Converting a Garage into a Family Room
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion Archive: Archive February 2005:
Converting a Garage into a Family Room
Dh and I have talked about moving for a couple of years now because we feel as the kids get older we are outgrowing our house (we would also like a fourth bedroom for when we have guests). We have been remodeling our house as we've had the time and funds since we bought it 7 years ago and now that we have it the way we want it we really don't want to sell, but until last night, we didn't see any other way to get the extra room we feel we need. Then it hit us - why not convert the garage into a family room, convert the family room (the bonus room upstairs) into a fourth bedroom, and forget the idea of having to move to a bigger house. It really would be do-able for us because then we can build a carport at the end of the driveway and later enclose it and make it a garage if we wanted to.
Has anyone here ever converted their garage into a living space? I would love to hear from those of you who have done this in the past! I'd like to get an idea of the costs of a project like this, how you set up the space, whether you are happy with it or regret it, etc. TIA
I do not know alot about this but I know my parents house had this done before they moved into it. I lived in there and it was nice, because it had it's own door to go in and out. Good Luck
I've never done this but the one thing I would be thinking of is the floor. I assume your garage floor is concrete so you need to decide if you're going to break that all up and create some sort of basement or crawl space underneath (expensive, of course) or if you're going to just lay thick padding and carpet over the existing concrete. If you lay carpet over it it will be very cold. I should have checked your profile first, to see where you live. Maybe the cold isn't so much a factor. But the floor is the one thing I'd be most worried about. Other than that I imagine you would just add extra wiring and outlets to the studs in the garage (or maybe your garage is already drywalled??) and just drywall, add a ceiling, and you're done! Because it's technically already framed in, it shouldn't be nearly as expensive as starting from scratch.
We had this in a house we lived in. We didn't do it ourselves, but it is one of the reasons we bought the house. It was wonderful. My dh is a builder and I was in real estate so I can give you some ideas on where the costs might be. I am in the south, most foundations are slab, so having the concrete sub floor was not a big deal. Carpet and padding was layed on top. You did have to step down, but there were steps so it gave it that sunken room effect rather than drop off. If you wanted to have it on the same level as the rest of your house you would have to raise the floor, that would add into the expense.You would need to decide if you want to sheet rock or panel the walls or both. Ours were both so that helped as far as insulating it, but again the more you do to the walls, the more it costs. They added a window unit rather than continuing the central air. That would be something you would need to decide. We really enjoyed that room.
When I was younger I worked for a daycare that was in the converted garage of the house. It was never cold and the floor was probably the most soft of all the house because they went in trying to make the floor really soft because of the concrete floor. It worked well for them and the only drawback I can see is not having a garage to store your stuff not to mention your car. I dont know what it does to the property resale value not having a garage but if you plan on putting one in I think it is a great idea. And it means you dont have to move, a big expense and a pain in the rear end.
Thanks for the responses. I'm glad to hear they are positive although if anyone has a negative experience I'd like to hear it too.
Cold isn't much of a problem as we live in Georgia, but we do plan on raising the floor slightly because we do not want the room to be level with the driveway. It would still be a step down from the main part of the house, but not a big step. We are also thinking of putting in a platform step to help safeguard against falls that might occur if you missed a regular sized step down. We would do this project ourselves. Dh is very handy around the house and I can drive a nail and paint. We just finished a kitchen and downstairs bath remodel where dh knocked out some walls, built new walls, and moved ac/heat ducts to better suit us so he says he shouldn't have a problem running the ac/heat to the room. We probably would need to buy and install a second unit to heat and cool the extra space, but we already need second unit (we've put off purchasing one since we thought we'd be moving) because the one unit doesn't do a good enough job on keeping the upstairs heated and cooled like we would like.
I'm getting more and more excited about building this room!!! I know our dd doesn't want to move because her friends are here, my best friend lives across the street, our other neighbors are great, and my parents are only 5 miles away so there are lots of good reasons for us to stay in this house if we can add on the extra space we need.
I always lean towards adding on as long as it doesn't price you out of the market.
I thought I would add something negative for you! LOL Dont you love me? My sister lives in a home that is like this. The previous owners had converted the garage into a 4th bdrm. Its the mst bdrm. It has 1/2 bath (no shower or tub)... They have had so much trouble with this room leaking for some reason. So all I have to say is make sure whoever does this for you does it RIGHT!!!!
On a positive note--my Grandparents added on to their home (yrs ago). They built te biggest den I have ever seen, a 2 car garage, and a basement underneath... I love their house. They didnt skimp when they added on and I swear you can fit 50 people in their den alone and still have room left over. I love it and I hope to add on a nice family room like this someday to our home. Our living room is way too small.
Have fun! Do your research (like you are) and go for it!!
I have heard a converted garage makes the value of a house go down. We added a room above the garage and it made the value of our house go up. Check with realtors in your area.
We did this in our house in IL. It was awesome! It brought the value of our home up. It also created the extra room we needed for four kids.
I have lived in two homes where this was done. Home one was where I grew up, my parents converted the garage to their bedroom, they added two big closets and a full bath. It was great. Again in texas here, so concrete slabs are just normal. They loved their room, it was nice, private, etc.
We rented a house that they garage was converted into a family room. Again it was nice. We had a step down, it was no big deal, no one ever fell. What I didn't like about it was there was a huge opening where you entered the house, probably 4 french doors worth. This was too big, it make furnishing the room difficult. They had built ins for the tv, shelves etc where you would have driven in. This left your couch pretty far from that or on the wall facing the opening. I would have prefered a smaller opening. My suggestion would be just draw out what you want to do with that room before you start knocking the wall down.
I saw houses where this was done when I was house hunting. Watching the level is really important, and I like your idea of a platform. And, you may have to do something about the foundation/floor to prevent problems with insects or other visitors, as well as rain, of course.
If it were me, I'd check with my county or township office by going in and talking to whoever deals with building codes to see if this is even feasible in terms of what your community governing body allows.
I agree with those who say "draw it out" first. And while you and dh are pretty handy, I think you want a professional to deal with the floor, plumbing and wiring.
If you are planning on raising the floor anyway, perhaps you could add infloor heating to that room...then you wouldn't have to worry about a cold floor. I'm in the north so I don't have a clue..do the nights get cold where you are at?
In our area, a converted garage brings down the value of a home as well. Check this out with local realtors. If not then I think it is a great idea.
We converted our three bedroom into a four bedroom by making the dining room into a fourth bedroom. We also added on family/ FL room with windows, hardwood flooring and an ac/heater unit, separate from the house's unit.
Anyway you do it you'll love the extra space...and the chance to buy new furniture! LOL
Here is an article on converting your garage to living space. The average price quoted for 2001 was a VERY resonable price I thought.
http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=converting+a+garage+into+living+room&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3D2134641c100dfd4f%26clickedItemRank%3D5%26userQuery%3Dconverting%2Ba%2Bgarage%2Binto%2Bliving%2Broom%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fforpros.lowes.com%252Farticles.cfm%253Faid%253D76%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DnsBrowserRoll%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fforpros.lowes.com%2Farticles.cfm%253Faid%253D76
I didn`t read the other post`s though I just wanted to add that I read an article about this in Martha Stewart living mag. and Handy Man mag.
They had step by step instructions ,I am sure you could reveiw the back issues on
the internet.
I would love to do that ,we have to many projects going on right now though.
Thanks for all the feedback!
I really do think it'll be a good move for us and we do not think that pricing out of our market and/or not having a garage will be a problem for us, but we know a realtor (my family has known her for years and she even sold us this house) so I'll check with her to be sure. We live at a lake, well one road off the lake but within walking distance, and many of the houses here do not have garages and many of them are quite a bit bigger than our house. As a matter of fact, out of all our neighbors, our house is the smallest. We do plan on adding on a carport and eventually enclosing it to turn it into a garage so we won't be without a garage forever. We have over 1/2 acre and the houses aren't really close to each other so we do have the room to build on a carport/garage without getting too close to the property line.
Dh has started drawing some plans out on graph paper and yes, we will be doing most of the work, but will probably call my dad for the things we may need help with (he owns a contracting company in our area). We've done a lot of extensive remodeling in the past both with this house and with our previous house so we are confident that we can do this.
I'm glad to hear so many of you like your converted garage or know someone who likes theirs. We talked about heated floors, but I don't think we really need to go to that expense unless we decide to put in wood or ceramic tile flooring. It just doesn't get cold enough here. We do think we would like to add a Soap Stone Woodburning Stove (we've admired them for years) in the room to help heat it since it is so big. Luckily for us the garage is already drywalled and the ceiling is even textured like the rest of our house. The builder did a nice job finishing out the garage.
Maybe it's the excitement, but we really can't come up with any major "cons" to this project and we can see a lot of "pros" and we are hoping to start this project this summer (I told dh we have to finish a couple of other projects first). Thanks again for all the BTDT and advice. Oh, and I checked out the site you listed, Tammie, and I am very pleased. We had roughly figured it would cost us around $10k.
I am jealous! I would love to add on to my house. Enjoy!
The main reason a value goes down is lack of garage but since you plan on adding a garage at a seperate date you should increase in value!
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