Be aware, if you're in Minneapolis it's just about impossible to get a
permit for a two-story garage. I ended up putting a basement on our
(new) garage instead. St. Paul is slightly more lenient.

How about putting the stairs on the outside of the garage? You'd be less
constrained -- hoist up big materials with a block and tackle, and
push the finished pieces over the railing. (Just kidding about that last
part :-)

Also, you need to consider the structural integrity of the floor if
you're going to be putting a lot of heavy machinery up there, plus you
need to take vibration into account. The floor could act like a giant
sounding board if you're not careful.

One idea that I toyed around with is to put a trap door in the second
floor, opening into the garage portion, and using a block and tackle,
possibly with rigged so that it raised and lowered the entire section of
flooring.

Anyway, as I mentioned, we eventually gave up on the second-floor
workshop idea and put in a basement instead.

Darin

Folklore wrote:
For 10 years I fairly succesfully shared a 2 car garage with 1 car
(SWMBO's) and for a couple of years even parked mine in there. The
past 3 years SWMBO has not been able to park in there as much as she'd
like during the winter (this is Minnesnowta btw.) I think the phrase
is "I'm sure my subaru can handle any tool or piece of wood in it's
way."

After considering numerous options the only place I can find to go
with my shop is up - as in a 2nd floor above the garage. We don't
have enough room on our city lot to go out and all of the options I've
looked at for renting space aren't really workable.

I'd really appreciate thoughts on this. I think the biggest negative
is getting material up and projects out. I will have a stairway down
into the garage, but that still won't be ideal. One thought is to do
something like a hay mow with barn doors on the driveway end over the
garage door and bring stuff in this way. Maybe with a chain motor
sliding along an I-beam. Problem is it can't stick out all the time
and I don't want it jutting into the shop all the time since it'd take
up overhead room.

Any thoughts on this project, positive or negative, would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Folk...