In most people's mind, a 50-feet wide lot is the starting width of a "mansion". These kind of land are usually located in mid to high end neighborhoods, some of the examples in Toronto would be Willowdale, Bayview Village, Unionville, Lawrence Park and Lytton Park.
A typical 50-foot house would be 4200-5300 SQFT big, with 4 bedrooms, walkout basement, 2 laundry rooms, heated basement and a wet bar. In more expensive variations there will usually be a home theatre as well.
Most homeowners of a 50 feet house would choose a 2 car garage layout when doing renovation. There are two kinds of layouts regarding a 2-car garage design, split-level or a regular 2-storey.
A split-level home stacks vertical spaces similar to a 2-storey home, but it arranges the space between three or four levels in a staggered design. On one side of the house, you have a typical two-story arrangement with two living spaces stacked directly on top of each other. However, you have another level that sits between the two with shorter than normal staircases connecting them.
In this article we are going to talk about the pros and cons of these 2 options.
Split-level

The pro of a split-level design is a larger area on the first floor compared to a traditional 2-storey design, due to the garage being placed under the living and dining area on the first floor. Without the garage being in the way, offices in a split-level designed house usually have better lighting than a traditional 2-storey as they can be placed facing the front yard of the house.
On the other hand, The shortcoming of such design is quite visible: a low garage. Larger SUVs and pickup trucks cannot be parked in there. Because of the garage's placement, the height of the garage is limited.
The other con of a split-level house is its exterior. Most builders, when building a split-level house, will choose a flat-headed roof design to comply with building regulations of the city. Such design will not only hurt the visual of the house, but it also limits floor height to within 10 feet.

*A floor plan of a typical split-level house
Traditional 2-storey

One of the most obvious flaws of a traditional 2-storey design is, the usable square footage of the first floor is going to be about 450 square feet smaller when compared to a split-level design. Reason being that builders will have to leave space for the garage. However, a traditional 2-storey house tends to have a higher floor height, and visually it looks better than a split-level because of the symmetry in the design of facade.
In short, because of the axis of the design, visual effects and use of space are far from ideal when it comes to a 2-car garage, 50 feet wide house.
Solution
There is a really simple solution to the problem. A single-car garage design! Symmetrical designs, visually balanced and reasonable use of space.
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