carriage houses

One problem with big garages is that zoning boards, community review committees and neighbors hate them. Many multi-car garages look like commercial auto repair shops. That’s not what most of us want to see on our block. The trick is to find a garage design that’s pretty and elegant enough to add to the value of your property and the appearance of your street.

Oak Lawn Coach House

The Oak Lawn Four-Car Coach House Style Garage has three 23′ deep parking bays and another, at 20′ deep, that tucks under a staircase that goes up to a 24′x24′ storage loft. You can build this design at optional widths - 48′, 50′ or 52′ wide. All in all, it’s a huge garage, but the graceful good looks make it fit in nicely to any neighborhood of traditional homes.

The plan set that you can download gives you a bunch of options. You can build your garage with the four big parking bays. Or, you can build a side storage or workshop space instead of one parking bay. There’s a full staircase to the storage loft, or you can install inexpensive, space-saving pull-down stairs. There’s an optional loft door and lift-post to help you store bulky items upstairs. You can match your home’s siding and roof materials or use vertical board siding and optional barn-style details that are included. All of the options and add-ons let you customize your building now or any time in the future.

The construction details call for a sturdy 2×6 stud-frame. There’s a frost wall foundation or an optional monolithic slab. Check with your building department to see which is right for your property. Some building departments require that plans be printed on 11″x17″ or 18″x24″ paper. These plans will print on standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ computer printer paper. However, the pages are laid out so that you can easily tile and tape them together, to make one larger sheet from two or four originals. Your local copy shop can then print them on large format paper.

The drawings are intended for experienced builders and do not include step-by-step building instructions. But, complete material lists are available, so you can get prices from contractors or your lumber yard.

Click here to see a floor plan and to download your free plans and material lists >>>

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19th century farmstead plans - American Country Building Design

If you’re planning to build or renovate a traditional country building, you can find inspiration in one of the many reprints of 19th and early 20th century plan books. Country cottage, farmhouse, cabin, carriage house, barn and outbuilding plans are fairly easy to re-create because the original buildings were straight­forward. You’ll need to work with an architect or professional engineer because new plans will have to be prepared. The old layouts need to be updated a bit. You’ll probably want indoor plumbing. And, you’ll need accurate blueprints for permits, for construction esti­mates and to build from. The best architect to choose is someone with experience at restoration work, who has a sensitivity for historic proportions and who is familiar with replica­tion materials, details and fixtures.

I’ve put together a list of on-line sources for soft-cover reprints and downloadable ebooks. It includes a shameless plug for my own book of historic farmstead plans. Take a look >>>

If you know of other sources that I’ve missed, Please just click on the “comments” link above and let me know.

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Kits are a great way of building in the country. All of the lumber is shipped to your site, pre-cut and marked for easy assembly. Because there’s little wasted wood and because the buildings are designed to go together easily, you can usually have a top quality building at a reasonable price. Look at the Country Building Directory, on our sidebar, for cabin, shed and barn kit builders.

Carriage House Style Barn Kit by Country Carpenters

The building at left and below is the 22′ deep Carriage House by Country Carpenters. It’s a post-and-beam kit that’s as good looking inside as it is outside. The Salt-Box style roof is available in either the 10/12 pitch shown or a shallower 8/12 pitch. It’s also available with from one to five parking bays. The interior is clear-span. There are no interior posts to get in the way of you and your vehicles. The big cupola is one of many options offered.

The Carriage House is just one of dozens of beautiful post-and-beam designs available from Country Carpenters. They’ll build their barns, sheds, stables and carriage houses in central New England. Anywhere else in the continental U.S., they’ll ship a pre-cut kit, with step-by-step instructions on how you or your builder can put them together. You can download their complete catalog from their web site.

Country Carpenters' Carriage House Interior

Better yet, if you’re ever near Hartford, Connecticut, stop by their workshop in the village of Hebron. They have a variety of models on display in a pretty country setting, so you’ll get a good idea of how one might look on your property.

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