subject: Carriage House Plans Builders Will Be Able To Use [print this page] In history, a carriage house was the outbuilding where the lord of the manor kept his carriage out of the weather when it was not being used. Today, the phrase has come to have the connotation of a garage with the apartment above. The carriage house is detached from the main home or may be the only building on a property, especially if it serves as a vacation home. Carriage house plans can help with the design.
If you are planning to build your own home on a large piece of property, you might consider a carriage house as the first phase of your overall building plan. Once completed, you and your family could live in the apartment while the main house is completed. For many builder owners, this arrangement allows the money that might otherwise be paid for rent to be invested in their property.
Building up instead of out is a great way to conserve green areas of your property. In addition, the two story plan allows you to save money with only one roof over both the apartment and the garage. Mechanical equipment needed for the apartment can be located in the garage to conserve room in the living area.
When building on a vacation lot, the design requires fewer square feet and can be used to meet set back requirements of smaller lots. The lower level provides storage so that equipment only used on the property can be safely stored rather than carried back home at the end of each stay. There may be room for a boat, jet skis or skiing equipment.
The living area may be very simple or elaborate. You might choose to build a studio apartment above a single or double car garage. Some carriage houses are built above a three or four car garage and have a two or three bedroom apartment upstairs.
Most of the plans for the apartments have their own kitchens and bathrooms. If plumbing is along the outside walls, pipes can run through the exterior walls of the garage giving more usable space for the garage itself.
If you happen to be building on a hillside, the parking portion may be built as a daylight basement giving ground level access to the back of the apartment. This is an ideal setup for a mother-in-law setup as there is access to the apartment that does not require the use of stairs.
When you are thinking about new construction or simply adding more space to the current house, carriage house plans will give you some choices that may be new to you. You can have your garage downstairs with a very efficient apartment upstairs.
