Please show me your garage conversion!!!

[Elmo22]

Hello, we have (slowly) started making changes to our house and, after over 4 and a half years living here, it is finally feeling like our home. We are now considering converting our garage to increase our living space. The cost won’t be too considerable but I am worried about the narrowness of the room which will be just over 9 ft wide and almost 20 ft long. Please show me your garage conversions and reassure me!!

We managed to get a study, utility and downstairs loo out of ours whilst retaining a bit of garage for storage. It has been such a good use of space.

We've turned ours into a snug, downstairs shower room and coat/shoe storage. The snug is the most used room in the house!

Ours was converted before we moved in. We use it as a dining room. It’s fine but a bit long… I’ve I’d converted it I would have used a portion at the back to turn into a downstairs toilet, and turned our current downstairs toilet into storage. I would also have put a bigger window in as the back portion is quite dark.

Ours is same size OP.

Honestly it does feel long and narrow and we only use it as a guest room. Also it’s freezing: whatever the builder aays about insulation tell him to double it unless you have cavity walls on all sides of the garage.

If I could redo it I’d get a much bigger utility room and bathroom out of the soace and nust have a small bedroom / study. But you may eg need a games room for teens!

Thanks everyone! I am glad so many people are happy with their conversions. Good shout on the insulation too. It will definitely be a room that will be used - we are hoping it will be a snug/ family space that will flow easily from the kitchen.

We've lived in two houses with garage conversions. Both were freezing cold, narrow and dark. The current conversion has a shower room and toilet at the end. The toilet is useful but noone uses the shower because it's not appealing in location or warmth. The shower room makes the conversion less long which is good but adds another wall with a door on so no good for furniture. The rest of the room is used as a playroom/ snug but despite sofa and TV its only used for storing toys.

Ours is a snug and a gym. I’d echo what everyone take has said. Lose a few cm of width and up the insulation!

Yes i agree on insulation, ours is a little chilly!
We just have one long narrow room but it's fine for our purposes: we have a desk running along the far end where the garage door used to be (desk is made from an IKEA wooden kitchen counter top with IKEA cupboards built over and under it - it looks amazing and makes the room feel wider. )
In the middle we have a small sofa and TV and also a heated drying rack.

I love our garage conversion

I'll be doing a conversion over the next year. After a full house reno I'm now out of cash and need to save the funds.
I'll definitely be having good insulation similar to the garden room I've had built. Was considering a skylight for extra light as it's likely to be dark although it's going to be my chill out space, spare room, kids hang out when older. Will put underfloor heating in too and an electric shower as anticipate only occasional use
Dimensions are the same I think, may be 30 feet.

No idea how ours was insulated as it was done by previous owners but ours is as warm as the rest of the house.

I’m actually thinking of converting the back half of the the second garage into an office this year so will have to dig out the paperwork from the last conversion.

We incorporated the back of ours into a bigger extension to create a huge open plan kitchen / living / dining room.

The front is currently a playroom / massive toy cupboard. We've put the electrics in though that it could become a homework room / study as the kids grow up.

We're currently making a bodged garage conversion useable. Former owner had turned it into a bedroom and en suite but without insulating walls or adding damp proof course under the floor. It had been done for an elderly relative who must have had a miserable time living in a cold, damp mouldy bedroom - it also had black mould in the walls from a bodged roof!

We're turning it into a study and utility room which will, I think, make better use of the long narrow space. But it's had to be ripped right back to the walls and floor to make it useable.

We converted our free standing garage into a half an half garage and home office.

Took the car door front off and built a frame to put a normal front door on it.

No window in the office, but that doesn't actually bother me.

We insulated it so well, it's as warm as a normal room in a house, even against the other half that isn't insulated.

I love it. A lot.

Thank you for all the ideas and advice. My husband has taken a bit of persuading to convert the garage but, now that he has sourced a reliable shed building company to store all our bits from the garage, he is up for this. I will show him these posts.

We split ours into a utility room at the back (accessed via the kitchen) and a snug at the front.

We laid underfloor heating, which has been fantastic in this cold snap!