Reverse garage conversion

[Gentlemanwiththistledownhair]

Hi, has anybody turned living space into a garage?

We're in the process of looking at converting two semi-detached houses into one and are considering converting part of one of the houses into an integral garage. Is this a completely stupid idea?!

The key difference for this conversion is that one of the houses is an empty shell. The builders put up the outside shell for both and made watertight, then finished one house and left the other. So it has no floors, stairs or internal walls. But we would need to replace the front door and window with a garage door and presumably add a steel for structural support.

I suppose I'm just asking because everyone else in the area seems to be converting garages into living space! We would have enough living space with the garage included, but wondering whether we'd regret it in the long term. I also don't understand the planning application implications.

We do have a drive big enough for our cars so wouldn't need to park in it

Are you going to live there? Do you want a garage? Can the drive be gated? Do you have side access to the back garden for e.g. bikes in a shed or would you have to go through house?

If you wouldn't need to park in it then why?! If you have a good reason to want one then go for it but I can't think of anything but storage which you don't really need a garage door for?

What about a large utility / storage room -isn't that what people use garages for anyway?

Why would you want to drive a car into your house if you can park on the driveway?

I think garages have to have lower floors than the rest of the house to prevent petrol spills.

I am biased as our house has an attached garage which also houses a WC, and our fridge/freezer, washing machine, tumble dryer, all DIY tools and materials, and bulky items that will not fit in the loft (like our roof box for the car). It also houses my first car, which happens to be vintage and wouldn't enjoy being out in all weathers.

Ours isn't a glamorous space at all and it's only single leaf brick construction, (and we haven't got an insulated garage door or anything so the wind rattles through it), but it's so handy to have a proper dry working space with light and electricity and I'd be lost without it.

We have a shed used for bikes and garden children's toys etc. but it couldn't fit any of the larger things in it that we store in the garage...

The only thing our garage lacks is natural light - a high level secure window or two would really make it.

I'm probably old fashioned but I think a garage is always useful and flexible.

Mainly for storage of stuff that we don't want in the house. Or to not have to traipse it through the house to use: car stuff (we have LOTS), bikes etc.

The gap between the two houses and next door is tiny, think wheelie bin width, so not really practical.

Another option is to keep the second front door and use it as a glorified shed, which would mean we loose less living space, but wouldn't that look weird?

Another complication us that we wouldn't need the space right now (kitchen & dining room in other half of house, lounge upstairs to take into account fab view & light from up there), but we want to future proof as much as possible for teens etc.

To answer pp's questions, we have a large drive (for more cars than we own) but no gates etc. And yes, we are planning on living there

Peach is right, building regs part b3 section 5.5. Garage floors need to be 100mm min lower than the main house or laid to a fall so that any petrol spills drain away from the main house.