Trees House: The Garage Door Problem

I have a preliminary Plan "A" for the garage that includes using the steel shelves (sorry, Tanya and Kevin). I realize that I have a lot of white bankers' boxes of stuff, and those shelves can absorb 30 each.

Gardening on one side, woodworking on the other, with the shelves for storage

I realized that there is only one place for the 8' ladder to go, but I also discovered that the unwieldy weed whacker and blower can both be hung on the wall. I'll make the existing open shelves on the existing cabinets my power tool barn, and the Ryobi battery charger can go right on that wall, along with my nail/screen organizers. One shelving unit narrows the passage to 30", but it's only a 30" door and with the ability to open both overhead doors for big projects, I think I'm okay.

Looks like a pretty straightforward design. Very little investment in fanciness.

This is why you draw plans. I realized (pretty quickly, but not quickly enough) that the overhead garage doors are doing something weird--they aren't just closed or open. When they pivot, they would hit the shelves. So, of course, I needed to study the situation more closely.

The door is held up by a wheel in a track at the top and a 1-1/2" angle from a mid-pivot to a bracket near the floor.

While I was at it, I confirmed the details of the door construction (1x T&G siding on a flat 2x4 frame), the casing (2x6) and trim (1-3/4" x 1-3/8" brick mold). Through what we architects call "geometric construction" (we can't do the math so we draw it to scale), I see that a 5' 9" tall shelving unit needs to give the door 12" of clearance (and we shouldn't count on putting boxes on the top shelf, so 24 boxes per unit, not 30).

If I want to stick with Plan "A," I have two choices. A1: Only use one shelving unit and slide it south, out of the way of the door. I can't do that with the other unit, in the middle of the room, because it would make the 30" even tighter. A2: Don't plan to open the west-most door, and use both shelving units as planned.

A2 isn't as crazy as it sounds--the west-most door doesn't work as well as the east door, and I could move the miter saw to the other bay.

I noticed another problem: Working at night with the door open, there's no light in the two bays under the loft. Doors closed, the lights under the loft (TBD) will work just fine. A standing work light solves the problem, but I'd prefer a cleaner solution.

The thing is, the only problematic things to fit in are the 8' ladder and the shelving units, and they don't seem to fit other places. (If I put a shelving unit on the east wall, I have to deal with the 3" offset--that would make a gap between the shelf and the wall.)

Update: Here's Plan 'B' with the shelves turned. The east-most shelving unit can move north to give more room at the doorway. This looks good, too.