The garage.
Is there a more underrated room in the house? Well, technically it’s not even a room “in the house”–appraisers don’t count it the overall living space. Frequently, when I’m showing homes to buyers, I’ll ask them if they would like to see the garage and they’ll respond, “Oh, yeah the garage,” like it’s an afterthought. Etymologically, “garage” comes from the French and means “to keep under cover, protection, shelter.” And while garages were designed to house cars, the Southern California lifestyle has created a number of other uses for the garage. So let’s shine a light on three kinds of garage owners: Parkers, Stuffers, and Dwellers.
The first type of garage owner is the one who is resolved on using the garage for its intended purpose–parking cars. Frequently from points beyond Southern California, the Parkers insist on housing their cars no matter the dimensional challenges. As an overall trend, cars have gotten bigger in the past half century. For example, today’s VW Golf is over 25% wider than the original 1970s model. This can present a problem for homeowners with an older house. A Parker could live in a charming mid-century ranch with a garage enough for cars of that era and somehow expect his family’s Chevy Tahoe and Honda Odyssey to stow away neatly. It doesn’t matter that his wife would need to preform Elastigirl type body contortions to squeeze into her car; we’ve got to keep the cars out of San Diego’s mid 70s average temperature and fifteen inches of annual precipitation. I acknowledge that there are legitimate security and paint fading concerns, but if you can’t have breakfast because you need to shimmy in between to cars in the morning, you might need a bigger garage.
Stuffers are garage owners that need to use their car storage as a default storage bin, housing everything from Christmas decorations to outdated counter appliances to piles of report cards/finger paintings they’ll give to their adult children once grown up. In a classic bit, George Carlin referred to a house as “…a pile of stuff with a roof on it.” That’s a perfect description for a Suffer’s garage–it’s a container for things not good enough to make it into the house, but just good enough that they can’t be thrown away. The garage serves as boundaries for these items in possession limbo.
I had a neighbor once who was the classic Southern California Stuffer. On any typical Saturday, he would bring his coffee outside, stretch in the sun, preparing to commune with his garage possessions for the day. He would tilt open his garage door and survey the jam-packed contents of boxes and paraphernalia. (Stuffers typically have tilt up garage doors with broken garage door openers. It makes opening the door more dramatic–kind of like revealing Al Capone’s vaults.) Then, throughout the course of the day, he would take some things out, place them in the driveway, take some into the house, put some on to the curb, and finally carefully rearrange everything back into the optimal placement. No one else could possibly have the knowledge to put things where they belong, it is a complicated procedure, equal parts architectural design and Tetris skill. In his mind, the Stuffer has a complete inventory of everyone in his pace. No one bu the is qualified to enter the garage ecosystem to retrieve a needed item. If his wife should ask for the Christmas lights for folding chairs, the Stuffer jumps up and sharply blurts out, “I go it” before she can finish.
Lastly, we come to the Dwellers, those who prefer to live in their garage. Instead of cramming their garage full of possessions, they’ve creased a space that is open, workable, and inhabitable. A Dweller could have a beautiful 5-bedroom home, bu to him, he’d rather hang out in the 10×20 tandem garage space with no HVAC system. Inside the home, his wife may get to make all the decor decisions, but out here is Man Cave Central. TV? A must. Neon beer sign? Why not. Refrigerator or kegerator to supply the appropriate libation? It would be silly not to.
In the garage, the Dweller has found his natural habitat; he’s in tune with his surroundings. With a baseball game on in the background and Steely Dan playing on vinyl, our Dweller is perfectly at home working on some unnecessary project, preferably with a magnifying glass. Frequently the Dweller has has exquisitely organized sets of tools and hardware, displaced peg boards and containers arranged in neat rows and columns. Surprising, we actually don’t see the Dweller actually using his for any home improvement projects–the priority is maintaining them in an orderly fashion.
There are certainly other garage uses that we should explore when time permits–the laundry, the makeshift gym, the converted bedroom. The next time you’re in your garage. consider the space that some architect laid out to benefit your home. Are you making the best use of this place? Are you a model train enthusiast who needs a canvas to recreated the Great Northern line in HO scale. Do you need a spin studio as an aspiring Peloton instructor? Or do you just need somewhere to plug in your Nissan Leaf? however you use your garage, remember it’s more than just a place to par, it’s home.
