24x24 2 Car Garage Plans with Loft, Permit Ready Carriage House Plans, Exterior Stair, Material List, ICC Building Official

The Monroe: 24' x 24' Two-Car Garage with a Loft Above

Two parking spaces downstairs and a full open loft upstairs. The Monroe gives you 576 sq ft of garage plus a 576 sq ft loft floor, reached by an outside stair so both parking spaces stay clear. Use the loft as a shop, studio, storage or future living space.

These permit-ready plans are drawn and checked by an ICC-certified building official. Studs, rafters, wall headers and braced wall panels are sized from cited 2021 IRC tables, and every engineered piece comes with the order data your supplier sizes it from, so you can build with confidence and take a complete set to your building department.

WHAT'S IN THE SET (17 sheets, instant PDF download, print at 11x17 or larger)
- Cover sheet with the design criteria and general information
- Garage floor plan and loft floor plan
- Foundation plan (a monolithic concrete slab)
- All four sides of the building
- Floor framing over the garage
- Roof framing, with the rafter and knee-wall section and the ridge and flat-ceiling detail
- A section through the whole building
- A typical wall section at the loft eave, showing the rafter foot on the floor deck and the knee wall
- Outside stair details: landing framing, stringer layout and post base
- Door-wall framing with the braced portal frame, gable-wall framing and opening details
- General notes (2 sheets), plus the header and fastening schedules
- A complete materials list (2 sheets)
- Wall framing and sheathing details

ABOUT THE BUILDING
- 24' x 24' footprint: 576 sq ft of garage below, plus a full 576 sq ft loft floor above
- 9 ft garage walls and a steep 12:12 rafter-framed roof, with the ridge about 23 ft 10 in above the ground
- An open loft with 4 ft knee walls and a flat ceiling about 8 ft 7 in above the loft floor. About 9 1/2 ft of the width, down the center, has at least 7 ft of headroom, the height the 2021 IRC asks for in a habitable room (R305.1, Exception 1)
- No partitions in the loft, so you lay it out the way you want it
- 2x6 walls at 16 inches on center; 2x10 rafters at 16 inches on center resting on the floor deck and the 4 ft knee walls; engineered floor trusses span the whole garage (23 ft inside) with no posts in the parking bay
- An LVL ridge beam on end posts, sized by your LVL supplier from the order data printed on the plans, so the design doesn't rely on rafter ties across the loft
- A 16 ft x 7 ft carriage-style overhead door, plus a 3 ft service door. The shed awning over the big door is drawn as a finish by others, and no framing or brackets for it are in the materials list
- An outside rear stair to the loft: 17 risers up to a freestanding 4 ft x 4 ft landing on 6x6 posts at the upper door, so the whole garage stays open, with no inside stair eating a parking space
- Board-and-batten gable ends over horizontal lap siding
- A monolithic concrete slab with a 12-inch-wide, 18-inch-deep thickened, reinforced edge
- Designed to the 2021 IRC for 30 psf ground snow and 115 mph wind (Exposure B: a lot surrounded by houses or trees, not open fields or shoreline), seismic categories A to C

DRAWN THE WAY IT GETS BUILT
- The outside stair is detailed, not just drawn: the landing framing, the stringer layout with the bottom cut spelled out, and the post base on its footing
- The roof framing shows the ridge vent opening: the roof sheathing held back 1 inch on each side of the ridge, so the vent actually breathes
- The materials list is figured board by board from this building: concrete, plates, studs, headers, rafters, sheathing, siding, roofing, the stair and landing, fasteners and hardware

HOW IT WORKS
1. Buy and download the PDF instantly.
2. Print it at home or at any print shop (11x17 or larger is best).
3. Take it to your building department along with the truss and LVL drawings from your suppliers, and build once they approve.

WHY BUILDERS TRUST THESE PLANS
Most garage plans online are a pretty picture and a floor plan. These are drawn the way a plans examiner wants to see them: the design loads on the cover, studs, rafters, wall headers and bracing sized from cited 2021 IRC tables, order data for every engineered piece, dimensions that add up, a full wall section, the braced door wall laid out, header and fastening schedules, and a materials list that matches the drawings. They were checked by the same kind of official who reviews permit applications for a living.

WHAT YOUR BUILDING DEPARTMENT WILL ASK
- Local rules. Frost depth, snow and wind loads, setbacks and local amendments vary from place to place, so the design criteria these plans were drawn to are printed on the cover, where the examiner can compare them to yours at a glance.
- Footing depth. The footprint is only 576 sq ft, but a story-and-a-half building has its eaves above the 10 ft limit in the 2021 IRC frost-protection exception (R403.1.4.1), so it isn't frost-exempt. Plan on a footing that reaches below your local frost depth, and expect that to be the first thing the examiner checks.
- An engineer's or architect's stamp. Standard wood-frame construction like this is covered by the IRC's prescriptive rules, which is why these plans can be drawn without an engineer. Some areas still ask for a stamp on a detached garage, and more often on one with living space above, so ask at the permit desk before you print. If they want something in the set explained, message me and I'll help.
- Engineered pieces. The LVL ridge and its end posts, the 24 ft door-wall header, the gable headers under the ridge and the floor trusses are engineered products from your supplier, built to their drawings. The plans print the order data and the ridge load the header carries and show where each piece bears, and most permit desks want the truss and LVL drawings with your application.
- Finishing the loft as living space. The plans are drawn to dwelling-unit standards (the garage-to-dwelling separation and an emergency escape opening), so the loft is ready for it. Accessory-dwelling and zoning rules still apply in most areas, and the plumbing, mechanical and electrical for a dwelling are done by others under their own permits, so confirm what yours allows before you build.

DELIVERY AND TERMS
Instant download after purchase (PDF, prints at 11x17 or letter size). Your purchase covers one build by the original buyer, and the full terms of use are printed on the cover sheet. These are reference construction plans, not a sealed engineering document. The light fixtures, shutters and door awning in the photos and on the elevations are drawn for looks and are by others; none is specified or included in the materials list. Because it's a digital item there are no refunds, but message me with any question and I'll make it right.