Hi all, Not sure if this is the right forum to put this in but I wanted to start this thread to document but more importantly get some ideas from the collective genius here on this community. We are in the process of building a new home. We are waiting on permits and expect to break ground in the next few months. Ive been told 6 months for lot prep and another 14 months of construction time. Call it 2 years. The impetus for building the new home was to "downsize" - both kids are in college and its just my wife and I and more importantly to spread the square footage of the home to things that we actually user. Which brings me to the real reason we are building this house- Garage Space. I will have for my own use a 30X50 garage and my wife will have a separate 2 car garage. Now we are calling my garage a "rec room" because my office will sit in the loft above the garage and I didnt want there to be glass separating the two spaces. I want to sit at my desk and look over the railing and be able to get to my cars. At this point, we are at a critical junction in the build because we are about to submit for permits and bid and I need help on the electrical. My architect has done a good job of doing the initial layout of the lighting but to my eyes it seems like there wont be enough light. I want the room to GLOW! I want plenty of lighting so that I can put the light right on the cars. The design esthetic of my space wont resemble a garage. There wont be gas pumps and neon Exxon signs- I plan on having the space modern, clean and fresh. Final design esthetic to be determined and Im sure I will be coming here again but would those of you who are electrically inclined please comment on the electrical layout? Do I have enough light? Is there anything you would do different? Downstairs is 30X50. Upstairs loft has a golf simulator, a space for a racing simulator, sitting area and a desk. Final layout of furniture and desk TBD. Here is the overall layout of the main floor and upper office area. (there is a lower level with bedooms and guest area but that is not important for this discussion. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Here is a close up of the lower area and the upper area. I just want to make sure that I have proper mood lighting for general use, spot lights for the cars downstairs and upstairs golf hitting area and racing sim. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Am I missing anything? I dont want to have change orders later - want to dial this in perfectly! Thanks all for your help.
Shouldn't take 2 years. From the day that we poured slab to the day we moved in was 10 months, with 6400SF under roof. Still doing little work here and there but should be 12 months max if you have a good contractor. We did our build myself along with a 40k gallon pool. Let me know if there's anything I can help with but as far as lights go you can add lights, or atleast we did without issue with any of the inspections. I added 2 dimmable can lights to all 7 bedrooms and inspectors said it didn't matter. We built in maricopa county so we had no city inspections. Hope this helps some what
Hey thanks for the input. I’m not so worried about whether we can add more lights or not. We haven’t even given it to the city yet so getting the permit should not be an issue. I’m just wondering if what I have is enough.
If your "architect has done a good job" then let it be. Adding more light later in new construction is a piece of cake, and cheap.
I understand that, and it looks like it should be enough but once installed I turned lights on before drywall when I had temp power and it wasn't enough, so I added more lights to each room in my house, living room and game room. I guess what Im saying is you can add some later if need be, cause per my plans I thought I had enough in my house but it wasn't.
“Up lighting” were possible takes most spaces to another level. From baseboards, bottom of columns, etc.
I completed a new build six months ago and installed USAI tunable recessed lights. They allow control of light temp between 2200k to 6000k. Also allow for any color output. They may be worth checking out for your project. https://www.usailighting.com/infinite-color Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Be careful with backing up too close to a white (or light colored) background.... cold starts can be messy. I speak from personal experience. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ouch! lol. No cabinets in the garage. I have a storage room where I will keep all the carp but Im not having any cabinets or clutter. This will be just to showcase cars.
FYI- shared this pic with the architect and we are going to incorporate these led fixtures into the space . Not quite the zig zag but straight lines.
the only thing that I did was to add extra lighting (very bright) in addition to on a different switch and circuit. this way during normal lighting i was happy and when I needed to clean or move cars I could have the extra light.
Update: still waiting on premita but I added cove lighting and the stripe lighting seen in the pic above. We hope to break ground in next 60 days.
So the garage is really similar to where we are heading and obviously Manny has an amazing car collection but I dont understand the tunnel. It just goes from one part of the garage to the other. Im not getting it. Looks cool but its a tunnel to have a tunnel??
It goes to his office building, that garage is not his house garage but his garage in an office building he owns. I like the 4k projector thing on white walls he talked about, I have some vintage race cars I want to do that where I show old black and white clips of them racing.