Garage conversion expertise please

[Newusername87]

We are considering converting our unused but massive garage into a livable space for our two children as they get older. We live remotely in a village, and I like the idea of them and their friends having a nice space to hang out (comfy chairs, table tennis etc).

i’m looking for anyone who has gone through the process of converting an attached garage - what was your experience of planning permission? (Building regs?) How long did it take? Any regrets or lessons learnt? Did it add any value to your property?

diagram attached. The garage door would become a wall with window, with an internal door build on the thinner, not thicker, internal wall. The space cut off would be for storing garden bits (indicated by my drawing of a spade and a mower…)

Huge thanks in advance!

We are in the north east and did our conversion in 2021, we used an architect and he did all the necessary applications for building regs. The process was fairly simple and under £1k. In total the conversion came in at about £10k. We have a window at one end and French doors into the garden at the other. We had a media wall built with an inset fire.

We did it about 18 years ago in a previous house-we only needed a building warrant, cost is immaterial as it was so long ago, but it was money well spent

We've recently had the house valued and its increased by £40k but there's no way of knowing if that's due to the additional room or a general increase we've seen in our area.

We had other electric work done in and out of the house at the same time (outside lights, electric socket etc). We access the room from our kitchen.

I can honestly say we have no regrets, we used a local builder and it was seamless.