All You Need To Know About Converting a Garage

Garage Conversions….. the First Steps.

I can see your garage from here!

It’s chock full of bikes your kids will never use again, (or are you keeping them for your grandchildren?)

And that surfboard you made when you were 18!

Then there’s all those stored bits of wood that might come in useful one day…….Which day? And what’s that rusting away on the driveway?...........

Oh yes, your £12,000 BMW!

If I had a quid for every garage I’ve been in that fits this description I’d have enough to hire a skip to clear my own out.

Chuck it out

So, there’s the cheap option for you……. “Skip” all the rubbish and put the car away, if it will fit in that is. Have you noticed how big cars are these days?

And use the space properly...

Option two is turn the garage into a room. Everyone and his dog absolutely must have a home office these days and an underused integral or adjoining garage is just made for the job.

I’m sitting in mine right now writing this by the way. The underused garage that is…..hiding from my lovely wife who wants me to take her shopping for chintz.

Now I don’t know what chintz is, but I do know it will involve me lounging by a pillar in some shop somewhere, saying “Yes Dear”, every 7 minutes!

Converting your garage is cheaper than building an extension or converting the loft.

A double adjoining or integral garage need only have it’s nearest half converted so you can still have a garage to fill up with rubbish when you're finished!

Building Control

We always assume that you are working in conjunction with building control, ie not getting Roy Rodgers and Jay Silverheels (you have to be 60 I'm afraid), to do it at weekends.

Therefore all processes are followed correctly and legally, such as ensuring continuity between DPM and DPC's etc. (sorry, bit too technical, I'll stop now before you eyes glaze over)!

And Finally

When the building work is eventually finished……There's floating wooden flooring, "home office" furniture, that gym equipment you'll never use, a drum kit and 8,000 quid's worth of home cinema equipment to install?

Cor blimey, what busy complicated "lifestyles" we all lead. I remember when the biggest refurb. decision made in my house, was whether to put new oilcloth down in the kitchen. (We didn’t).

What's a "lifestyle" anyway?

Is it the same thing as dragging yourself out of bed in the morning, fighting through traffic going to work in your Audi, coming home knackered at night, having your dinner, shouting at the kids, falling asleep on the settee 4 nights out of 5, then cycling round the park on Sunday morning with your sunglasses on, fooling yourself that you look like Tom Cruise and whatshername………..or is that self-delusion?
I keep forgetting!