If you’re not using your garage, you could be throwing away a great space. As people sell their cars or decide to park on the street, the garage often stands empty and useless.
Garages, however, have a lot of potential and instantly add about 400 square feet of room to your home. Since the walls and roof are already up, redoing your garage is much cheaper than adding onto your house.
All you need is the drive and a little creativity to make your garage the best space in the house. Check out these fun conversion ideas for your garage and get to work.
Exercise Room
All or part of the garage can easily be transformed into a great workout space that will save you time, energy and a gym membership.
Photo: CC-BY-SA 2011 Elliott Cable
Pick out your weights and machines based on what you know you like to do. Treadmills are great for runners and walkers, but you might not know if you’ll actually like running. Instead try an elliptical machine or a stair-stepper. Install a sound system or listen to music on your phone or mp3 player. You can even hook up an older TV out there to give you something to concentrate on while you’re moving.
If you have the space, adding a weight lifting bench and some weights will help you build muscle and shed fat. Test out the weights at the fitness store first to see how heavy you should start. As you get stronger, you can always buy more weights, but having one set to start out with is enough.
Add a Bedroom or an Apartment
Garages not in use make great bedrooms with a little remodeling. These types of additions are perfect if you have long-term guests, such as a family member or a friend who is in need of a temporary home. To give them more privacy, consider installing a small bathroom so they won’t have to go so far to wash their faces and brush their teeth.
Some garages have space above, an attic. If the ceiling is high enough, this can also be converted into another bedroom. With all this extra space, you might want to consider redoing the whole garage and renting it out for some extra money. Now you’ll really need to install a full-functioning shower and kitchenette. It doesn’t have to be the fanciest kitchen, but the appliances should be up-to-date, and everything should be clean. Extra insulation wouldn’t hurt either.
Entertainment Room
Since garages are wide, open spaces, they’re the perfect place to set up a game or entertainment room. There’s plenty of space for some bigger games, like pool or ping-pong, and your guests will have plenty of room to play.
Photo: CC-BY-2.0 2011 Martin Thomas
You can also put your biggest couch in here along with nice, big screen TV and sound system for the perfect TV watching experience. Think of how cool your favorite action movies will on the big screen, and how awesome that goal or touchdown will appear.
If you have young children, this could also be the perfect entertainment room for them. It’s a place they can confine their mess and leave their toys out and set up. You won’t be stepping on Legos in the house or tripping over Barbies. Now they’ll have their own space, and you can keep the house looking neat and tidy.
Hobby Room
Many hobbies require a lot of space so you can really work. A warm garage would be the ideal place for you to work for hours on your favorite hobby, and you have all the room to do so.
Photo: CC-BY-2.0 2013 suzy spence
Set up a work bench, shelves and cabinets if you like car restoring, woodworking, model crafting or other hands-on hobbies. A nice, comfy table and chair with a TV and a coffee pot would be perfect for any seamstress or scrapbooker.
You also don’t have to limit yourself to one hobby in your garage. There should be plenty of space for all of your hobbies plus your family’s hobbies. Do puzzles together or build models. This can be a great way to bring the family together and have some fun and spend some quality time together.
The Noise-Free Home Office
One of the best things about garages is they’re usually silent. The noise is contained in the house, and so few people spend a lot of time in the garage. In fact, they’ll spend even less time in there if you convert it into your own home office.
Having your own office can be a lifesaver. Some nights, you just have to take work home with you, and there are a lot more distractions at home than at work. It can be hard to block out family, pets and other household matters that need attention. With an office in the garage, you remove yourself from the chaos and give yourself plenty of space to work, away from the temptation of the couch and television.
This is also the best place to launch your own business. Companies like Apple and Hewlett-Packer got their starts in garages. You can cut down start-up costs by turning your garage into a home office and building up from there.
Store-It Space
Some houses just don’t have enough closets. When all of your closets fill up and the beds have too much stuff underneath, turning the garage into a storage space can be a lifesaver.
Photo: CC-BY-ND 2010 mtneer_man
With just a few large shelves and cabinets, you’ll be able to store all of your belongings in a safe place. You can organise everything and finally put all of the holiday decorations in the same place. You can also store canned foods out here, along with any dried spices.
You also won’t have to do a lot of converting either. There’s no need to keep a bunch of boxes warm, so if you only want to take out the garage door, that will be more than enough. No extra insulation, flooring or dry walling is necessary unless you want to make the room look a little nicer