The Socal To AZ Garage Build - Input Appreciated

The issue with that is I have a 49 inch curved monitor that I use. So my view will be blocked. And I can’t be in a room with my back to the entrance. It’s a throwback from my 007 spy training.

 

So you have two entrances. The staircase and the sliding glass door at the top of the room. By sitting at the desk as I’ve rendered it, I’ve got the same as you- my back to the corner of the room so I can see everything and then I turn the chair around and my cars are below.

I’m sure I’ll go through 30 more variations of this before it’s done. Lol. The professionals have it now.

 

So we are just down the street and around the corner from the Sanctuary. Thank you for the kind words. For a vacation place- look at Ascent at the Phonecian.

 

I already had a landscape architect mock some thing up. It was required by the city. We aren’t doing fancy landscaping. I want a no maintenance yard. In fact I think we are going to not do a pool. I know I know! Blasphemy! How can you not do a pool in AZ/. We never used ours in the last 3 homes we owned. Was just a big money pit. We have a spot of the next homeowner ever wants one they can drop in a pool but we aren’t doing it.

 

Long time no talk. We have retaining walls and a pad on the lower level. Steel to start on the lower floor sometime in August. Hoping all framing is complete by the end of the year.


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Ok I have a decision to make. We were looking at the elevator options that we are going to put in the house- I have an elderly father that cant climb stairs so when he visits, I want him able to go anywhere in the house. Other than that, probably don't need the elevator much. However upon looking at the options that are available, we discussed the option of instead of stairs in my office, to change it out to a glass elevator. There would still be a standard elevator in the other part of the house- this would only be for my office area.

I currently have stairs as you can see in the rendering to go up and down. We were thinking of removing the stairs and replacing with the glass elevator- not so much for functionality or practicality- but because it looks bad ass. This is not the only way to get to the space upstairs. We have our main staircase just down the hallway that takes you to the kitchen and master bedroom. Likely this is the staircase I would be using most of the time.

This garage staircase is only for the garage. The cost surprisingly to remove the staircase and put in the glass elevator would only be about 10k more. By the time you remove the steel, framing, flooring etc- there is quite a bit of savings. Cons of doing this is that its more practical to use the stairs- multiple people can be in the stairs at the same time.

Pros are that it looks bad ass! Very James Bond. lol. When my builder brought this up, I said this isn't very practical but it sure does look cool. My wife looked at me and said there is no thing practical about this house. Why not do one more unpractical thing. The other advantage is that it removes the staircase and gives me more room in the garage- likely can fit another car in there. It also makes the upper level a bit more symmetrical instead of having that platform jut out.

What say the brain trust- is the glass elevator bad ass or will it get old? Just know that I really am not sure how much I would that staircase frankly. The back main staircase will be the one that gets use the majority of the time. Thoughts? Comments?

Here is what the glass elevator would look like in theory- couple of internet pics:
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Here is the rendering of the space- the staircase on the right would be gone- we would tuck in the glass elevator somewhere convenient.

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I think its fairly maintenance free but as with anything, there is probably some upkeep required. I like the fact that we have more space and obviously the coolness factor of it all.

 

I have a meeting tomorrow to review budget and discuss this further. My brain says dont do this. Stairs are just better. My dick says hell yes! Go for it!

 

Here is what is holding me back. Let’s say I have a party or a bunch of car buddies over. We are upstairs in the loft and we decide to go down to see one of the cars- one at a time in the glass elevator while everyone else goes around to the main staircase. Or just walk down the steps to the cars with the office staircase.

This becomes even worse in a party with lots of people.

 

The one we are looking at is single person. They make a 3 person but th cost goes up exponentially. Only reason we are thinking of doing this is that it’s basically a wash of doing this or stairs. Otherwise if I go bigger with the elevator in the garage, it negates space savings and cost goes up like 75k more. Not worth it to go bigger.

 

Hence the dilemma….