What do you use your garage for? Integrated or detached?

[ChocoTrio]

Just that. Looking for ideas! List so far is: home gym or storage unit!

Do you prefer the garage integrated or separate from the house? It seems like it’s more useful when it’s integrated or maybe I’m thinking the grass is greener on the other side?!

I have no idea how I would cope without our garage. Which is strange as we used to live in Victorian houses with no garage and a tiny shed.
Our garage contains
A bloody huge cross trainer.
Shelves on both sides with crates of neatly organised God knows what.
Enough golf equipment to stock a small branch of Nevada Bob's.
An American fridge freezer containing 2 pints of milk and loaf of bread and 2 bottles of wine.
Various numerous recycling containers as per our Council's directives.
Leaves that blow in every time the door opens

We have a detached garage and workshop. Currently used for neither working nor cars. Just full of boxes of wherethejeffarewegonnaputthis's and a fridge freezer because the kitchen only has space for a dinky undercounter fridge. Would prefer an integrated garage because its not too much fun having to trot through hail when you've forgotten to get the chicken out of the freezer for the 2nd time this week.

Ours contains... A 16ft canoe, a motorbike, a trailer with camping equipment, bikes, scooters, tools, lawnmower... And other general junk

Integrated or not, it doesn't really matter for our use.

Just moved and it came with a very large detached garage (previous owner had classic cars) and also a separate shed.

I've completely unpacked now and it's relatively bare apart from my tumble dryer, roof box, camping stuff, exercise bike and some garden furniture. All garden stuff is kept in the shed. I'd love a treadmill, but don't use the bike, should start with that first...

Ours is attached and 90% of it is leisure equipment eg bikes, kayaks etc. A small section is a tool box and a few tools.

Integrated double garage. Most is a home gym. One side booze and pop fridges and an overflow freezer. One side has all my filing cabinets for work. The third side, tools and a workbench for fixing stuff on. Final side is the garage door. All seems to fit in nicely and works well.

Tools, bikes, extra fridge / freezer plus we’ve set up a winter run for the bunnies so they have lots of space. It’s carpeted as previous owners had it as a home gym. In a few years I plan to put a pool table in there and make it a games room as I’ll have 3 teens. Ours is detached and at a right angle to the house so you have to go outside to enter it. Integrated would mean we’d have less downstairs floor space so I’ll happy it’s separate.

The car...

For its intended purpose - to keep a car in it.
It is a wide single garage so we also keep garden equipment in it - lawnmower and tools, bits of stuff that we might need " in case", the barbecue and my bike.

I can’t wait to move to our house with integrated garage. Our plans are to put a cat flap in the door & put the cat litter trays in there. Plus a small home gym. A fridge. Bikes. Tools. And general crap imagine.

It's detached but I'd rather it was integrated.
Used for storing bikes, lawn mower, garden stuff, camping stuff, shit in storage boxes I might wont need. No chance of the car fitting in there.

Ours is detached and is used mainly by DH apart from the spare freezer, he has several bikes, a turbo trainer, a fridge and freezer for his fishing bait and lots of other junk in there.

We could never get the car in ours as our caravan is stuck in front of it

Ours is detached and not big enough for a car. In it are bikes, lawnmower, decorating stuff like paints and all that, parasol, deckchairs, gardening equipment like loppers, shears etc, watering cans ...

Detached, though only 1m from the house! Prefer it that way - it would be a waste to have a garage built well enough to be part of the house given what we use it for.

It's got a built in work bench, lots of tools, several bikes, bike parts, BBQ, lawnmower etc. in it.

We would struggle without it - we cycle a lot, and being able to keep the bikes dry and secure significantly enhances our quality of life.

Ours is attached to the end of our house. It has DDs car in it as she is not needing it right now plus fridge, freezer, shelving with loads of garden and household stuff. The garage also has a huge floored attic which contains loads of stuff like christmas decorations, suitcases, paperwork, games and jigsaws, books etc. It is a fantastic garage.

Integral. Has the car, washing machine, tumble dryer, freezer, fridge freezer, garden tools, 3 bikes, scooter, tent, picnic chairs, Costco purchases, Roof box (suspended from ceiling) tools, spare paint, central heating boiler and miscellaneous other stuff.

We have full size garage doors front and back as we lost side access when we built it. This means we have full access to the back garden when/if necessary.

@Knittedfairies and @Ginfordinner

Lol! Yes, garages are intended for a car, but like other posters have demonstrated on this thread garages are sometimes often in my experience used for other purposes.

We won't need to use the garage for a car because there's enough space for cars in the car port/driveway which is far more convenient than the garage. However, a friend said he puts his cars in the garage because it lowers his car insurance premiums; he also doesn't have a car port or driveway though. We need to double check if the car port and driveway are considered just as good as the garage because it's still classed as off road parking, so is safer than on the road...

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2640503/Does-parking-car-garage-bring-price-insurance.html

But yes, part of the perks of a garage for some people is having precious extra square metres to play with. More space to use for home living that may improve quality of life or storage, as others have said. Storage units charge a fortune for a reason; people tend to be short on storage space for their stuff like camping gear etc!

I prefer the one at our old house, it was used for it's intended purpose.
The house we are in, it's seperate, has a utility area washer dryer, freezer and small fridge. The rest is Dh's workshop with all his tool chests, and shelves with boxes of specialty tools and Garden tools.

We don't have room for two cars on our drive, so one has to go in the garage. We also have a storage unit and a small freezer in the garage. I wouldnt buy a house without one.

And, yes, I believe that keeping your car in the garage does reduce the insurance premiums.

We use ours for bike storage, a bigger fridge freezer, gym equipment, and have lots of pegs on the walls to hang bike equipment (helmets, high vis etc) and running gear (running jackets, shoes, etc).

I heard that it put up insurance premiums to keep a car in the garage as you could bump it on the way in or out and car insurance was cheaper if your car was on the street as you don’t know who owns it so thieves won’t know which house to steal the keys from. My insurance company didn’t ask where I kept my car though

Detatched at the bottom of the garden with a lane entrance. Good for keeping the noise away from the house if being used as a workshop.
Tumble dryer and fridge freezer would be more convenient if it was integrated, but it's not a great problem. We have loads of storage, bikes, lawn mower, work equipment, all sorts really.
It's been brilliant this year, it's our pub. DH tidied it up, it's carpeted and has a table and chairs in. It's somewhere to go in the evening, we listen to music, play darts , chat, we're away from the tele and out of the house. Kids are grown up though so we're not tied to the house.

Detached. We currently have dryer, fridge freezer, and DH junk!

Chest freezer sounds like a good idea. Going on my list.