So, what turned my shop into storage? A failed garage foundation. The first picture shows the foundation walls and the major cracking in them. The wall facing the camera and the back wall were both pushed out at the top. The top of the wall facing the camera was 8" out over the toe of the wall. The top of the back wall was about 10" out. Those are cinder blocks so if count the rows and do the math, the walls were only 80" tall. 10" in 80"! Kinda scary. So it had to come down.
The second picture shows you how to guarantee the structural failure of a foundation wall. First, build it out of cinder block. Second, grout only the corners but leave the rest of the spaces open. Third, back fill with any garbage "dirt" you can find. It is my understanding that the foundation failed while it was being back-filled. They just kept filling and presto, unusable garage. We knew this when we bought the house. What we didn't know was how much it would cost to replace it.
Basically, my 24x24 garage will cost about 2.5 times what my 24x50 barn/shop building cost. Okay, that is a little misleading as there are some significant differences between the two structures. The barn/shop is a basic pole barn construction with a concrete floor in the shop.
The garage will feature a walk-out basement. The slop of our property requires that a full foundation be put it in. Given what it costs to move dirt these days, the cost of a structural floor is only marginally more expensive that hauling in the required back fill to fill in the foundation. Plus, I don't have to build the foundation to retain the fill. And, as you can tell from the last set of pictures, I need the storage space. (A wife and two daughters can really generate a need for storage!)