Can't get two cars in the garage!!

We have a VM Fitzgerald I, and they did something strange with the cement steps that lead down to the garage from the door. They come straight out, and that intrudes on the room for one of the cars. Currently my dad has an Infiniti I35 that fits on the left side, and my mom gets the short side of the garage. When we moved in we bought her a new car because her old one (88 Nissan Sentra) was getting up there. Turns out we had to find a vehicle that was 180 or less total inches long. The Ford Escape was the only decent smaller-scale SUV that would fit. The Lexus RX300... nope. That was the other one she really liked. Now when I get my license and the Escape, it'll be a real toughy trying to find a convertable that fits in the garage. Heck, it's hard finding anything to fit on that side. Van Metre really pulled a fast one on those who bought our type of house.

 

rharse - Mine is also 19x20. I agree that it is a tight fit, but definitely not impossible to put both cars in.

I find that I usually just keep one car in the garage anyway because I am not the most organized person when it comes to my garage.

Of course with all this snow, it would have been nice to have both in the garage.

Good luck with it!

 

I also can't fit my car on one side of the garage because of the stairs that protrude. Someone suggested buying a SUV since it is higher it will make it over the first step. For now just leave 2nd car in driveway... definately not what I expected when bought 2 car garage home.

 

If I could not fit a reasonably sized vehicle in one of my bays due to stairs protruding, I would be all over the builder!

 

Why would you be all over the builder that built the home model the buyer selected with known dimensions? One reason I picked the Ryan Victoria model was because it had a 2' bump-out option on the side of the garage which I selected just so the garage would be wide enough. I also compared the length of the garage to my previous home to insure the steps wouldn't be in the way like they were in my previous home.

Obviously, this doesn't help current home owners (or town home owners) much, but prospective buyers need to do a little research before buying a new home.

 

For some models like the winterset, parkdale, and others in that line (not sure about the other lines) VM actually had this problem of the stairs brought to their attention. They decided to move the stairs one foot into the laundry room in our house. Now we could not fit a washer and dryer in that room so we had them undo the change. If you go over to stone ridge they have actually modified all of the floorplans to take the stairs out of the garage. Interesting that they now see it as a problem and fixed it in the new models being built in another place but not here.

 

We fit our Sienna and a car in just fine, but my car is a corolla.

We rented a large van when we first moved out and it wouldn't come close to fitting - too wide. So, I didn't even get to see if it would have fit lenght wise.

Does anyone have a suburban? Does it fit in these unbeliveably small garages? We came from a three car garage. Had a nice workbench in the third stall. sob.

 

I think VM fixed the "steps" problem on the newer Parkdale models. I can fit standard "kitchen" cabinets in the garage front plus a 98 Honda Accord. On the other side (closest to the door), I can fit my Volvo wagon with room to spare. I remember the builder mentioning that they moved the steps in. I guess our rear hallway is slightly smaller becuase of it (I am not 100% sure if it is smaller). Either way, I agree that the garages are smaller than they should be. I am going to try a full size GMC Suburban this weekend. Oh also, I have no problems with the height. It looks like their is lots of room for storage up above becuase part of the garage is at least 9' tall. I can finally hang a bike without hitting my head on it!

 

They moved the stairs in on the Sinclair as well, at least on certain plots of land. They said the driveway couldn't be more than a certain percentage grade upwards from the street, so we had more steps than what was standard. They pushed them into the house so that we didn't have an issue in the garage. VM ended up removing a second coat closet from the hall that was on the floor plan -- which they didn't communicate to us at all until we asked where our closet was. The laundry room ended up being bigger as a result of the change, which was a good thing.

The garage seems small, but I'll reserve judgement until we can actually unpack and put two cars in.

 

We're in a Spruce and have had the same challenge in that we can only get one car (barely) into the garage and that is also having to back it in and with the side mirrors folder. Our problem is not only the narrow garage with 2 separate garage doors but the width of our driveway makes for too small a turning radius to put a car into the garage closest to our front door. Next home we now know to test the garage before making a decision!

 

I do not understand why you folks would need to put 2 cars in the garage...I mean what are you going to do with your kid's bikes, electronic jeeps, basketball goal, Little Tike toys, soccer nets, etc. Just grin and bear it.

In all honesty, we have looked into adding to our garage but with current pricing and poor quality out there it is not something that I want to go through today. We did get 3 quotes for adding a third car garage to our house. All of the quotes were in excess of $70K. This was for a basic third car add-on with a small extension to the back of the house for additional storage.

It seems that we all get to pay the “Broadlands” premium to our contractors.

I have another example of the high contractor prices we are paying. I have a very large mound of dirt (birm) in the back of my yard (120 feet long by 10 feet wide by 6 feet high) that the developer/builder put in to control water coming onto my property from a large commonland hill behind my house. I wanted to replace the birm with a French drainage system and had 5 estimates from different contractors JUST to remove the dirt. The estimates ranged from $40K to over $55K. These estimates did not include anything but removing dirt (no landscaping, no retaining walls…nothing but removing dirt). Each contractor said that it would be a three day job. This was much more than I figured on spending. I figure that when my kids get older, I am going to give them shovels and have them shovel their way to college!

Also, we know that we live in strange times when the home contractors drive better cars then their customers.

As we all know, the building industry goes in cycles and we are currently in a high cycle. The DC area has historically had a very defined cycle of rapid growth, rapid contraction and level periods. The last cycle was rapid growth (1988 to 1991), rapid contraction (1991 to 1993) and leveling (1994 to 1999). This same ten year cycle has repeated itself for the past 30 years in DC. Now that the building developers are back to building SPEC homes (rather than contract homes), it makes you wonder how much longer this growth cycle will continue….then again it is possible that our market is now more similar to the Silicon Valley area than the old DC market with continually increasing demand with limited resources.

My brother is looking for a SFH (moving from a TH in Ashburn Village) in the Ashburn area. He told me that the final buildout section in the front of Ashburn Village (facing toward Route 7) has over 2,500 people on the waiting list. He is number 2,562 on that list. I do not see the growth cycle ending here for a few more years.

Fido, proud dad of 5

 

Carol, we also have a Spruce and have no problems fitting in a SUV and a full-size Volvo sedan. Granted, it is a snug fit but we have not had any problems since.... My wife struggled for a brief time until I showed her the best manuevering path to get the SUV in.

 

Do you give demonstrations??? [:I]

 

Sure! Only take a sec and you are close to where we live. I would be very happy to stop by on my way home and give you a quick demo. Send me an e-mail if you wish with your address and when you would be home.

Now, the manuever does require you to back up once. And I am also assuming (uh oh) that our driveway sizes are similar. But hey, VM built our homes! -))

 

Cool! I've just sent you an email. With 3 vehicles at the moment, driveway space is at a premium. I'll be curious to get your perspective on our driveway. Personally I think it is very narrow although when we challenged VM they measured and said it meeted the specs -- barely!

 

we can fit our '03 Volvo XC90 and our '05 Odyssey minivan in the garage. we can't get out the passenger side of the minivan because you can't walk forward because of the stupid step placement nor can you walk backwards because of the minvan is just inside the door. The XC90 opens to the wall but is a little tight for an 8mo. preggy wife. There is enough room in between the cars to strap in the kid but we need to be careful no to open the door too wide to hit the minivan. There might be 3' infront of the minivan but it is beyond the steps so we have to step off the right side of the steps and around the minivan.

My former Mini Cooper S was a perfect fit in the garage.

I have a ballpark quote from my contractor $70-75k to add a room above and slightly extend the garage and convert it to a single door. I am waiting for a final quote back as he was waiting to hear back from the guys doing the truss work.

I saw a house in the neighborhood that look as though it had a 3rd garage door added; as though it was stuck on to an existing garage. I want to go back and see if its a full-size door or something for a lawnmower.

 

I've noticed that some people BACK their cars into their garages. What is the advantage other than being able to leave in a hurry and get someplace like 30 seconds earlier. Perhaps these people have a superhero (Batman racing from Batcave)[}] complex. They'll need superpowers to overcome the CO2 poisioning the first time they leave the engine on "while they dash back in the house" for something they forgot (brains perhaps). Once I backed into my garage to unload groceries closer to the kitchen door. In just the time it took to back in, enough fumes collected to make me light headed.[xx(] My CO2 sensor in the kitchen went off when after I opened the door to the garage. Honestly, why risk CO2 poisioning, backing into an object in the garage, etc. just so you can pull forward out of your garage?[?]