Converting Garage

[Waspie]

I?m after a bit of perspective and hoping you can help me with your opinions.

We moved into our new house about 6 months ago. It has a north facing kitchen at the front of the house which directly adjoins the garage. The utility room is behind the garage. The kitchen has a door to the utility room and the utility room has a door to the garage and also a door to the back garden. The kitchen is 2.4 metres wide by 5.2 metres long. The garage is almost the same size (to within a few cm?s) but it sticks out about a metre further than the kitchen, so the two spaces are slightly offset.

The kitchen is old and tatty and we are looking to replace it in the not too distant future. I think we?re talking about £15k to replace all the integrated appliances, sink, flooring and cupboard units.

My dilema is whether we should bite the bullett and knock through and convert the garage at the same time and make one large (roughly 5m x 5m) space for kitchen and dining? The existing dining room is small and we currently use it as a study/office rather than a formal dining room. But we would lose the garage. There is driveway parking so we never actually use the garage to store a car.

Our next door neighbours have converted their garage so there is precedent but their house is a different layout to ours so seeing it didn?t really help me visualise.

I?m not sure if it will add value to have a large kitchen diner over a narrow kitchen and a garage.

What do you all think I should do?

Thanks in advance

It sounds a great plan. The only question is: how much stuff have you got stored in your garage, and where would it go if you had the garage converted?

I think a large kitchen would add more value.

We have done a similar thing - converted an integral garage into a bedroom & bathroom. It added about 10% of the value on.

Do you have other storage space (attic / shed / under-stairs?)

We are currently turning our old double garage (external) into kitchen/diner. Managed to store most of what was in the garage that wasn't rubbish in a shed.
As for value have no idea if we will lose or gain but we needed to do it, and it is only part of our plan so when finished in abour 20 year at this rate we will have a double garage again.
It isn't even finished yet and I can honestly say it will be the best thing we have done compared to a piddly little kitchen that we have at the moment it is going to be a good size with plenty of storage, and a seperate utility room and downstairs loo which is a must in my house too many bottoms for one loo.
I do believe from what people have told me, that a good kitchen is worth more to most buyers than a garage.

Thanks for your replies

The garage is full of stuff that should really be in a shed! We would have to buy a large shed for the garden and I think we'd be okay. Other stuff is in there, like the fridge and freezer, because the integrated ones in the old kitchen don't actually work so a new kitchen would solve this!

What I don't want to do is pay a large amount for a new kitchen only to find in a few years that we want to convert the garage and then have to rip out part/all of the new kitchen and waste a lot of money.

Unexpected did you have an architect draw up plans for the conversion or is finding a good builder enough?

Thanks nunnie. Your conversion sounds great

My heart says "convert the garage" but my head is interrupting with pesky little doubts like "do you really need to do this?"

Waspie - my DH did it but he has worked as a builder in the past so had all the relevant knowledge.

We did need building control sign off which you will need as well. It's very straight forward, your LA website will have to contacts. We did it retrospectively but it's easier to do it from the off.

If you are putting a kitchen in I would recommend getting rough plans so you can make sure the services (water, waste, electricity, gas etc.) are in the right places for your kitchen layout.

An architect's technician or anyone good on CAD will be able to help.

Also bear in mind soundproofing - it's unlikely you will have soundproofing inbetween garage and the room directly above so think about that. The floor above our garage had a wooden floor and sound travelled a lot, so we put in heavy duty insulation.

I have harped on about my garage conversion on numerous occasions so for all those who know about it forgive me

We had a double garage, we converted the front bit into a playroom for the children and retained the back 1.3m for storage so we have a door going from the playroom into the store, and the original door to the back garden is in the store.

It is the best thing we have ever done, it makes you clear out all that tat that you relocate to the garage when really you should be getting rid. We have a shed that houses the children's toys and some of our garden tools (non-harmful stuff) the lawn mower/strimmer etc are in the store.

I actually did my own plans, I just used 1cm on the paper was 20cm on the ground so 5cm was 1m IYSWIM. I was applying for a kitchen extension at the same time so drew both changes on my plan and then had an architect copy my plans and apply for planning. He was around £400 for everything he did.

As you have enough off street parking, it will more than likely add value to your property to have a large kitchen diner.

Thanks Unexpected that's helpful. I will take a look at the LA website. Neither my partner or I have any practical skills so we'll need to rely on a good builder and decents drawings!

The garage doesn't have a room above it. It does have a pitched and tiled roof though so we'd need to line and insulate the whole area and the ceiling plus put a proper floor down. At the moment the gas and electricity meters are in the garage so they would need to be moved. The boiler's in the utility room so this shouldn't need to be moved. The wall we'll need to remove is a supporting wall so it will need an RSJ.

Fizzylemonade - I will get some graph paper and brush up my old technical drawing skills . I have a rough outline on excel but it's not great. I also like the sound of a good clearout. We moved in 6 monts ago and there is already tat in the garage