like many things when buying a pre-exisitng home, the detached pole barn style garage that came with our house was an oddity. It has 2 overhead doors and is 18'x20'. The doors are small (I need to measure) but my wife's jeep compass BARELY fits in the opening. The other side is slightly smaller, the prior owners put a mini cooper in it. I don't even try to fit my truck in there. Which stinks because I live in Buffalo, and a gargae keeps your vehicle from being buried in snow every night in the winter and scraping off ice...
The house has 7 acres and is a wooded setting. There is no shed so you can easily see where this is going. We are out of room! Figuring a leaf blower, 4 bikes (2 mountain, 2 road), chainsaws, tools, etc, etc. This isn't counting my ATV, 2 snowmobiles (that are kept in a family members barn) and potentially some room to grow for things like a small camper or a boat. No way.
So as I see it I have 3 options:
1. Sell the place, trying to avoid that.
2. Add on to the garage.
As I said it is pole barn style with just painted cedar siding nailed to purlins. maybe add a few bays? The overhead door opening are super narrow and if I wanted to get my truck in there ( and keep from my wife's umm scrapings of the sides - I'd like 1 large overhead instead of 2 narrow ones). So I'm looking at re-engineering the header and buying a bigger (more expensive) overhead door.And adding on to the sides
3. Here's the green room part:
Turn the existing pole garage into a greenhouse. And build a separate proper barn/garage to my specs. I could just take off the siding on the current garage and purlins and maybe add a clear purlin type and sheets of clear plastic material? My wife is a vegetarian so we could certainly grow and eat a lot of veggies. I would want the roof to handle snow load, etc, maybe add some lighting, a circulation fan and water system on timers? I've always thought aquaponics are amazing, I'd love to get into that in the future, just work on the greenhouse for now and then integrate a fish and circulation system...
So my question - If I had a pole barn "skeleton" are there a la carte greenhouse siding options out there or could I luck into a "kit" that would have a lot of the materials I'd need in one shot?
Anyone have experience with specific greenhouse building materials (the clear plexiglass like siding stuff)?
The house has 7 acres and is a wooded setting. There is no shed so you can easily see where this is going. We are out of room! Figuring a leaf blower, 4 bikes (2 mountain, 2 road), chainsaws, tools, etc, etc. This isn't counting my ATV, 2 snowmobiles (that are kept in a family members barn) and potentially some room to grow for things like a small camper or a boat. No way.
So as I see it I have 3 options:
1. Sell the place, trying to avoid that.
2. Add on to the garage.
As I said it is pole barn style with just painted cedar siding nailed to purlins. maybe add a few bays? The overhead door opening are super narrow and if I wanted to get my truck in there ( and keep from my wife's umm scrapings of the sides - I'd like 1 large overhead instead of 2 narrow ones). So I'm looking at re-engineering the header and buying a bigger (more expensive) overhead door.And adding on to the sides
3. Here's the green room part:
Turn the existing pole garage into a greenhouse. And build a separate proper barn/garage to my specs. I could just take off the siding on the current garage and purlins and maybe add a clear purlin type and sheets of clear plastic material? My wife is a vegetarian so we could certainly grow and eat a lot of veggies. I would want the roof to handle snow load, etc, maybe add some lighting, a circulation fan and water system on timers? I've always thought aquaponics are amazing, I'd love to get into that in the future, just work on the greenhouse for now and then integrate a fish and circulation system...
So my question - If I had a pole barn "skeleton" are there a la carte greenhouse siding options out there or could I luck into a "kit" that would have a lot of the materials I'd need in one shot?
Anyone have experience with specific greenhouse building materials (the clear plexiglass like siding stuff)?
![[Hearth.com] Exloring options for a too small detached garage](/talk/data/attachments/146/146774-71c5f46cc8678f0ca69c1d7de1749722.jpg?hash=ANo0f71QgX)
