To ask if you'd prefer a double garage or a single garage with a kitchen diner?

[judybloomno5]

We are looking to convert a largely unused double garage to a single garage and use the other side to attach onto the kitchen as a dining room but I'm concerned this might put off future buyers so what would you prefer if you were buying?

With your drive space I would enlarge the kitchen.

We are unusual in that we actually use the garage for its designated purpose - to keep a car in. I would never buy a house that had converted all its garage space to living space. We have two cars and keep one in the garage and one on the drive. Ideally we would have a double garage, but have never been able to find the house we can afford in the area we can afford to do this.

As long as it can be done well without looking like a conversion I would go for it. We are lucky enough to have a kitchen/diner and a double garage. We use one of them every day and the other is used to store endless amounts of crap

My DH is more interested in cooking and entertaining than tinkering in the garage so for our personal use the diner is best though I'm conscious we might want to move on one day. We literally lobbed all DDs toys in our old garage

Single garage, larger actual house.

Definitely convert.

We're looking at houses at the moment and those with tiny kitchens and huge double garages drive me mad. What a waste of space! Converting them (either completely or into a single garage) seems to be really common and doesn't look out of place to me as the kitchen is often next to the integral garage.

I think we tend to use our kitchens more as living spaces as well as place to cook nowadays (which is why new builds have big kitchen/diners) so I think converting your garage would certainly make your house more appealing, at least to me anyway! I would prefer to keep a single garage though as we don't have one currently and a shed just isn't big enough for storing bikes/tools/lawnmover/garden furniture etc.

judybloomno5 We converted the integral single garage into a den and kept the attached single garage. It doesn't look at all odd, as the architect matched the new window (in place of the garage door) with the other windows on the ground floor. The extra space made a huge amount of difference to how we used the house, and added value as well.

It's a good prompt to clear out all of the clutter in the garage as well.

cowbag that's why DH insisted on a single garage. A shed isn't big enough for all the bikes, tools, lawnmower, barbecue etc. He seems to have a lot of tools!

Our garage is actually junk free because DH sees it as a workshop! It has shelves and hooks and spaces for everything.

But like I said, even with this, DH would be fine with a single garage and a large kitchen diner.

Larger inside space 100%.
Definitely go for the kitchen diner - even before you said you can park 3 cars on the drive.

Kitchen diner definitely! We have a house without any garage although when we were moving we viewed several that did and without fail the garages were never used for cars, just as a graveyard for old junk the owners didn't know what to do with.

We have always used a garage to put a car in. It reduces your insurance premiums for a start.

Perhaps some decluttering is in order?

Single garage.

Single garage without a doubt. Why would people prioritise space for their car over space for their family?

Single garage and kitchen diner every time. We've got a single garage and it's just full of random crap that I should knuckle down and take to the tip. I know that twice the space would just equal twice the amount of crap!

The lack of kitchen diner is the only thing about our house that I wish was different and likely to be a major impetus when we come to move. If we won the lottery we'd be rectifying that with a conservatory / kitchen diner type scenario.

Definitely single garage with bigger kitchen / diner (especially as you have a large enough for 3 cars driveway).

Yes to kitchen diner over double garage every time. You'd still have a single garage and plenty of parking.

We are looking at the moment, would prefer double garage and convert as we would want..

NicknameUsed Many single garages aren't actually wide enough to take a modern family sized car. Or you can drive it in - but you can't open the door to get out.

Single garage and kitchen diner.

Single garage and diner but make sure it flows nicely.

We've no garage as it's been converted and we've never had one anyway anywhere we've lived. We've a big shed to put outdoor stuff in. I'd convert it all tbh and have a huge luxurious kitchen/ diner/ living area.

We have this problem - we have a 5 bed house and upstairs is huge, but downstairs is a good sized living room, a smallish kitchen, and a ginormous double garage. Ridiculous design imo! We are about to convert most of the garage into a kitchen-diner.

Single garage but plenty of staorage in new kitchen area.

There're a lot of new build estates in my area with integral single garages which are tiny, and most people seem to be converting them as they're a waste of potential living space.

Unless it's a good bit larger than average, a single garage is pretty useless. Most cars won't fit in them and they're such a large and poorly designed space to use just for storage. I'd either convert your double garage to a realistically-sized single garage that a normal modern family car can fit into with doors open and allocate less space to the kitchen diner - maybe not enough? - or convert the whole lot and get rid of the garage altogether, as you have plenty of parking.