Image credit: Essential Home
If you need to create more usable space at home, you may want to renovate your garage. Especially if you aren’t using your garage to park your car. According to research carried out by RAC Home Insurance, more than half (5.7m) of the UK’s estimated 11m garages are not used to park cars in them. If that is the case, there may be a great opportunity for you to create more functional space at home. As with most things though, don’t rush. Firstly, you need to think about your lifestyle and your family’s needs so that you can figure out the best use of the space for maximum impact.
Why Renovate Your Garage?
There are many reasons you might want to renovate your garage. If you are not using it to park your car, renovating it will offer more than a few benefits, like:
Adding Extra Storage
Using your garage is a great way to create more storage at home. If you have a lot of clutter around your home, then your garage can be a great place to keep extra belongings, as well as gardening tools. However, to avoid your garage becoming a dumping group, you will need to ensure that you put the effort into your garage storage so that everything is stored neatly and is easy to find at a later date.
Adding Extra Living Space
You could renovate your garage to create more living space at home by turning your garage into another room, like a living room or even a bedroom. This gives you noticeably more living space, which can be an area many homeowners want to focus on especially if your home is now too small. You’ll have more breathing room in your home because of it.
Increasing Your Home Value
Speaking of adding extra living space, this is always a great way to increase your home’s value. It’s great if you’re considering selling up at any point. This doesn’t just happen when you convert your garage, though. You’ll see an increase in property value for most of the garage renovations you invest in.
Making it More Functional
Focusing on specific renovations in your garage can make it much more functional. You’ll be able to use it a lot more, either for storage or for other activities. While this depends on the exact improvements you go for, it’s still a noticeable benefit.
These are all appealing benefits if you are gearing up to renovate your garage. When you do, it could be worth focusing on a few particular renovation ideas.
Renovate Your Garage: 5 Great Ideas to Try
Bespoke garage doors from Thomas Sanderson
1. Add Some Windows
It is easy to overlook windows when you renovate your garage. This means there’ll be a distinct lack of natural light. This might not be a problem if the garage will be used for extra storage but if you are converting it into an extra room, you may want to add more windows or even french doors.
Maximising the natural light in any living area is so important for our health and well-being and general mood and will really help to improve the feel of the new living space.
Don’t forget to think about security when installing additional windows considering that your converted garage will be ground level.
2. Install New Garage Flooring
If you’ve been using your garage constantly for parking your car, there will have been a lot of wear and tear on the flooring.
This makes it a great area to focus on when you renovate your garage. Installing new garage flooring can completely transform the garage, especially if you just have bare concrete in the first place. There are plenty of options for garage flooring, many of which can stand up to wear and tear.
Epoxy flooring can often be a great option to go with because of how durable it is.
3. Invest in Storage
Homeowners always need storage around their homes. I mean can you ever really have enough storage?The garage can often be one of the best places to put a lot of this storage. That’s especially true when you want to store garden tools but it can also be great for storing other seasonal items like your summer or winter wardrobe, Christmas decorations or beach equipment like paddle boards or surfboards. Tufferman shelving is one of the more notable shelving options.
You could even consider using the garage ceiling for extra storage, as long as you get a little creative with it. Storing your belongings up on the ceiling also keeps the floorspace free from clutter.
4. Improve the Lighting
Garages aren’t known for being one of the better lit places in a home, and this is always worth investing in. It’s one of the easier renovations you can go with.
You don’t even need to spend a lot of time or money on this. It could just be a matter of installing a few battery-operated lights or using LED strip lighting in the right places.
Even investing in motion-activated lighting can be worth it. There are plenty of options, so you’ll find the perfect one for you.
5. Consider a Conversion
One of the larger garage renovations you can go for is a complete conversion. While this is a relatively expensive path to go, it can offer so much. Depending on the size of your garage you could even turn it into a separate living dwelling that you could rent out for some extra income.
Get as creative as you want with this, and you’ll notice a massive difference in the before and after.
Tips to Renovate Your Garage
Parma design double bi-fold garage doors in European oak from Urban Front
Each of the above garage renovations can be great to invest in, but they’ll take a bit of time and work. They can feel a little stressful, but there are multiple ways to make it easier, with a few tips standing out. Investing in these from the start makes the process go relatively easy, with the most notable including:
Research Your Costs Online
When you renovate your garage it can be an expensive prospect, depending on what you’re having done. Since nobody wants to run into financial surprises, it’s worth taking the time to research your potential costs ahead of time. That way, you can figure out exactly what you can afford to do.
DIY What You Can
Speaking of costs, it’s always worth trying to keep these down as much as you can. One of the better ways of doing this is taking a DIY approach. If you can do specific renovations or upgrades yourself, then do them yourself. Leave the rest to a professional, especially if building regulations come into play. It’s cheaper to pay the professional once than to get them in to rectify your mistakes.
Focus on Functionality
While you’ll naturally want your garage to look amazing, don’t overlook functionality. The more functional your garage is, the more you’ll end up using it.
Don’t Stress Over Permits
Permits are usually needed for large renovations and constructions. Since your garage is already built, though, any building work will probably come under permitted development. Try not to stress over permits too much but do your research first to cover yourself.
Renovating your garage often seems like a complicated and stressful time, especially when you’re investing in a lot of improvements. But the benefits will definitely outweigh the stress in the long-term. Just make sure you think things through, do your research, decide on your budget and then renovate your garage!