A buddy of mine put up a Morton building with an apartment at one end. He's lived in it for about 15 years now. Pretty nice deal actually. He said the only issue he has is if he does something that stinks...paint, get drunk and do burnouts...it smells in the apartment for awhile.
The apartment has a roof above it that he uses for storage...kind of a shallow loft...but he says that helps his cooling bills in the apartment because the sun isn't beating down on the roof of his living quarters.

 

Why you have an air exchanger to source outside fresh air.

 

His apartment has a roof above it, well thats good....
I would want a roof above my apartment as well.

 

If you want it to be a nice place that you stay in for many years just build a carriage house. Then later build a bigger shop and just use the garage space in the house for your drivers and finished cars.

 

I lived at my shop for awhile.As others state if in one building fumes can be a problem.I now have separate house but from time to time still stay at shop living quarters

 

Pretty much my dream living situation

 

This.

 

Back in when I worked in HVAC we put some heat in an outfit out of town here. Guy built a hell of a nice shop, then an "added" single pitch roof addition against the shop, so was connected but completely walled off. I've always thought that would be nice for me. he actually was going to use the living quarters for an office later, living in that while building a house.

 

My friend did one 60x80 total 30x60 house. He didn't have a fume issue but he did not do much either. He did have a 6-7' storage loft over the house part. Did a lot of the work himself cost him 80k plus the lot. 40 of that was the building.

 

My shop has an apt on the second floor. Separate entrance makes it useful. I used foam insulation can't hear or smell anything in the apt.

 

There is a retired guy that put up a nice 16 ft. sidewall building next to my shop. He doesn't do much dirty automotive work there, mainly just a place to hang out and park his toys. He has a bar, pool table, pinball machines, ect in there and built a 2 story apartment off to one side. He actually convinced his wife to sell their house and live there! It is super nice and insulated really well from the "shop" part. It has a big kitchen and living space and 2 bathrooms on the ground floor, then the bedroom is an upstairs loft overlooking the living room space. Has a walkout upstairs porch right off the bedroom. It is pretty awesome, when you are in the apartment, you can't even tell that you are in a Morton building! They love it, they do a lot of traveling and he can lock his vehicles in the shop and leave town for a week and have no worries, plus much less upkeep than their big house!

 

I am in the process of building one now. 60x100x16 building with a 35x24 2 story living quarters. Would post pics but too much of a hassle. Hopefully it will be done soon and I can sell my existing house and shop and get moved.

 

If you are not on www.garagejournal.com take a look around. There are some good examples of this. I bought some land last year, and I am thinking about doing this, although I don't know for sure if that is the route that I will take.
Brian

 

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My shop has an apartment upstairs the guy before me built.
No kitchen, but a big living room, small bedroom, nice bathroom & a big walk in closet.
I use it as an office, and sleep there if we get back too late, or have a very early project to do.
It works nice, and if you do it nice & tight, zero issues with smells.
I have all diesels & my neighbor has all diesels and very very little smell unless he lets a bulldozer idle.
All walls are double & insulated, and the door is a very high quality steel model with a super tight seal.
Only has 1 small window over looking the shop, so not many spots to leak smells.

It's actually pretty big, ~500-600 feet, so I have a lot of crap stored in the closet & bedroom.

If I was to build one, I would definitely have no doors into the shop.
Door into a mud room or office, than into the apartment.

I'm looking at land now with some old shack or trailer so I don't have to deal with putting in a well.
I'm planning small cabin and big shop, ~3000-5000 depending on final design.
Some will be cold storage for the rig & bucket trucks.
I hate anything being left outside when I'm gone or in the winter.

Good luck.

.

 

I posted a picture of mine in another thread. I'm sure it's gone though since photobucket eliminated hosting. The building is 36x72. Split in half. 14' ceilings. There is a small loft upstairs in the living space and then attic space that is accessed from the shop. Floor heat through the whole place. We had to build a breezeway between the shop and living space to comply with code. You might want to find out what the codes are in your area if any.

 

I have a friend that did it. It's very nice, nicer than most folks houses, but he ended up building a real house beside it and just uses it for his guest house now. Depending on where you're at code can be a bitch. He had to have a firewall to separate the two and electrical issues as well. I used to like the idea but after seeing it done a couple times I dont see any reason why I'd want to do it.

 

Quite a few of them in south west Iowa. Mills County got a bunch of codes and requirements trying to stop them . Its not like they didn't like the tax money off them.

 

We built a 60' x 120' with 20' ceiling height. Put a 30' x 60' upstairs apartment and a 30' x 30' office under it. With another 30' x 30' finished parking area. The wall separating the shop from the apartments is the same kind of metal that went on the outside of the building with foam insulation. It has 2 walk thru doors , 1 for the apartment and 1 for the office. Also a roll up door from the parking area into the main part of the shop. Forgot to mention a bathroom between the 2 lower units. A lot of diesels in and out of the main shop and no fume issues, but I would suggest an in wall ventilation fan in case it becomes an issue. And use the low velocity ceiling fans in the main part of the shop, this will make things comfortable in the summer.

 

A lot of people that bought land built a garage first, lived in it until the house is built. I designed a garage
comp. with a living space, would have had a loft as the sleeping quarters, bathroom downstairs and upstairs,
kitchen, dinning room, TV room downstairs-would have loved to built it, but never did. A buddy used my plans
and built something close to it, was a pretty cool place.

 

 

That's gorgeous, except my trailer is too tall to fit inside


.

 

im planning on building one in the next year or so, friend built one and loves it.

 

My 30x50 has a 12x50 upstairs.

If the wife ever kicks me out, I will make an apartment out there.

 

I put a 20x30 upstairs in the corner of the shop. Bathroom and a single larger room.

 

http://www.rafterpconstruction.com/gallery.html

Curt Harvey builds beautiful shop/ house combos.