The Garage Office

Planet Terror over Sin City? Really?

Actually in any economic@Gener4l_Ts0:
I disagree. We have snow/winter at least six months of the year and most builders have converted the attached garages into sales offices within their show homes.

Years later, these are still highly marketable. Along with the potential for hobby use or as a studio, the soundproofing is a brilliant idea that I will include whenever I finish my garage ;-)

Calgary

alright, I am curious about that 10TB of servers.

Is it running a full PC? NAS? External or Internal HDs?

hmmm...

@guineapirate: Maybe he doesn't have a reasonable need for cars? I don't, presently. Mind you I also don't have a garage, a yard, or a barbecue, so...

@envador: Used to have motion-sickness as a child, not so much nowadays. Still can't read in motion (except on a train) without getting a headache. I do indeed suffer from seasickness, and I definitely can't look at that picture without getting a headache.

@urbanturban666: you are takin' the piss ....right?

madjack1987

Spinning room... feeling dizzy...

Micho

@Runnin-Ute: There is no way that anyone laid floorboards the way they are. The curves, at least some of them, are due to the lens. It looks like the desks are actually curved at the corners, but there are some curves that don't exist.

For reference, his page gives this info for the pictures:

8 image pano shot with Nodal Ninja 3, Sigma 12-24 and Canon 5D Mark II. Stitched in Realviz.

@Falaris: EXACTLY...I hate that argument.

If I'm going to do something to my house, its generally going to be because its something that I want, I'll enjoy, and will enhance my life. If it increases the value of my home, thats just an added bonus.

@D0rk: +1 Definitely, my eyes are screaming at me trying to figure out what that looks like in real life.

peanut_butter

Grindhouse. Sweet.

@Gener4l_Ts0: Who says you have to sale your house?

jupiterthunder

I dig this - makes me wish I had a garage to do something like this with! :D

@Falaris: In that same vein I'm amazed at how many people will put up with stuff: hinges that squeak, windows that don't close right, an ugly and poorly laid out kitchen, and so on... only to spend a ton of money and time to fix all the things they hate about their house right before they sell it in the hopes they'll get more money from the sale.

I'm personally getting kind of tired of the whole "combine work with home with fun with everything" thing. I need a place to get away where the computer is not sitting there beckoning me back.

lhed

@slater:
Amen.

lhed

Just be sure, sure, sure, you get all the permits your city requires before you convert your garage into anything else. If the city finds out you've got something they didn't approve, they may well come after you and make you change it back. Several stories on our local news recently about people who got inspected and told that even though the garage conversion was done by a previous owner, they have to change it back.

@Gener4l_Ts0: These are the kinds of comments you always hear from HGTV (I've been watching constantly lately for ideas with my own house), and quite honestly, when did houses only become boring-looking, neutral-colored "investments" rather than where you live? Home is where the heart is, and you don't have to sell just because you you are either losing money or its at a premium if you enjoy living there.

Question for those of you that are getting a headache from the picture: Do you get motion sickness (car or seasick) easily? Because I get seasick easily and that picture is also giving me a headache.

@D0rk: In a lot of places it's part of building code to have your garage floor sloped.

@jimejim: build a shed...

urbanturban666

@madjack1987: his camera made it look wonked out...unless he took the time and effort to make the room look like that...

urbanturban666

@utkhexon: i wish they had non fisheye shots of the room...that would look cool...

urbanturban666

@TheFu:
You live in a crappy neighborhood then. My neighborhood allows parking in the street for homeowners.

I really want to like this. But the picture is giving me a headache.

I would love to do something similar, but I need my garage as a garage.

@D0rk: Mine isn't sloped (or noticeable). Of course, mine isn't a great garage either. LOL

Erin Schwendemann

@MichaelBrazell: And you don't think this would add any value? I'd pay more for that than a garage any day.

Reversing the stitching makes it easier to visualize the garage, I think: http://images.ekrub.net/garage.jpg

GalinaCader

My driveway can fit 4 cars easily, so this has been something I've been considering myself. I just need to figure out where to store all the crap that's currently in my garage. :)

jimejim

@tbone92:

Most CAT5 will do just fine unless you're dealing with longer distances. It's really not going to make a huge difference in a small network.

I also just went a the CAT5 route a few years ago when I networked most of my home, since it was a bit cheaper and I found some good deals. However, my home is raised elevation, so it's fairly easy for me to replace if I ever run into problems. Most of my bottlenecks come more from stupid networking drivers or things like Vista being dumb though than from the actual cables.

jimejim

That's a nice "F*ck You" that he left on the windowsill...

Aaron Black

i'd replace the chairs that are in front of the screen with a small couch. it's more comfy for spending time with other, *special* people.

its better for sex.

+1 It would be nice to see (let's say 4) separate pictures ;)

WoodrowGabronie

Not bad. Not sure it's a good choice to eliminate the garage. And where does he park now? But having a great home office is important if you, um, work from home. I have been attempting to get my own home office in order and it's coming along slowly but surely. I'd love to build a pre-built shed office. Relatively inexpensive and separate from the house so you have to "go to work."

Very nice. I did that once myself a few years back (even wired it for sound with whole-house audio, speakers in the ceiling, wall controls, etc.) but found that even with the added A/C, it was unbearably hot. (and my electric went sky high) Plus I was in one of those places that require cars to be in the garage, so it didn't last long. (suppose I could have sold the cars)

DiscoZombie

Wow that picture gives me a headache.

meow-mixer

@SterlingCrispinus: I've never lived in a house with any noticeable slope in the floor of a garage.

D0rk

That's a nice car-hole.

Only CAT5? Does he realize CAT6 costs about the same and it's actually rated for gigabit?

@MichaelBrazell: It can easily be converted back into a garage.

@guineapirate: Exactly.

In my neighborhood, you **must** keep your automobiles inside the garage. Parking in the driveway is for limited, visitor use only.

TheFu

Cool if you're never planning to sell your house. A 1 car garage easily adds $10,000 in value to a medium-sized house, a 2-car garage even more.

MichaelBrazell

Aren't the floors in garages sloped toward the door? Was there some kind of compensation made for that in this re-hab? Or does he just let round things roll off in that direction?

SterlingCrispinus

So... um... where does he put his cars?

guineapirate

*officegasm*

kaubuchon

While this office is amazing, I'm scared to hear where the cars are. Please don't say outside in the elements.

I'd also love to see the desk setup in a non-warped picture.

@Gener4l_Ts0: If not an office, you can slap vinyl tiles over part and make it an indoor garage for car restoring.

While I'll admit this is nicely done, the Jalopnik in me cringes at the thought of the garage that could have been.

That panorama is incredibly hard to look at for more than a few seconds. Way too distorted.

Can you please at least upload some normal photos to Flickr? I didn't search through your entire photo stream but I didn't see any other immediate photos of this office.

D0rk

@Gener4l_Ts0 Does it matter? It's his home; it's beautifully done; and he likes it. Sounds to me like someone is cranky from personal experience and is projecting.

I admire the setup.

Chris Mueller

@Runnin-Ute: It's a panorama photo, however I'm sure that each curved section is a different wall, ie: stood in the middle of the "garage" and pivoted and took seperate pictures, then used a program to stitch them together to give one photo

Nice but is it worth it in the long run? We're in a recession and when you get ready to sell that house, you either need to hope for a "geek" buyer like you or invest again to reconvert it back into a garage.

On the flip side, you might see if you can legally(?) add that sq footage to the property when listing.

Are the curves in the photo due to curved cabinets/walls or is it just the way you put the photo(s) together? Did you use a macro or fisheye lens when photographing?

All in all a very nice set up. Since my garage is a converted carport with no direct entrance into the house I couldn't pull something like this off. (2 standard doors + the overhead door) Plus living in a climate where we have 4 real seasons (including snow) I would rather not deal with the headaches losing that space would cause.

Runnin-Ute

now THIS is nice! Very nicely finished! Much better than some of the other featured workspaces on LH.

atomicrabbit

The two monitors are the only real extravagance. LOL. Dude, you converted your garage to a home office/home theatre.

Nice though. I would do it. If I had a garage and money.

jupiterthunder

His Garage looks a bit wonky?

madjack1987

Neat. But it would be cooler if the desks lined up.

utkhexon