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Sam, thank you so much for your help in posting the pictures.

I started out designing the garage of my dreams. It quickly turned out to over 15,000 SF which would include storage for my cars, trucks, trailers, motor home, etc. When the cost came in I quickly decided this was not a smart thing to do.

I own several multi tenant office warehouse buildings and happened to lose a tenant in a 3,000 SF space last winter. I looked at this space and decided it would be perfect! I cannot store anything there except for my cars, but that is OK I rationalized since I have nearby storage for them. I especially liked that it would force me to keep under my control my disease of buying classic cars due to its size.

Some of the things on my wish list:
A. I am retired and need a place to go every day and play. I wanted a very comfortable placce where my friends would feel at home.
B. I do very little work on the cars other than light detailing, etc. so I did not need a heavy duty mechanical shop. My cars are all trailer queens and I enjoy regional and national competition and keep myself busy throughout the year going to the meets.
C. My hobby had become very disorganized. I wanted a dedicated parts and storage room with anal neat storage for all of my accumulated parts and other car maintenance items.
D. Over the years I have accumulated some memorabilia, tons of trophies, plus other memories that I wanted to display.
E. I did not want my toy garage to look like the Cracker Barrel. I wanted it to look like a Chevrolet showroom. This really helped me remain focused when searching for signs, etc.
F. I had display boards of many of the cars that I have owned and sold at Barrett Jackson overthe years. I wanted to display the boards on the walls of the show room.

The suite is 30x100. We started by totally gutting the space. The hardest part was adding a 20'x30' second floor for the storage room and a second overhead 12'x14' overhead door for access.

I spent substantial time on the electrical plan. I did not want to see cords if at all possible. This required adding floor outlets under all cars, planning closely where neon lights would be, etc. We installed the latest T5 technology throughout. This included switches that allow me to dim the flourescents. We also installed a state of the art audio/video/security system. It has central vac with baseboard inlets throughout. I started with a very good estimate and budget and managed to bring the final cost in for just 4 times the original budget due to my saying I am only going to be doing this once to many times.....

As I stated earlier the size of ther suite allows me to stay under control.........We are getting ready to start a 5,000 Sf warehouse next to the toy garage. It will allow me to store my motorhome, trucks, trailers, and allow for a shop plus a few more cars....