to be a full width (no dormer) at a reduced slope, which matches the current bonus room design. The offices turned 90*, and we added individual gable style dormers in the front. The existing house dormers are useless space, they are only 3′ wide. Instead of matching that width, we increased the width to 7′ to give us usable space within them. This dimension increase still keeps the same look as the new addition is much wider than the existing garage, so the overall scale is similar. The last issue to determine was the existing double-window in the existing bonus room. I did not know how the slope of the roof would end up, and if we would be able to keep all or part of this window. I did not want to lose it, as it gives the bonus room the majority of its light, and its the only south-facing window on the house. However, the new structure needed to be placed forward enough in comparison to the existing so that the hallway would have sufficient headroom, and adding the stairs made this issue worse.

The downstairs did not change, with the exception of enclosing the “covered storage” area. I decided that I wanted to try and have a separate area for storage of “clean” items. It did not seem that enclosing this area would add any significant cost – only a few more boards of siding, only a few more 2×6, etc. The roof was already in the plan, and would be the most expensive part, along with the concrete slab.
I wanted this area to be separate from the main area, to allow for storage of “clean” things. The idea was initially to reserve space in this room for a 4 post lift, with one car on top and room for another “future” car below. The back part of the room would have wiring for a Lathe and Mill, which being in a “clean” room would be protected from grinding, panting, sanding dust common in the other room. This dust is generally considered detrimental to the finely machined surfaces on a Lathe or Mill, along with paint on nice cars. A double door was specified to allow for potential storage in this area of larger items – for example an engine, which would be hard to get through a standard 32″ door on an engine hoist.

By closing this area in, I have given up my covered boat storage area. I have a plan for this, more to come once the main garage is completed. The boat has been outside for 20 years, It should be fine for a few more, and the cover was replaced only 5 years ago or so.
As of this writing (December, 2024), the actual use of this enclosed “third bay” is still undecided. The major decision to be made is if the Dyno will be set up in here, and if so, will it be embedded into the concrete, or just mounted above ground in front of a 4 post lift. This would affect the placement of electrical receptacles, not to mention the location of the door to access the bay from the main area.

In this image, you can also see some updated information on other areas:
1. The blue lines are proposed concrete cut-lines. This is not the final cut pattern that was used, and I will cover that in the future.
2. The orange line is a proposed main electrical feed routing from Duke energy. As part of this project, the main electrical feed to the house needed to be modified, which I will cover in the future
3. The solid green line is the existing fence in the back yard. This is part of the future plan for covered storage.

If you are eagle eyed, you may have noticed that the door for Bay 3 is drawn as an 8×8 door. I specified this for two reasons:
1. To provide some symmetry when looking at the front elevation – the existing garage has an 8′ tall door (although it is 20′ wide), and when testing visuals with software I felt it looked more attractive to balance out the taller lift-bay doors on both sides.
2. To allow more wall space for storage. With the 8′ width door, there is a full 3′ of usable space on one side, allowing for a full work bench plus a reasonable walk path or door-swing area. With a 10′ door, the depth of wall would have been only 2′ along that side, restricting storage space (Industrial shelving units come 24″ deep, but pallet racking is only available as narrow as 36′)

This left us with the final preliminary sketch drawing, and based on this drawing I reached out to a professional to convert into a legal building plan set.

Chris Huggins, 16Dec24