I'm Back, the Little Guy, and plans for a Garage

Yes - I AM alive and well...  and thankfully, the baby is also alive and well!  The last post was when I went on strict bedrest, and it was definitely needed.  The unfortunate news is that I actually delivered 8 weeks early, on the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a little scary for us for a while, but Morten made it through, came home just before Christmas, and is surviving and thriving now! 

I have been off work: 6 weeks of maternity leave (mostly spent while he was in the hospital), 4 weeks of vacation, and now I am in the middle of 12 weeks of FMLA.  It is so awesome to be home with him.  It's a little strange to me, however, to not actually have time to do any projects!  I might be able to, if I can figure out how to do it in 15 minute spurts during naptimes...  that must get better, right?  Or maybe it gets worse?  Any other home renovators with children out there have advice?

The big thing for us (and primarily for Jim) is still the garage project.  It has changed and morphed quite a bit since my last entry.  We had a design-build firm work up architectural drawings both of the current Phase 1 garage, and also of a Phase 2 that connects the garage with a mudroom, rebuilds the kitchen, and adds a master suite on the 2nd floor (beginnings of "the dream" coming to life).  Here's their drawing for the Phase 1 garage:

In past posts, we were debating on the location - straight at the end of the driveway, or behind the house, with a right turn at the end of the driveway.  You can probably tell with the location of the garage doors, we chose to go straight at the end of the driveway.

And here's a section drawing, so you can see that there is a second floor:

The first floor will hold our two "daily drivers", Jim's project car (currently a 36 Ford), a lift for working on the project car, and his toolbox and supplies.  The second floor is planned to be a workshop area, so we can get the table saw and other woodworking tools out of the basement.  I'm sure there will be car stuff up there too.

Jim is still doing some negotiating and pricing to determine if we're going to go with the design-build firm for the build, or if he's going to sub it out himself.  We're on a pretty strict budget, but still want to make this look like it fits the house, and of course, be quality work.  If we can get it into a reasonable price, and Jim thinks he's just about there, we should be able to start this project this spring.