I don't understand this:

[Deleted]

We get a lot of snow here. It's New England after all. My neighborhood is full of homes with attached two car garages.  It doesn't seem like anyone uses them for their cars. Why?  Why would one choose to shovel a foot of snow off their cars instead of parking in a garage?  I love my garage. I love not having to sweep/scrape/shovel my car out of all this mess?  What is wrong with people?  Lol. 

[papie]

Our garage is only one car and narrow. Honestly, emptying all the bikes/strollers/lawn care stuff to get the car in there is not worth it, even when we had just one car. We did it the first year but not anymore.

[speckledfrog]

Have you seen the size of the closets in New England? All their crap is in their garages!

[papie]

Dec 15, 2013 10:04:53 GMT -5 speckledfrog said:

Have you seen the size of the closets in New England? All their crap is in their garages!

Lol
And this too

[Booze Raccoon]

A lot of NE homes are older and have small rooms with not much storage. People now need to store all of their shit.

Our neighbors use their garage as the husbands home office.

[Deleted]

I don't get it either. I refuse to put shit in our garage. Garages are for cars. And we have like no storage in our house either, so it's not like I'm putting the garage stuff in my giant walk ins or my 4th bedroom.

Unfortunately we have three cars and a 2 car garage so we still have one in the driveway. It makes me stabby.

[papie]

@stellasmom, so where do you put everything? We have 4 bikes, two strollers, a lawn mower, gardening tools, wagon, sleds, skis, etc. basement? Shed?

[Deleted]

The bikes sit on our front stoop. It's super classy.

The rest of the riding toys are in the back yard and we wheel them out when we need them in the front.

All of the lawn care stuff is hung up on the garage walls or in a shelving unit that we squeezed in in front of dh's smaller car in the garage. We have a few pieces of furniture in the attic.

I try not to keep stuff we don't use on a daily basis. I'll even donate stuff if I know we won't need it again for a few years just so we don't have to store it.

Obviously I'm weird in the other direction. It probably makes more sense to just use the garage as a storage unit.

[demelza]

It is SO nice if you can use the garage for its intended purpose when you live in a cold climate. The ice scraping is so much worse than pushing off snow, in my opinion. A lot of people have too much stuff and not enough storage. We have a one and a half stall garage but we fit both midsize cars in there, it is so tight but I'll take that over scraping my car off.

[DotAndBuzz]

We had zero storage in our NC house, and a one car garage. We still had all the outdoor kid stuff too (2 strollers, bikes, push toys, yard toys, gardening stuff, etc). You have to go vertical and use every inch of wall space if you want to use the garage. It is a p.i.t.a to organize/set up, and costs a fair amount to get the shelving to be able to go floor to ceiling w/ storage, so I can see why people would rather just leave it be and park outside. Especially if you get a remote starter for your car, so you can turn it on 15 minutes before, and walla, car is ready to go when you are.

[snickers]

No one around here uses their garage for their cars. My dad has a 4 car garage, and keeps antique cars/trucks in there and a bunch of other junk, and he has never parked in there.

[cleo29]

I feel the same way, but then I previously had a townhouse with no garage and couldn't wait to have one. We do park in ours. My sister does not park in hers and they don't have that much stuff in it.

[karmasabiotch]

Ours is filled with outside toys, snow blower, lawn mower, and my Moms dining room table that I wanted to keep. We do put 1 car in it usually.

[eddy]

We have an old home but a detached 2.5 stall garage. I love it more than I should. It is so nice to have room for the snow blower, bikes etc and cars.

[balletofangels]

I never knew that the house I grew up in actually had a 2 car garage. It was just my dad's workroom and actually the house is old and modern cars wouldn't fit. They now made it into a craft room for my mom and bought a prefab 2 car garage, but then bought a third car. lol

[RoxMonster]

Our neighborhood is like this also. I would say at least 50% of the people on our street do not park their cars in their garages. When I drive by, I usually see just a bunch of STUFF taking up space in their garage, most likely using it as a storage unit.

All I know is that a two-car garage was one of our top priorities when house hunting because I was tired of having to scrape my car in the cold mornings. Being able to park inside is priceless.

ETA: I will say that we bought a shed for our backyard when we moved in. Our mower, snow blower (in the summer), gardening tools, etc. get stored in the shed and not in the garage.

[moolarkey]

We have a 3 car garage. I don't care what H puts in 2 of the 3, but one slot is mine and if he puts anything in the way of my car then his life is in jeopardy In our other 2 stalls we have a 65 mustang that he hasn't done any restoration on in about 15 years, we had it towed to this house when we move here 10 years ago. The other stall has a couple motor cycles, 2 lawnmowers (I don't know why we have 2, don't care and don't ask), a HUGE snowblower, dorm fridge, freezer, table saw, other tools and a lot of crap. I've told H if he dies before me I will have it cleaned out in a week. He knows I mean it. He's hoping I die first so he can fill my side with crap, he keeps trying to encroach and I just stack whatever it is on top of his mustang.

[aprilsails]

Our house has an attached single car garage. I think you could fit a compact car in there. We only own 1 vehicle and it is an SUV and there is no way you could open the doors when you got the car in (barely).

And I'm procrastinating digging that thing out of a foot of snow right this minute.

Also - our garage is full of 6 months worth of empties right now. Oy.

[hisno1girl]

When I moved into this house with DH, the garage was already being used for his work area, so I've never parked in the garage.

I have a remote starter on my car which means I never have to scrape ice off the windows. I might have to push show off, but I have a long handled broom for that and with two or three swipes it's all gone.

[cinnamoncox]

I'm ten min from Boston proper.
My moms garage is at the end of her long driveway. She'd have to shovel way way more snow if she parked in her garage vs the very tip of her driveway where al she has to do is clear the car. Her driveway is like four car lengths long. She'd have more work if in garage.
We don't have a garage but if we did it would be the same.
Our driveway is about four cars long, maybe five, and at least two cars wide.
So in some cases it's that the garage is full, but also the garage can be so far deep in the driveway it's really more work to park there, if that makes sense.

Clearly if someone's garage is right at the sidewalk it'd be bizarre to me to not park in it, but otherwise I can see why not.

Also it's not uncommon to just say bag it and take public transport until the snow melts off lol.

[sonrisa]

Our neighborhood has small houses and lots of families. (At 1200 sqft, our house is on the larger size and our three person family is one of the smaller families). We are some of the only people who actually park a car in the garage. We park one car in it and the other on the street. Technically, it's a two car garage but it is pretty narrow so it would be a tight fit for two cars. Most of our neighbors have converted it to a play room / storage / office space. We don't get snow here. However, it is about space and logistics more than weather. The town planning commission is ridiculous so getting permits to actually convert the garage to a room and build a new garage would take a year and might fail. It is easier to just leave it a garage in structure and work around.

[cinnamoncox]

Dec 15, 2013 10:13:22 GMT -5 @stellasmom said:

The bikes sit on our front stoop. It's super classy.

The rest of the riding toys are in the back yard and we wheel them out when we need them in the front.

All of the lawn care stuff is hung up on the garage walls or in a shelving unit that we squeezed in in front of dh's smaller car in the garage. We have a few pieces of furniture in the attic.

I try not to keep stuff we don't use on a daily basis. I'll even donate stuff if I know we won't need it again for a few years just so we don't have to store it.

Obviously I'm weird in the other direction. It probably makes more sense to just use the garage as a storage unit.

Are you in Boston or elsewhere in New England?

I'm in Boston and I have plenty of closet space, huge attic, and large basement.
I do not lack storage whatsoever.
Also this is a two family we own so our tenants also use some basement for storage and there is still plenty of space.
They don't have attic use because it's only accessible through our unit.

So I'd never use the garage (if I had one lol) or storing things either.
Our mower and stroller (double) and yard stuff all go in a sort of attached shed, it's part of the house, but basically an outside room if that makes sense.

[orangeglow]

I have 6 bicycles, 1 motorcycle, a bicycle work stand, a garbage can and a recycling bin.

DH is an ametuer cyclist and 5 of those bicycles are his.  We can't keep them IN the house OR outside.  We live in a townhouse.  We also aren't supposed to keep our garbage can or recycling bin outside. 

So....

[isabel]

Dec 15, 2013 10:34:01 GMT -5 balletofangels said:

I never knew that the house I grew up in actually had a 2 car garage. It was just my dad's workroom and actually the house is old and modern cars wouldn't fit. They now made it into a craft room for my mom and bought a prefab 2 car garage, but then bought a third car. lol

Can you tell me more about the pre fab garage they bought? Do they like it? Does it seem sturdy? Do you know who they purchased it through?

DH and I want to go look at this awesome Victorian house in our area, but it doesn't have a garage, which is a deal breaker. I didn't realize these pre fab options existed until I saw your post and they don't seem terribly expensive. I would love to know more about it since it would make this house a serious option.

[Deleted]

My ex lived in Idaho growing up and his parents always complained about having to park the car in the driveway because they had so much shot in the garage they couldn't get cars in there. They went away on vacation and my ex rented a dumpster and cleaned out the garage. He was grounded for a while after that.

My exFIL has a 2 car and in all the years I've known him has never used it for cars. And now that his two storage rooms, turned into a bedroom for DS and a bedroom for exH, are bedrooms again he has more junk in there than ever.

[penguingrrl]

I don't have a garage but even if I did I would likely leave the car at the end of the driveway in a storm. Otherwise you have to clear the entire driveway to get the car out instead of just the car and very end of the driveway.

[bonquiqui]

The only things I will have in my garage, aside from my car are my bicycle, and my Christmas tree on a shelf

[ECB]

THis is actually why I like having a carport instead. We have 2 storage sheds for the "crap" and since I can park my car in the carport- no scraping, no snow!

[Jalapeñomel]

Why don't you guys have sheds?

[toepick]

I don't put my car in my garage for big storms because I have a long narrow driveway. I park it at the end of the driveway, figuring it's easier to clean off my car than to shovel my whole driveway.