Garage detachment, Part 4

The next decision was where to place the detached garage in the back yard. I thought there was only one obvious choice--the far left-hand corner--that would involve the least loss of yard space. When I voiced that opinion to Wagner, though, he got that disconcerted look he gets on his face whenever I suggest something that ends up not being practical, and he started mumbling about easement restrictions, fire breaks, and concerns about the turning radius and getting the cars in and out of the garage. The latter concern was no doubt exacerbated by my confessing to him that reverse was not my best gear. (Years ago I memorably put a gouge all the way down the side of my father's mid-life crisis Datsun 240Z while attempting to back out of a garage. Oops.) Wagner then said "we don't have to decide right now" and that he would "work up a few sample layouts."

When he brought back drawings of the various options, I still liked the far left-hand corner placement the best, turning radius be damned. But Jonathan opted for another option which would plop the garage (with doors facing sideways) essentially right next to the gazebo we have located outside our back door. There is a covered walkway leading from the house to the gazebo, and Wagner proposed putting a covered walkway from the gazebo to the new garage. While we would not be sheltered from the cold with such a design, at least we would not get wet or have to trudge through snow/mud.

So I was overruled, but the more I think about it, the more I agree this is the best layout. Yeah, we'll lose more of our yard, but the kids spent virtually all their play time in the front yard rather than the back yard anyway. And, yeah, when we look out our (new) bedroom windows, the side of the garage won't be that far away. But we'll landscape the patch of land in between and put in climbing vines or tall grasses to make it look better. And we'll have a shorter distance to carry groceries in, and we won't get wet. Last but not least, this layout would probably prove more palatable to our next-door neighbor, Jane, whom we feared was not overjoyed about this project to begin with-- more on which later.