Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

Jack Olsen's 12 gauge garage, have you experienced it?

All photos from his website.

photo source: 12 gauge garage.com

Very tidy.

That is a nice table.

It does look like a '60s machine shop.

A sink would come in handy.

If this place isn't a dream, what is?

Organization really matters.

What makes this garage extraordinary certainly isn't it's size. It's on the small side even for a detached, back of the lot, two car garage. It's the creativity, thought, and work that has gone into it. It holds his hobby car, a Porsche 911 and the other half is for working and fabricating. That Porsche is a good choice of a car to form a long term relationship with.

Those back of the lot garages come with a long driveway that runs alongside the house. Usually you can park three cars or more in the driveway. A gate can close access off from the street and provide some security for your cars that are parked outside.

You can pack a lot of yard into a small lot if you try. My Grandparents house in Berkeley had the driveway run alongside the right side of the house where it ended in a two car garage. One side was for parking a single vehicle. The other side of the building held a wood and fix it shop. With a work bench and shelves and it's own entry door. I recall my Uncle's 1949 Cadillac being in that garage. The shop seemed spacious to me at the time, but I was really a little kid when I formed my first impressions of it. A narrow walkway led from the sidewalk past the side door and continued into the backyard. Immediately behind the house was a rose and flower garden. A concrete path separated that from the well tended and organized vegetable garden that my Grandfather had planted alongside the garage. That garden had it's own well and water tank! It looked like a miniature water tower. Behind the garage was a fenced off area that contained several cacti and a maguey plant.

How did they fit all that, plus a three bedroom house and front yard in such a small area? Most lots in that area were the standard 50 ft. across and 100 to 125 ft deep rectangular designs.

Not my actual Grandparents house but a typical set up.

For one thing it probably only seemed big in my recollections. I was in high school when my Grandparents moved out of that house. I hadn't spent much time in the backyard or garage once I got older. I went past it about ten years ago. Wow, did it seem tiny! Everything was just a lot closer together than I remembered.

Some set ups open into an alley that runs along the back. This can give you a bigger yard but your garage is more exposed to intrusion since a thief can park behind your house in the alley and break into the garage without you seeing him. Also alleys are public spaces and who knows whats going on back there?

Back in the day (early 1980's) I probably only lived about 35 miles away from Jack Olsen's garage. The house I was renting had a two car garage in the back. It had a sliding door that was kind of inconvenient and narrow to put my car in. But it was fine for my two motorcycles.

The back of the lot set up has some real advantages. Mine had a two car wide concrete apron to park on. You could work on your car away from street view and your open garage door was not exposed to passing traffic. You had to be good in backing down that long driveway, My Wife would park the car just outside the side door of the house. Our house had the lawn about three feet higher than the sidewalk, with concrete walls bordering the driveway and a short run of stairs from the sidewalk to climb up into the front yard.

Backing out meant avoiding scraping those walls, looking out for pedestrians and kids on bikes, and then finally sticking the rear of the car into a pretty busy four lane street. My Wife did that all the time back then, I know she wouldn't do that now.

I like Jack's garage. Check out his website. If he can do it, maybe we can too.

My own plan is to usually be able to park two cars inside. I want to find a way to arrange my tools and equipment so that, that will be possible. If a big project is planned I can leave one car in the driveway and have more room to work inside. Progress is slow but I am patient. At least my '96 Mustang is back in service. I had the garage available to do the suspension work, but I had to do the manifold replacement in the driveway.

There was an inspiring story in the July 2015 issue of Hot Rod magazine. It was about a guy that found his ideal house, fifteen years ago, but it didn't have any garage at all. Now that didn't stop Dave Baur at all. He erected a heavy duty tent right alongside the house, ran a heavy extension cord into the tent for light,and started building. The first build that he accomplished in that tent was a chopped 1950 Mercury. He did it all there, including paint! He used this tent for several years until a particularly heavy snowfall caused it to collapse, right on top of his car!

He figured that it was about time that he put up a more permanent shop, so he built a 24'x14' wooden "shed." Space is tight, but none goes to waste. He can squeeze both of his hot rods in the shop, but it looks like he can only work on one at time inside.

It is actually almost as wide as a typical two car garage.

My first house had an attached single car garage and it was tighter than this, with a car inside. I usually kept the cars outside in the driveway, but it was great for my two motorcycles. My current house has the usual attached two car garage, which also has the water heater, furnace, and laundry inside. Really pretty typical of suburban ranchers. I used to keep my Riviera, and even a car as large as my '56 Cadillac in there next to my Wife's car.

You can do a lot in a two car garage but you have to keep it free of household storage and clutter. That seems to be the greatest challenge in achieving the goal of a "car hobby oriented" workspace. Luckily my spouse is very supportive of my dream.