It's called the "Man Loft" because my wife says it's a good place to stick all of my stuff. It has come in quite handy and I highly recommend you build one or something similar if you have the room above your garage door. I had this built for me as this is not a one man job. I have 12 foot ceilings. This spans the entire width of the garage and is 8 feet deep. That's a lot of storage space. I have about a 33 inch clearance from the floor of the loft to the ceiling. It's not to bad to get up there and crawl around but it can get tight at times. The loft is anchored into the studs on 3 sides. It is very sturdy and holds a lot of weight. I have plans to install lights in the spaces between the joists. I just have to figure out the proper spacing and then wait for the electrician to work his magic. I have seen multiple ideas for storing things between the joists and plan on doung some of those later....Just need to figure out which spaces will not have lights in them.
Here are some photos to give you an idea of what can be done.
You can see the wood rack to the left of the garage door opening
You can see I have pretty good clearance between the top of the door and the bottom of the joist. I'm thinking about some swing down storage boxes that fit between the joists when put up.
This just shows the fornt part of the support system - it is screwed into each stud with 2 screws.
So, if you have the space, this is GREAT storage. We do keep some seasonal stuff and infrequently used things up there out of the way. I may also use it for some shop things as well.
