Garages in the front of the house are so unattractive. When we built our forever home, a side garage was one of my must-haves.

One of my friends has a side load garage and they always park their cars on their driveway.

Anonymous wrote:If you come across a house that matches all your expectations (good schools,location,decent commute etc.) and if it has a sideload garage, will you still buy it?

It all depended on how much space they have left to maneuver. On some I have seen, it would be very difficult with a medium sized car.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a sideload garage and yes we almost never use the front door....because we go in and out through the garage, just like we would with a front load garage. Why would we use the front door more with a front load garage?

Because it's the center of activity. Talking with neighbors out in the driveway. It's hard to explain but with sideload garages, here you have this nice entryway that's supposed to be the entrypoint to the home, with all of the nice foyer furniture and everything, but no one ever goes through it.

With sideload garages, would you ever walk past the flowers along the front of the house or really enjoy the front yard at all? It's just seems wrong to have all of your activity through a side utilitarian garage door instead of a welcoming front door, front yard, pumpkins on the steps, etc. None of that gets enjoyed with a side load garage.

Everyone has their own rhythms, but we use our 2 front doors all the time. One is perpendicular to the front of the house, next to the side load garage, opens from the front porch into a mud room, and it gets heavy daily use because we do a lot of walking, going out to play basketball, etc. We get frequent visitors with 2 social kids and for that we use the true front door. The only time we use the garage door is when we are driving or biking somewhere.

Tbh I think your assumption that people don’t use their front yards, porches, etc. if they have side load garages is weird. We have one and I pass our flowers, pumpkins, etc on foot multiple times a day.

Anonymous wrote:We have a sideload garage and yes we almost never use the front door....because we go in and out through the garage, just like we would with a front load garage. Why would we use the front door more with a front load garage?

Because it's the center of activity. Talking with neighbors out in the driveway. It's hard to explain but with sideload garages, here you have this nice entryway that's supposed to be the entrypoint to the home, with all of the nice foyer furniture and everything, but no one ever goes through it.

With sideload garages, would you ever walk past the flowers along the front of the house or really enjoy the front yard at all? It's just seems wrong to have all of your activity through a side utilitarian garage door instead of a welcoming front door, front yard, pumpkins on the steps, etc. None of that gets enjoyed with a side load garage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course. It's the front load garage that's an eyesore.

+1

Not sleays an eyesore, but side-load is better, of course.

Anonymous wrote:Of course. It's the front load garage that's an eyesore.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Because it's difficult to maneuver to park in them.

Do what?

Anonymous wrote:Because it's difficult to maneuver to park in them.

Please place your drivers license in the nearest shredder. Also leave your address so I can have your car(s) donated.

We have a sideload garage and yes we almost never use the front door....because we go in and out through the garage, just like we would with a front load garage. Why would we use the front door more with a front load garage?

Anonymous wrote:who the hell parks in a garage. I have a circular driveway so I can leave car right in front of house at night. I leave second car in front of my side load garage door.

When snow is coming I leave one car at each end of circular driveway so I dont have to shovel out before work. In the garage I am trapped.

I have known a few people who had so much junk in their garage that they couldn’t park in it, but everyone else I know happily uses their garage. For me, I like staying dry as I get in and out of the car on a rainy day, and I like getting into a car that isn’t extremely hot in the summer. I also like having my car protected from the elements. We lived without a garage for years, and now that we have one I wouldn’t want to go without.

We have a side garage and it has its pros and cons, but it was never a factor in deciding whether to buy the house or not.

I do think the house looks a lot more attractive from the front since the garage has three windows and looks like an extension of the house (like PPs last picture). We have a corner lot, so there's also no sharp curve to the driveway, we pull right in from the side street. And it gives us a nice, uninterrupted front yard.

We do rarely use the front door. Also there's no way to see the driveway except from an upstairs bedroom. So there's no way to easily look out at the kids or to see if someone has arrived.

Anonymous wrote:Only if the yard is big enough to accommodate a sufficiently large driveway that maneuvering is easy without the driveway being most of the yard. And don’t run the driveway right along the property line, my neighbor did that and it annoys the shit out of me every time they misjudge the driveway while backing out and run over my flower bed.

My old neighbor ran driveway right up to property line so when he opened drivers door he had to stand on my front lawn.

who the hell parks in a garage. I have a circular driveway so I can leave car right in front of house at night. I leave second car in front of my side load garage door.

When snow is coming I leave one car at each end of circular driveway so I dont have to shovel out before work. In the garage I am trapped.

Anonymous wrote:Of course. It's the front load garage that's an eyesore.

I'm in this camp.