Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Space, the final frontier, Part Two. 

This isn't the house, but this configuration was typical.

When it came time to move out on my own, and move down South for my new job, I kept my automotive and motorcycle needs straight in my mind. 

I found a nice, little old wood sided house, in an older neighborhood in Whittier Ca. 

The driveway was long and ran alongside the house to a detached two car garage. The garage featured a two car wide, concrete apron and a pair of sliding barn type doors. Plenty of room to park in the driveway and plenty of room in the garage for my motorcycles. 

I had located this rental house before my wedding. When my soon to be Wife asked about the house, I enthusiastically told her. "It has a great driveway and garage!" She didn't exactly share my excitement. In many ways this type of garage arrangement is preferred. For one thing, activities in the driveway and garage are hidden from the street and your neighbor's eyes. 

There are a lot of neighbors that don't share your enthusiasm for DIY activities, which can get kind of messy looking at times.

The downside of these garage arrangements is the lack of actual yard space for grass and plants, in contrast to the amount of concrete paving on the house's lot. On the other hand, the downside is an upside, with less yard work to do! 

When I moved back up to the Bay Area, I found a duplex in a real nice area. The landlord told me that they didn't want any mechanical work being done in the driveway. There was a garage that I was able to use to store my motorcycles.  So didn't I do a thing to my cars while I lived there. Luckily, I only lived there for six months.

You've got to keep your priorities straight.

My Wife and I wanted to buy our own home, eventually, no matter  how small. 

There was some lower priced, new construction going on in a developing area. There were also quite a few older homes available in the same greater neighborhood. These houses were at least forty years old and most looked it. Also they weren't all that big. 

But they all had two car garages and driveways.

This is not my old house, but part of a different development. 
This is the same facade that our home had.You can 
clearly see the two car driveway.

The home we found was part of a new development of "duet homes." They were duplex style dwellings. The strong selling point for me, was that they had a two car driveway right in front, and a single attached garage. It also had a small backyard. Like a lot of planned unit developments, PUDs, they had narrow private streets with no curb parking. There were a couple of small guest parking lots, but you might guess that residents might try to stretch the definition of guest. I was very satisfied to have the driveway in front of my home, and of course, the garage. I kept my motorcycles in there. I didn't have to worry about someone parking in my driveway, like what happens in condo developments with assigned parking.

I didn't do much wrenching here either.  We only had one car at first, the '84 Mercury Cougar. We'd only had that a few years at this time, it wasn't even paid off yet. Later I bought an old Honda Civic.

While housing prices were always going up, it made sense to try to find something that we would want to keep long range. We only lived in the duet for two years, and we saw enough appreciation that we decided to make another move.

Buying our first house had taught me a lot about saving, working some overtime, and not buying an expensive car or motorcycle. Keeping those various little expenses down. 

So I felt okay about taking on the biggest mortgage that we could, even with the adjustable rate loan that we needed to qualify. I guess that it was the right choice, seeing that were still here over thirty years later.

"Is this where old cars go to die?"

It was only just big enough, three bedrooms two baths. It had been a bit tight as the children were added, but over time it turned out to be just right. There's a two car garage in front of the driveway. Next to the garage is a ten foot wide side yard. I turned the fence into a double gate and I use it to store cars there, it takes some of the pressure off the driveway and curb parking. 

Like most people's garages it has varied from being a storage catch all, to holding at least one of our cars. At one time it held two cars and two motorcycles, though one car was a Honda Civic.

I have done a lot of work on my cars in the garage and driveway.Of course as part of the circle of life I've made my driveway/ garage available for my Son's use. 

We've been here for over thirty years, the house has become ideal for us as the children have left. I think that we'll be a couple of happy "empty nesters" in the future. For a long time I dreamed of moving somewhere in the country and buying a house with property big enough to build a big shop. Those ideas have kind of fallen by the wayside over the years. The truth is, I don't think that I'm going to be doing that much heavy wrenching in the future. But I still plan on doing plenty of driving, with the emphasis on enjoyment.