You love your garage. We know you do – well, unless it’s such a junked-up mess that you can’t stand it anymore. (If that’s the case, give us a call. We can help!)
Most homeowners, in fact, consider their garages to be very important. And as realtors know, homes with spacious, clean garages are far more in demand among prospective homebuyers.
But as important as garages are, we don’t really give them a lot of thought. Most of us don’t know much about the history of garages, for example. So we thought we’d take a moment to share a few interesting garage factoids with you:
- LOTS of garages! More than 82 million American homes have a garage. That’s enough garages to provide shelter for every single car made worldwide last year! (By the way, I volunteer my garage as a home for one of those new cars. Perhaps a homeless Mercedes or Rolls…)
- The word “garage”… Comes from the French word “garer,” which means “to shelter.”
- Garages are going big. Nearly 20% of all garages built are large enough to house at least 3 cars.
- Who needs a front door? 71% of families use the garage as the primary entrance to the house.
- First overhead door. C.G. Johnson invented the first overhead garage door in 1921.
- First automatic opener. The same C.G. Johnson that invented the overhead garage door also invented the first automatic opener in 1926. It would take nearly 40 years, though, for the automatic garage door opener to become commonplace.
- Growing footprint. In 1915, the average garage comprised only about 8% of the square footage of a house. After 1960, garages have averaged about 45% of the square footage of the average house.
- Band birthplace. Famous musical bands that got their start in a garage include the Beatles, Nirvana and Metallica.
- Billionaire birthplace. Blue-chip companies that got their start in a garage include Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney, Mattel, Microsoft and Google.
One Fact That’s NOT So Fun…
Garages play an important role in our lives. But it’s an unfortunate fact that many garages are cluttered-up, junked-up messes – so much so that they lose their utility, and become thorns-in-the-sides of homeowners.
If your garage has deteriorated into a virtually unusable mess over the years, give us a call. We can restore your garage to better than new. It’s what we do.
And while we’re there, busily transforming your garage, we might even share an additional garage fun fact or two with you. Just as a bonus.