Consequences of converting a garage into a finished room?

[Night Elf]

We have a small split level home. Upstairs is the master bedroom with bath, 2 small bedrooms, full bath off hallway, living room and a kitchen/dining room combo. Downstairs are two rooms, a large room that my oldest dd is using as a bedroom and a storage room. There are just too many people and not enough house!

 

Our garage is big! Besides our 2 vehicles, there are work tables that the previous owners installed. The garage has 2 single doors with supposedly quiet openers (they are so not silent). The doors also have ugly metal tracks on the drop tile ceilings. The floor is stained cracked concrete. The garage even has a window, but no sheetrock around it.

 

We've talked about converting it into a rec room that will be a home to different activities. We need a tv area, Lego table area, crafting table area, and wall space for bookcases. But we're worried about what might happen to the value of our home. We also thought about doing a temporary conversion. We could lay down indoor/outdoor carpet, finish the walls, and hang some type of something over the garage doors that would hopefully be weatherproofing. But we aren't sure if it's really possible. Would the room be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter? Would we have to have fans and portable heaters? We don't feel the room would be comfortable and no one will want to use it. It could be a waste of time and money.

 

Any experiences?

[Remudamom]

When we added on to our house we turned the garage into a huge laundry room with sofas and tv, with a big table to fold upon and a big place to hang clothes. We added on another garage so we aren't missing that. But the laundry room does get a bit stuffy sometimes. We just got a fan to put in there.

 

It's a great nap room.........no windows!

[TraceyS/FL]

I"m sitting in what used to be the garage of my house. We do have over an acre, and a detached garage (that is falling apart) so that makes up for it. I don't have a problem with it - it's a big room. I would suggest that you insulate it well - ours isn't. It wasn't a big deal until we lost a bunch of trees and get more direct sun.

 

While we have venting from our regular heat/ac, we use separate units to cut costs. Since we are back here so much it makes more sense, we keep it a bit cooler than the rest of the house in the summer.

 

I know someone that did a more temporary approach and that worked for them because they did need a garage for resale on their house.

 

so i'd say go for it!

[Hillary in KS]

Katherine B. in TX did this with their house several years ago. I remember great ideas from her, and she even posted pictures of the finished room.

 

Here is her page where you can send her an e-mail and ask her about it:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/member.php?u=672

[plansrme]

We have only 2 or 3 outlets in our big 'ole garage, and we would need more if we used it as a room of our house.

As for heating and cooling, yes, you would probably need something portable, and there again, outlets would be key. I saw a guy heat and cool a converted garage with what he called "hotel air conditioners." They were small, plus-in models that heated and cooled and did look a lot like those units in old hotel rooms. Again, though, you'd need outlets and sufficient capacity on your electrical box to power them.

 

I mention this because we converted a room in our basement that, since it's in a basement, is fairly comfortable except on the coldest or hottest days. If we use the space heater or fan while other appliances are on, however, it overloads the fuse box after just a few minutes.

 

I think using the garage is an excellent idea, and we're actually trying to use ours more, primarily to keep stuff out of our house.

 

Terri

[calandalsmom]

I have seen it done many many times in NJ.

 

You might want to look into what it would do to your taxes.

[lynn]

It may hurt the value of your home because the garage usually is not counted in with the squarefootage. Do you plan to build another garage? Heat and cool the remodel in the garage? We are presently looking at houses and unless the converted garage is done very wel that you don't know you are walking into what use to be the garage it really is a turn off as a buyer. Or if the garage is not replaced with another garage just does not work. I have friends who converted their garage, added closets, well placed windows and only becuase I had been to there house before they did that I would not have known that it use to be a garage and they did build a new garage.

[Dobela]

If done well they can be great rooms. However we have lived in at least a couple of homes where it was not done well. In one they did not re route the heating and cooling well and the room was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Another didn't have good insulation so we had a similar problem. Then, it was harder to keep the floor warm since it was on concrete slab instead of framed up like the rest of the house.

 

It can be expensive to reframe and seal in a wall where the doors once were. If not done well, it will always look like the garage that was converted.

 

It can make taxes more expensive as well as insurance. Some companies may not insure an addition like that without lots of inspections.

[TraceyS/FL]

I agree - either do it all the way, or be able to take it down when you sell.

 

Ours doesn't resemble a garage at all - except the slightly sloping floor and the "ledge" around the room. I wouldn't trade the space for anything though. We have a closet, storage closet (used as a kraft closet), and a full bathroom. It's technically considered our 4th bedroom. It shows on our tax record, so we assume it was all permitted when converted.

 

The back of our house - where the garage is, used to be the front too. So when you drive up, you don't see the garage anyway. Not that you can tell it was the garage with the windows and such. And i cna't find a picture either. HMPH. LOL!

 

 

[Ferdie]

My friend did this to her garage in CA. They finished the walls and added a drop ceiling and lighting. I think she used area rugs over the concrete floor. The also installed an inexpensive counter along one wall with cabinets underneath for storage. They put a sofa, TV, pool table and fridge in the room. She left the garage doors as is and the neighbors knew that when the garage doors were open her children were available to play. The room was awesome and was a great place to hang out. With the counter and concrete floor, it was the perfect party room.

 

They parked their cars outside and added a shed to the backyard for storage.

[MotherMayI]

We just moved to a home with a detached garage. Half of it is finished (300sf). I am using it as my classroom- and I love it. I did have to put in carpet...I didn't like the concrete floor-too cold. It has a wall heater and so far (today is our first day actually using it) it has been nice and cozy. There are at least 2 outlets on each wall, and we have a nice window that I can look out and see the house and driveway. I don't know about resale or anything. I just know that the house would have been too small for us if we didn't have this extra space.

[Night Elf]

Thank you for the thoughts. It would likely be really expensive to build a new garage because the way the ground slopes around the house. So if we made a permanent change, we'd have to sell the house without a garage and we believe that could be a really big mistake. The temporary conversion sounds more doable if we could figure out how to insulate it but it would still be a big job because I really want the garage door tracks out of the space. Hmm.. more thinking to do I guess.

[LlamaMama]

I think the necessity of keeping the space as a garage depends on your area. We live in a city where only the newest homes have built-in garages, so it would not be unusual to have a home without a garage or only a car-port. If most of the homes in your area have built-in garages, then I think it might make the home more difficult to sell..