Garage loft project thus far

Despite having a garage and a full basement, somehow my house is still too full of crap so I decided to give my garage a "second floor." The garage is slab on grade of course, and since it's attached to the house (full basement so the foundation comes up about 3' above grade) the ceiling is high-lots of wasted space. I've been stockpiling lumber from the cull piles at the lumberyard and stuff my father-in-law was able to get me (he works for a large construction company), and I finally got a critical mass of material to be able to really go full bore on the loft project.

View from the kitchen door-I had to put in a well so that you can walk down the steps into the garage:





Underneath:



Looking in from the garage door-here you can see the girder and posts that support the loft. I fastened two 6x6 posts to the walls with Timberlock lags and ran a 2x8 across. I'll put another one on the opposite face of the 6x6s to make sure that the girder is plenty strong, and I'll also be running carriage bolts through them as well-they're just screwed in for now. The main floor of the loft cantilevers over the girder about 2' 6", except for the one end that cantilevers about 4' which will allow me easier access to the scuttle hole for the attic. I'm going to run a chain down from the ceiling joists to support the one corner. Hopefully I'll be getting some plywood next weekend and will be able to start storing stuff up there:

The more room you make to store your stuff, the more stuff you will gather. It is a vicious loop.

Ain't that the truth.

Looking good Badfish. Whats the overhead clearance like? I've been known to whack my head on things.

I did a similar thing in my "spare" garage where I keep all my halloween stuff. Hearse is parked underneath and the second floor is above the hearse.
It is a viscious cycle, I have two three car garages, one on the house and one on the in-law suite and the more room the more crap you save.

I was going to try for full 6' 8" (standard door height) clearance under the girder, but that would have required me to use a 2x6 girder which, even with two of them, I didn't think would be quite strong enough. Going with the 2x8 girder cost me two inches, which means most normal human beings can walk under it with no problems My nearly 6' 7" tall brother-in-law is the only person who spends time in the garage that will ever have to duck Most importantly though, even our large SUV and my moderately lifted Toyota pickup will still fit in the garage with no problem. The garage door height is only 7' anyway, so it's not like we would be pulling excessively large vehicles in there to begin with.

Eh...don't I know it... I'm hoping to just shift some stuff around with this move. The problem we had was that originally we put everything in the attic, which was a major PITA to get to. Then we waterproofed and finished the basement, and moved everything down there-after my daughter came along, our stuff + her stuff = you couldn't move down there. The garage had been semi-cleared out because I had scored a free shed from a neighbor who was moving. I moved that into my yard and put all of the lawn equipment into it, but the garage still wasn't conducive to storing things like out of season clothes, seasonal decorations, etc... We'll see how long it takes before the basement fills up again

Hearse!? Show us some pics

I have a full 2nd floor on my garage, it get full to overflowing from time to time with lots of stuff I should have parted out with in the first place. Why is it so hard to let go of things you think you want but know damn well you'll never use them again!

this is the daily driver in October, wife loves it. Take her out to dinner and park right in front,get some strange looks

That is too cool

we LOVE Halloween we actually empty 90% of the house out and decorate it for a friends and then family party. couple of the props we have built

BBQ dude Prisoner Old man cut in half