Levit house - storage vs living space

DH and I are just starting to look for houses. I'm interested in Levittown. I passed a open house today when I was with my parents in Levittown. It was a original Levitt layout, however the garage was converted into a large living room, the original living room was a dining room.

It needed some cosmetic work, which is expected in our price range. I am more concerned with the lack of storage with no basement and no garage. My parents suggested putting a large shed in the backyard, and inside there is pretty good closet space.

We're not ready to put a offer on anything yet - just looking for some opinions on the no garage vs more living space...... Thanks!

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

JMO, but I feel that the more storage we have, the more clutter we collect.

We have a pretty tiny house at that with a basement and attic space, and there's all junk in both storage areas.

We have a detached garage which used to be an illegal apartment..........DH has made it into his guy room.

Also having had issues with the basement flooding several times, I would not get another one if we ever moved.

HTH!

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

We live in a levit style house and don't have any issues with storage. Our garage was converted into a living space before we bought the house and we currently use it as our dining room. We have a big shed in our yard and lots of closet space in the rest of the house. Somehow all of our junk fits lol. But I tend to get rid of whatever we don't use so we don't have too much to store (only the essentials).

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

We have a levitt style house as well. Our garage was never converted so we do have a ton of junk in there. we don't have any shed in our yard though, if we did have a big shed then we wouldn't need all that room in our garage for storage. It's mostly junk in there anyways. You do have a lot of room in the crawl spaces but make sure you have access to them.
The only problem I hate about our style house is that since there is no basement we don't really have a "den" area. We have a play room upstairs, but I feel my house is so crowded whenever I have more than 5 adults in it.
We are contemplating converting our garage soon so that we have that "den" area that we are lacking.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I have a levit house with a garage and a shed.

The only addition to my house (which existed when we purchased) was a bedroom . The bedroom was built off of what is considered the "master bedroom" on the first floor. Since the bedroom was added, the wall that was built against the stairs in the "master" was knocked down and created an "open" floor plan between the LR and that bedroom...which we use as a DR.

I can tell you that if we didn't have a garage, I have no idea where all of my stuff would go! We keep lawn equipment in the shed. But the garage houses all of my Christmas decorations, washer/dryer, tools, luggage, bins of my DD's outgrown clothes (she is an infant and I am holding on to the clothes for when I have another child)...and just random stuff that I need.

We don't have a lot of closet space inside the house, so whatever doesn't fit in the house goes in the garage.

I would love to use the garage as living space, but I need it as storage space.

We are in the process of re-doing one of the bedrooms upstairs and turning it into a master. So once that is done we will move up there and also move DD to the other bedroom upstairs and convert her bedroom downstairs into a play room and our bedroom downstairs into an office/man cave.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

Posted by mzsocialworker1

JMO, but I feel that the more storage we have, the more clutter we collect.


HTH!

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I live in a Levitt House and our garage was converted to a foyer and behind that wall a family room with a closet...its technically 5 bedrooms and lots of closets. We have a crawl space attic and no shed. We are using one of the bedrooms as storage until we get a Shed. You would def. need a shed at some point.

ETA: It is front Dormered and there is an extension in the back of the house.

Message edited 1/31/2012 7:42:29 PM.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I grew up in an undormered Levitt with no garage (7 people lived in the house) and my parents always had room to store all of our stuff. They were just really good at purging when space became an issue. We actually had a closet which led to the "crawlspace" on the front side of the house in my bedroom. My parents store a lot of junk in there.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I grew up in a dormered levitt with a garage & shed. We also had a full walk in attic in the master bedroom upstairs. For us, the storage space was key.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

We live in a Levitt - but dormered last year to make a colonial. Originally we had no crawl spaces upstairs - the last owner had them sealed off for some reason. We do have a 1.5 car garage and we put shelving up in there - we have so much in there and of course most of it is probably stuff we will never use, then I also have an 8 x 10 storage shed which is filled to the doors with outdoor furniture, lawn equipment, christmas decorations etc.

I would look for a levitt with a garage. Because the storage space is important at least to me

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I grew up in a Levitt and my parents also converted their garage into a living room/dining room, as do every one of their neighbors I can think of and they all have wooden sheds in their backyards.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I grew up in a Levit-home that sounds similar to what you're describing, except that we converted only half of our garage into a living room. so the back half of the garage was living room (they also extended it into the backyard maybe like 8 feet-ish) and our dining room was where the old living room was. We had half garage which is where our dryer was (washer was in the hall closet under the stairs) and my dad's tools, brothers sports equipment, etc. OUr fridge was actually built into the garage so we had more space in the kitchen, too. We had a shed that had all the lawn/ gardening equipment in the backyard.

I think we lived pretty comfortably with the 1/2 garage and shed.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

We live in a Levitt with no garage and I'll admit storage has always been an issue.

We have two sheds in the backyard. We also recently built an extension with two bedrooms which have huge closets, a lifesaver. With two kids, we have accumulated a lot of stuff!

We also have all of the crawl spaces open, you do have a lot of room up there.

Message edited 1/31/2012 9:25:03 PM.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I say less storage is less clutter that you don't really need. We always found a place to put our stuff and didnt save things unless we knew we would use it. Closet space can be maximized. I would take living space over storage. Get two big sturdy sheds for the backyard.

Re: Levit house - storage vs living space

I have a non converted garage in our Levitt house. There are NOT ENOUGH CLOSETS and they are tiny in the Levitt houses. So look again at the closet spaces before you make an offer.

We have a shed but we don't keep our tools there.

Like I said, go back to the house and think. Where will I put my vacuum, hammer/screwdriver, steam mop, extra paper towels, etc..

And while I agree more space is clutter... I don't have enough a place to put my vacuum.

Message edited 2/2/2012 9:07:05 PM.