Why It’s Great to Have a Home with a Double Car Garage

Why It’s Great to Have a Home with a Double Car Garage

Greetings, and welcome to WRX Property Group’s website and blog! Today, we’ll be starting out with a simple math problem: which is greater, one or two? I’ll give you a moment to reflect and consider the answer.

I suspect you decided that two is greater than one. I’d like to talk to you about double car garages: what varieties they come in and why they’re worth having. Some people believe that a two car garage is merely for those people who own more than one car.

By the end of this article, though, hopefully we’ll have convinced you that while, yes, people with more than one car certainly stand to benefit from a two car garage, we firmly believe that just about anyone can benefit from a two car garage (the property value stands to benefit, too!).

So whether you need some space to store your penny farthing collection, or you’re in search of a private place to call your own, you may want to take a look at a two car garage (or if you’re buying a home in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, or Guelph, a property that already has one).

What Types of Two Car Garages Are There?

There are several types of garages, but to start with one of the more obvious ways to distinguish them: there are attached garages and detached garages.

Attached garages are fully attached to the house: they share a wall with the house, they feature an entrance to the house from inside the garage, and they usually have a continuous roofline with the house.

Detached garages, on the other hand, stand separately from the house; some may have covered walkways leading to the house, but no interior connection.

Detached garages do sometimes share a roofline with the house, though – these are sometimes referred to as ‘Attached-Detached Garages,’ which surprisingly is not an oxymoron in this case.

Beyond this key distinction, a two car garage can be as varied as any home: sloped roofs are often beneficial, but one interesting idea is converting the top of your garage into a rooftop deck – there are many possibilities.

In terms of size requirements, a two car garage would ideally fall somewhere between 20 feet wide by 20 feet deep (on the smaller end of the spectrum) to around 25 feet wide by 25 feet deep.

Having electricity in your garage is ideal, particularly with accessible receptacles and an electrical subpanel (at least 100 amps, ideally). Whether you’re buying a home with a two car garage, or adding one to your current property, it’s good to look around online for ideas, and use an expert where necessary!

Alright, with the specs out of the way, let’s move on to why two car garages are great.

Do You Have More Than One Car?

If you (or the people you share a home with) have more than one car, then the benefit of a two car garage should be pretty obvious, but let’s just consider the individual perks for the sake of being thorough.

First of all, we live in Canada. And to be more specific, we at WRX Property Group live in a part of Canada that does get its fair share of snow from time to time (winters here can get snowy, though they are certainly less daunting than many of the more northerly parts of Canada).

With a two car garage, you don’t need to worry about clearing snow off of your windshield in the morning; you don’t need to leave your windshield wipers up overnight lest they freeze over; and you don’t need to shovel around your vehicle.

Many two car garages also have interior access to the home; with these, you don’t even have to brave the cold outdoors before scurrying into your vehicle! Even two car garages that don’t have an interior door to the home are markedly warmer than the great outdoors.

But it’s not just during the winter that two car garages reign supreme: they’re also great in the rain! Basically, being able to park both of your vehicles inside protects you – and them – from the sometimes fickle moods of Mother Nature.

And if you and a fellow housemate each have a car, with a two car garage you won’t need to fight over who gets to park inside of it – both can fit! Two car garages: one of real estate’s leading preventative measures against automobile-related arguments.

The Wide and Wonderful World of Alternate Uses for Your Two Car Garage

Perhaps you don’t have two cars. Perhaps you do, but you don’t mind parking one or both of them outside. Well, would you be shocked if I told you that a two car garage was still a great investment?

If your answer is yes, then prepare to be shocked, because a two car garage is a great investment even if you’re not using it for the purpose its name suggests. You can think of your two car garage as an addition to your home, a blank slate upon which you can paint with all the colours of your dreams.

That might be overstating things a little, but seriously – there’s so much you can do with a two car garage! So much that I’m worried about overstuffing this paragraph; let’s start a new one, just to be safe.

Your two car garage doesn’t need to conform to any one fixed idea of what a garage can or should be. Yes, it’s a great place to park your car(s), but it can be so much more.

For one thing, it’s a great place to keep all the products related to vehicle maintenance and upkeep. Many people use it as a workshop, storing various tools and undertaking projects that might be a bit noisy or messy for inside the home.

A two car garage is great for storage in general, too! Holiday decorations? Lawn care products? Sporting equipment? You can find a place for all of your season-specific items in here – making use of vertical space is a great idea, and installing mounted shelves makes everything that much tidier.

But you don’t want a two car garage just to cram it full of stuff – another benefit is having a whole new room to make use of and enjoy. You can turn it into your own private gym.

You can set up a table, a couch and chairs, perhaps a mini-fridge, maybe even a pool table and turn it into a mancave (person-cave – any and all genders stand to benefit from a place to hang out in the two car garage!).

To reiterate, you’re really only limited by your imagination when it comes to how to use a two car garage… So what will you do with yours?

Written by Will Kummer

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