Garage conversion Experiences

[namasteak]

Can you share your experience with converting a garage? I’m interested in how long it took, ballpark prices and anything else you think I should know! We would like to convert 2/3 of our garage into a bedroom, bathroom & closet.

As many of you know we bought a lovely 1940s house perfect for 2 life with 2 kids and then got a big surprise with Ds3. Instead of moving we would like to renovate our current house and it might get moved up sooner because the contractors my designer neighbor used are offering a fantastic discount.

[dr.girlfriend]

Not exactly what you are asking, but FYI we knocked down our garage and built an addition in its place, and I have ZERO regrets. Previously we had thought about a conversion but it would have been a poor substitute for what we actually did in the end. I would consider the relative costs of each as well as how long you plan to stay in the house. I'm glad we waited and went big, although financially it was a huge cost that we won't make back with resale, but totally worth it for us. :-) Assuming the garage is separated from the rest of your bedrooms I don't think you'd want a kid there, and if you make it a really nice master suite hopefully you can age-in-place if you think that's a consideration.

[simpsongal]

Our neighbors converted their entire 2-car garage to living space (bedroom, bathroom, common room). They did it 15+ yrs ago and it was like $120K. HCOL.

We're hoping to do a 1 story addition in part of our garage space (mudroom and bathroom). So relatively small but we want them to extend the garage so we can still fit cars in there. DH and I are estimating that project will cost ~$60K without drawings.

Part of the cost will be jack hammering the slab to do the plumbing, how far the plumbing and toilet stacks are from the garage, same for $$ routing HVAC (and whether your current HVAC/AC units are large enough to handle the added square footage). 1 story will be cheaper than 2.

[namasteak]

Apr 14, 2020 11:34:48 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Not exactly what you are asking, but FYI we knocked down our garage and built an addition in its place, and I have ZERO regrets. Previously we had thought about a conversion but it would have been a poor substitute for what we actually did in the end. I would consider the relative costs of each as well as how long you plan to stay in the house. I'm glad we waited and went big, although financially it was a huge cost that we won't make back with resale, but totally worth it for us. :-) Assuming the garage is separated from the rest of your bedrooms I don't think you'd want a kid there, and if you make it a really nice master suite hopefully you can age-in-place if you think that's a consideration.

We definitely plan on staying here long term and could see ourselves aging in place here. It’s big enough for a family but small enough for retirees and is all on one floor. 1 extra bedroom would make a good house a perfect house. The garage is separate from the other bedrooms so it would definitely be our master suite.

Now is not really when we thought about doing this but a) interest rates are so low a cash out refinance would barely effect our monthly payment and b) the contractor we would use needs work soon and is offering a killer deal.

[mrspez07]

No experience, but make sure it’s allowed in your zoning and building codes with the jurisdiction you are in. I’ve seen quite a few (though mostly with new homes) that don’t allow garage space to be converted to living space.

[namasteak]

Apr 14, 2020 18:23:44 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

No experience, but make sure it’s allowed in your zoning and building codes with the jurisdiction you are in. I’ve seen quite a few (though mostly with new homes) that don’t allow garage space to be converted to living space.

Thank you for the reminder - we have checked and are allowed to do this.

[hamster]

We did not, but it was one of the options we explored for our addition. Honestly, it was almost the same price as just adding on at around $150 square feet. I can't remember the specifics, but option 1 (the conversion) was immediately dead in the water as we needed to build a replacement garage as well.