Congratulations! You've been pre-Approved!

[RayS]

...for converting our detached 2-car garage into a man-cave!

Wife and I have been talking about this for awhile and we're about to enter the planning phase. The Beech 1900 will fit nicely as well as gain a bit more screen real estate, add a 3rd projector, a workbench, wet bar, maybe a 90" 4K TV, a stripper pole.....

(Don't tell my wife that part... ;-) )

[blueskydriver]

Hey Ray,

That sounds awesome! You will be much more happy with the extra room and it'll feel more relaxing...too small of an area, you just feel closed in. Before you start let me give you some advice:

1. Do 100% of any work for the garage conversion first. Which means insulating, painting, electrical, heating/cooling, and plumbing for the wet bar, and then decide if you're going to remove the garage door opener(s) or not. It's better to have it all done before your cockpit is back in place.

2. Will you leave the garage doors in place or change them out for walls and making the outside look like the rest of the house. I'd advise you to leave the doors in place, not for the obvious reasons, but more so about your property taxes. The taxes will go up if it's considered a room, without the garage doors it's a room no matter what...

3. If you have bare concrete floors, change it to something else. Meaning, put in some subfloor wood using 4x8 sheets with spacers for air flow under them, then add padded carpet. The bare concrete will always be cold no matter the room temp, and sitting or standing on it leaves your feet and lower legs cold after a while; unless, you put in-floor heating on top of the concrete, but under the spacer. It's costly up front, but cheaper on the electric bill later on.

4. If you don't go with a subfloor, I suggest you get it cleaned, stripped and epoxied painted (the showroom floor look). Before you say no, I had my garage done this past July and it looks amazing, plus it is way more durable then concrete paint (I had concrete paint first, then wood subfloor with wood spacers and padded carpet on top).

5. Have all the electrical for your simulator installed before sitting it up and have a separate sub-panel with plenty of circuits. Of course you know my thoughts on this by now, with all of my older posts...more is better, that's my saying.

6. Will it have it's on bathroom/toilet area, with a wet bar, you'll have more people visiting that will need too relieve themselves, and do you want them trekking into the house for that? Wait, let me ask your wife first...her answer will be...nope!

7. Put everything on wheels, so you can change, rearrange or get under it whenever you need too. Right now it sounds pointless, but wait until you have to move 3-4 things, you'll wish you had the wheels then.

8. Last but not least, where will you park your vehicles? Do you have another building or area for them too be out of the elements? Does it snow where you live? If yes, you'll miss the cars in the garage after the third time you have too clear snow from them; your wife...maybe twice...lol! Seriously, the weather is the biggest draw back of converting your garage to a man cave. If you don't have a plan for that, you should come up with one. Also, do you get bad storms with hail or do you have trees nearby that could fall onto your cars? If so, like the snow, you will be really upset if a tree falls on your car or your wife's. Better yet, ask Karen, aka Simlady, about the 230 hail dents in her SUV because our garage had my B737 simulator in there or, like you, I also called it my man cave. Yep, that really sucked...however, that is when we formulated the idea of getting a 40'x60' hangar, and then changing the garage back into a garage.

Funny as this may seem, I am in my garage typing this, admiring the showroom floor, with my music cranked up and the AC unit keeping it 68* (we had over 90* yesterday, today and likely tomorrow...we live in Wisconsin, so 90's is too darn hot here!). Anyway, I am sitting here thinking about how nice this area is and how it would be great with the B737 sim back in here. Uh...okay, that's all the time I can think like that about my garage...Karen wants the garage too be a garage again, so pretend I didn't just type that last sentence...hehehe...lol!

Have fun with your big changes,

John

Ps Kudos to your wife!

[RayS]

Thanks for the info, John!

The very first thing we learned is that in Seattle, our garage is "Non-conforming" (Because the drummer for Soundgarden never got a permit for the 'extension' to store his boat in the garage)

Regardless, we had the teardown/rebuild permit grandfathered and we will be ok in that regard. Seattle does require single-dwelling homes to maintain at least 1 parking spot on-premises to remain legal. That shouldn't be a problem as we can leave one side of the garage still usable but completely sealed off to the elements.

Thanks again for your post. It definitely helps with our planning!
Ray

[blueskydriver]

Hi Ray,

Glad that I can be of help and if you have any more questions or need help, just post it because there are quite a few folks on CB who have gone through your adventure already...?

Will you please post some pics of your progress, even some of the most simplest things can be of great help to others if they see it in a picture. Speaking of which, I'd like to see your house location in a wide shot showing where or how everything is laid out, considering the tear down and rebuild.

Plus, are you saying that you own the house that the SG drummer once owned? If so, that would be an interesting story in of itself, just too know how that played out. Being an SG fan and being a drummer myself many many metronome clicks ago...lol...stories about drummers are always interesting.

When you do post some pics, how about starting a new thread over in the simulator hanger forum area? It just helps a little more to sort things out from building the sim vs building the space for it to sit in...

Best Regards,

John

[RayS]

5
Plus, are you saying that you own the house that the SG drummer once owned? If so, that would be an interesting story in of itself, just too know how that played out. Being an SG fan and being a drummer myself many many metronome clicks ago...lol...stories about drummers are always interesting.

That is definitely true. Matt Cameron owned our home way back. When Soundgarden became famous, he had the garage extended without a permit because he bought a boat. My wife and I had to figure out a way to grandfather that alteration. City of Seattle is uber-against non-conforming garages, but for some odd reason they grandfathered ours and allowed us to rebuild it.

Even more weird, is I took up drumming last year at the ripe old age of 55! LOVE that I'll be able to jam in the same space as Matt!

[XOrionFE]

Cool indeed....

I know this forum is about cockpit building but as a drummer myself I couldnt help but to show off my kits below....

Can anyone guess who my three  favorite drummers are?

Scott

[Bob Reed]

My space also doubles as a recording studio / practice room (no pics it is a mess right now) been playing the guitar for over 30 years.. Gosh I am old....

[jackpilot]

Hey Scott

Neighbours
Sound proofing ??
A drum set is obviously sort of more "messy" than the back of a sim !