Has anyone converted half a garage?

[Flickoffboris]

We're thinking of converting the back half of the garage into an office, as WFH for foreseeable.
Has anyone got any tips / advice / words of wisdom?
We'll do the work ourselves I'm guessing, and don't need the garage for parking, it's just a dumping ground for bicycles / half used tins of paint / general crap

I've seen quite a few houses where the back of the garage has been converted, though haven't done it myself.

Does your garage have a kitchen / other room behind it, or is it completely to the side of your house (so the new room could easily have a window out to the back ?

Saw a lot of these when we were house hunting.

To be honest, most looked like a garage conversion, in that they had no window, and they felt like a square hole. It was only a few that felt like a decent room.

I do think you should think about a window, even if it is a light well in some way.
Also floor level, the step down into the garage makes it feel like it isn't part of the house.
Plus doorway into the remainder of the garage, needs to be well sealed.

If you do it, make sure the floor is well sealed and insulated as well as insulating the walls and ceiling - otherwise you'll be cold while sat in one spot.

We converted a double garage, so effectively took one garage as a room in the house. So a bigger job than yours. We got it done by a builder.

I was gobsmacked by the effort required for fire regulations which I would never have thought about at all if we did it ourselves. The big surprise for me was that the entire garage including the part we didnt convert, had to have a fire retardant ceiling put in. Also we had to have a fire door from the garage conversion into the other half of the garage, which had special rules for fire regs too. We had to have an inspection to get the room signed off with the relevant certificate from our local authority.

So, my tip is, even if you are doing quite a small project don't assume fire regulations are irrelevant. Do some research and make some phone calls to make sure you tick any boxes, better to be safe than sorry as if you ever want to sell the house, having all the certificates in order would be advisable.

My parents did this and made a utility room. They put in a really big window on the side so it's very light.

However it doesn't feel.like part of the house as it has a fire door between the main house and the utility room, plus 2 steps down into it.

Do you have a utility room that you could move into your garage then convert the original room into a study? That might work better

Thanks for all the replies.
The garage already had a big double glazed window at the back, and a very clearly bricked up back door, which we'd just reinstate, so it could be accessed from round the back of the house if that makes sense... Its attached to the side of the house, but not integrated.

@sillyoldmummy I hadn't even thought about fire regs, so thanks for that.

@EmmaGrundyForPM we want it to feel totally removed from the house out "office" is really just the box room, and WFH with the dc here is tricky. With a completely removed office the wfh parent can just take themselves off and put in a shift.

Check to see if the works would require Planning and/or Building Regulations.

We've just converted a garage - the whole thing, not just part as you're proposing. Definitely, definitely consider building regs - we needed a massive amount of insulation and fire retardancy, and the inspector even made our builder re-do part of it was he hadn't got a thick enough layer in. You'll need proper floors and ceilings, otherwise it will feel damp and unpleasant.

Don't be put off though - I really love our conversion, it works brilliantly for us.