The Gar/apt started off many years ago as a Garlinghouse plan that I purchased at Menards for about $15. It was basically about 3 plan pages for building a 24 x 36 gambrel garage. I used it to build exactly that structure at my principal home back in the late 90's. Fast forward to about 2007, when I started dreaming about a place at the pond, and the old 24 x 36 gambrel garage plans got pulled out, dusted off, and totally tweaked and revamped to a 28 x 44 garage apartment. I used it as a reference and drew up my own plans. I then submitted those plans to Georgia Pacific (the manufacturer/supplier of the 2nd floor subfloor framing) and they prescribed the necessary engineering, components, and drawings for that 2nd floor. They also made a couple of other related engineering recommendations (which I heeded and implemented). Finally, I used a truss manufacturer to develop and supply all the roof truss framing. Given all that, my wife (Donna-ski) and I started building it ourselves, one 2 x 6 at a time. Kit? Not really. More like our own shopping list, a few hours selecting and loading raw materials onto our utility trailer, and driving it to the jobsite and assembling it.
