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Planning to convert?
If you have a garage near your home office and you are not using it for the intended purpose, then you should plan to convert it into a lavish bedroom with an attached bathroom. You will have a spare room in case of emergencies. Also, you can use it as a rental space if you are into real estate and benefit from it.
Sprucing up the place can be beneficial to you in many ways. It will increase the value of your home, and you can get a better price if you plan to sell your house in the near future. Converting the garage into a bedroom can seem like a very costly task. This assumption is valid to some extent.
A garage conversion is a lengthy and costly task. Reducing the cost is primarily the goal of every person who is undertaking this kind of task. Still, people often do not understand the importance of budgeting and how it influences the success of such a project.
There is no right method to perform this task cheaply, but there are a few things you can do to help you save money in each step. This will help you cut your expenses short as you do the conversion. Herein are tips for converting your garage into a bedroom successfully and inexpensively.
Converting the garage at a low expense
Before you start working on a garage remodelling or home improvement project, you need to decide what approach you want to take to accomplish your project. When you begin to work on it, you will see many steps and several ways to do each step.
Out of these many ways, you can stick to the cheapest one for your convenience. While going for the more affordable method, you should also expect that the converted garage might not come out as anticipated as it would have been if it had been done with a lavish budget.
Steps involved in the garage conversion
In converting your garage into a bedroom, you will need to work step by step. The steps to follow to ensure you succeed are as follows:
- Declutter and clean the garage
- Make a decision on the door
- Figure out all the utilities
- Complete the construction of the bathroom
- Flesh out the ceiling
- Insulate the walls
- Finish the flooring
- Give the room a final touch
The details of all the steps are listed in the following sections. These steps are what you need to put together your new well-furnished room in the garage. We have included the cheapest methods in this article to get the room done and still have the majority of the items you need to give your room a new look.
Follow all these steps as we have explained, and you will get the results you want.
Declutter and clean the garage
Before starting any work in the garage, you need to clean it up. So, as the first step, you should consider clearing every clutter lying around in the garage. You can see how many places you have and what you are working with. This way, you will have a clear sense of what space you are working with.
Once you have discarded everything in the garage space that you do not want to keep anymore, you need to clear away all cobwebs. When all this cleaning is done, you can shift gears and start cleaning the floor. If your floor is made of concrete, we recommend you use a pressure washer or a regular garden hose to clean it.
When you finish all the cleaning, you will have a clean and empty garage. The next step is deciding how you want to change it. If you see that the garage can only fit one car and it’s attached to your home, then you can knock down the wall between the garage and the house so you can get a bigger room or a bigger space for converting it into a room.
On the other hand, if you have enough space in the garage to use it as a master bedroom with an ensuite and a supply closet, you should work on the next steps. Double garages are typically easier to convert into a functional room, or you can even transform them into a small apartment. This step can be beneficial if your garage is located separately from the house.
Make a decision on the door
You have to make a few more decisions now that you have decided to turn the garage into a bedroom with a bathroom. After cleaning, the first thing that you need to do is determine what you want to do with the door. Mostly, garages have a roll-up door, but If yours does not have one, that is one task out of your hands, and you can skip this step.
However, if you have a roll-up door, we have some options for you, and you can decide which of these options works for your specific case.
Some of the options available to you regarding what to do with your garage door are as follows:
- You can seal the garage door entirely by adding some mass in front of it. It will close the door and also insulate the space. To fill the door, you can use curtains on the inside to cover it completely.
- Another idea is to build a wall just inside the door. For this method, you will not need to remove the door. This step will also make your garage appear put-together when you look at it from the inside.
- The most valuable and promising method will be to remove the roll-up door entirely and then place a regular and exceptionally designed door in its place. You can also replace the roll-up door with some large-sized windows. Windows are an excellent way to give a very decent look to your room.
- The last option is to remove the roll-up door and then build a wall in its place. This method will not consume much of your space, is very cost-effective, and will give an accomplished look to your room from the inside and outside.
All these four options are very significant, and each one has its pros and cons. If you consider the first option, for example, it will appear a cheaper and quicker solution; however, deep down, you know quite well that this is not a permanent solution.
In the same way, if you consider the last option, you might have to face the absence of ways by which energy and sunlight can enter the room. This is especially the case if the windows are on the smaller side of the room. This window will steal most of your natural light.
Figure out all the utilities
Now you have to check the state of electrical wiring, heating, and plumbing in the garage. When you convert the garage into a sleeping room, the design of these utilities will influence the room’s look. You might have to extend all the heating systems and other utilities from the house. You might also have to figure out the placement of electrical outlets. If you were using the garage for parking cars only, you would have to work on the wiring system from scratch.
However, if you were using it as a workshop, you do not need to work much on the wiring system. As far as the utilities are concerned, you do not need to extend the utilities if you do not want to have a water supply in the room.
But since you have to add a bathroom in the space, you will have to get all the plumbing work done by the professionals. As far as heating the space is concerned, you can use electrical appliances. Be mindful not to overload the power outlets in the room.
Complete the construction of the bathroom
If the garage does not feature a separate space for the bathroom, you should contact professional masons and build a bathroom on one side of the garage. Get an estimate of how much the construction will cost and all the bathroom fittings.
Gather all the materials and start the construction work before moving ahead with the other steps of the conversion. We recommend you go for a small bathroom with a commode and a shower.
Do not go for a lavish and furnished bathroom. A basic bathroom with the necessary accessories is enough. Get the floor plan done as you had envisioned it, and then move on with the next steps.
Flesh out the ceiling
In some cases, people usually have finished ceilings in their garages. If you are lucky enough to have a complete ceiling in your garage, you will only have to repaint the surface. It will hardly take more than one day, and you can easily do it by yourself. Professional assistance will give you a perfect finish, but it will be expensive.
If you have a large budget, you can explore various ideas on how to paint and improve the look of your ceiling. You can add skylights to your garage if you live in a single story with a flat roof. However, you should not perform this task by yourself. We would recommend you to get professional assistance in this matter.
You can get the design of the roof to match with that of the house and try to insulate it from the inside. You can also try to get a false ceiling beneath the original canopy. The space between the original roof and the constructed ceiling will be insulation. But for this option, you must have some spare inches on the top.
Insulate the walls
In most cases, garages are connected to the main house, and hence they have two or three external walls. However, people usually insulate their homes and leave the garage without insulation. So, the garages are generally not protected. People typically use the garage as a den or an area for entertainment. You will have to arrange for proper insulation to be set up in the garage to make it a comfortable place to relax and hang out.
There are several ways to insulate such a space. Additionally, there are various types of insulation that you can choose from. If you are not sure about the insulation type or method, you can go for a batt or blanket insulation. Both of these are easy to fit in a 16-inch space. You can also use 2×4 planks to build up easy insulation. When building the frame, stuff it with suitable insulation and then put up the drywall.
Fix it with a joint compound and prime the walls before painting them. You can skip this step if you have a low budget. The garage walls can provide enough insulation even if they are made from concrete only. The spaces of air between the blocks of concrete can insulate the walls. In such cases, you can put up some drywall or paint the existing walls with a fresh coat.
Finish the flooring
Most garages have a bare floor made from concrete. People usually use garages as a parking spaces or as a workshop. So, they may not have worked much on the flooring for apparent reasons. However, when you plan to convert the garage into a bedroom with a bathroom, you may have to work on the floor.
Even a carpet cannot fill up the pits and roughness of the ground. There are multitudes of ways by which you can upgrade the flooring in the garage. We have gathered some options for you. You can try any one of the listed methods below:
- Garage floor mats
- Foam puzzle mats
- Paint the concrete floor and fill the pits
- Apply special acid-based concrete stain
- Install vinyl flooring
- Linoleum
- Engineered wood flooring
Before you go for any of these options, you have to do a few things. Before applying any flooring, make sure that you check the flooring carefully. The cement in the flooring is sealed before any further work. A special liquid sealant is placed on the cement floor before moving forward with the preferred flooring option.
If you wash the surface, make sure that it is scorched before applying the flooring. When you see that the layer is dried completely, you can select the most suitable option that is friendly to your budget. Now you can install your favourite kind of flooring. You can cover the cement with rugs and carpets too.
Give the room a final touch
Now that you are done with insulating the garage and installing flooring, it’s time to give the space a final touch. First of all, check all the accessories in the bathroom. If you have enough budget, we would strongly recommend you paint the entire room along with the toilet.
Spruce the space up a bit. You can apply a peel or sticker wallpaper on the walls as well. It will save you money too. You can cover the windows and walls with curtains. This step will give a very decent and elegant look to your room. Get some attractive light fixtures and install them as furnishings.
The next step is to add the bed and other furniture according to the space in the room. Do not create a mess by filling the room with more furniture than you need. Choose simple, elegant, and decent pieces of furniture for your room. Use some old paintings or other decorative items to get a good look out of the room.
If the garage is already mostly finished, you will not find much difficulty turning it into a room. For such garages, it will be an easy and straightforward procedure. The conversion of a garage into a beautiful room depends upon the initial condition of the garage. If you have a garage in good condition, empty it, clean it and then skip to add final touches.
Hire experts to help convert the garage
This article has presented you with tips on how to do a garage conversion. At various steps, we have offered a lot of options. You can choose the most suitable one that suits your budget and makes you feel comfortable. As shown in this article, you can easily convert your garage into a functional and beautiful room.
You could do all of this by yourself, but it would be better if you gained help from professionals or genuine real estate agents because they are experts in converting garages into living spaces. They do this all day long, so they can help you transform your garage into a bedroom with a bathroom, even in a small space. But if you think you are expert enough to do this by yourself, then you should go for it.
