Need more space? Thought about converting the integral garage?

Happy New Year everyone! Did you have a lovely festive break? I hope so. Have you taken your decorations down yet? Are you looking around the place desperately wishing you had more room? I know I am. But as buying and selling is becoming more and more costly, not to mention slightly impossible given the current climate (**coughs – Brexit**) more of us than ever are extending, expanding and increasing the square footage of our existing homes. A lot of us already have the space we need, we just don’t use it too wisely. Cue the introduction of a recent remote project i’ve been working on:

A familiar sight if ever I saw one. The integral garage. The garage with the car parked outside on the drive. Who actually parks their car in garages anymore? Nobody. Apart from my father in law who swears his car will rust and explode if it’s left outside in the mizzle. Anyway – i’m sure the next picture is what a lot of you are more used to seeing in your garages:

Stuff!

Old furniture, exercise equipment, DIY stuff, bikes, bits of old bikes, shed loads of boxes. Do you say things like this;

Oh no, don’t throw that away, i’ll keep that, it might come in handy one day…?

583 days later, it’s now underneath another 14 useful sized boxes, a deflated pilates ball and two more bike wheels with a wonky spoke and a flat tyre. I’ve written these words on here before, but i’m literally going to copy and paste them here again:

We’d all pay for a larger house, so why do we find it so hard to let go of the things that make our homes smaller?

And what do we all crave, well most of us? Space! So do yourself a favour, fill your car boot with all that ‘just incase’ stuff and drop it at the charity shop. It will make you feel brilliant as you are giving to someone else, but also giving yourself some sp_a_a_a_ace.

Anyway, less of the lectures and onto design stuff…. Here was my brief:

“We’re converting our existing garage and I’d like to create a light space for a home office with built in storage, large desk and double sofa bed for guests.”

Ok then, time to get to work.

Below is the hallway that was soon to lead into the integral garage you saw above.

A new doorway was to be knocked out where that old window (now mirror) is. And here’s the rough plan sent by my client with the room’s measurements on.

Here’s what I came up with, taking into account:

the timescales, (project was due to start in 3 weeks)
budget (pretty tight considering the desired finish and functions the room needed to provide)
room size (not massive by any means)
design inspiration from the client’s Pinterest board (very monochrome with, blonde woods and pops of colour)

Floor-plan

Design Concept

Everything was sent across along with a load of supporting notes and info as well as a Pinterest board filled with links to everything in the room and where to buy it. A few tweaks were made here and there but all in all, my client took the design and completely ran with it.

Here are some photos of the project midway and nearing completion:

During

This is where the old up and over garage door would have been. The new window echoes the opposite side of the house, now making this property double-fronted. Lovely.

During

The desk (which was easily made up using Ikea drawers and a sheet of OSB on top) is one of the cheapest ways of adding a touch of bespoke design to a space. I didn’t want to specify an actual piece of furniture here as the finished sizes of the room were unclear. The external walls would have been single skin but as part of the project were being built up to a double skin for insulation purposes. Getting a piece of sheet material cut to size once a room was complete took away any issues or discrepancies in the final room dimension. And it’s cheap as chips.

The OSB continued to the back wall which hides the boiler in the right side, general storage in the middle and coats and shoes on the left.

Nearly completed

Getting a sofa bed in here was tricky. Not so much the sofa bit of it, it was the bed that proved difficult. The entrance door on the opposite wall was almost central meaning the swing of the door would have hit the bed. So there was a compromise on the double sofa bed and we had to opt for the small Haru double at 1.2m wide and six foot long. Mixing my measurements there, I hate it when people do that. Soz.

Am really proud of my client on this one, i’ve been working on and off with her for about two years now and this is the first time she’s just gone for it. There are still finishing touches to go of course; artwork, window blinds, some snagging… oh and add the actual computer, but i’d say their old garage space has scrubbed up pretty well. What do you lot think?

Do you have a room or space at home that isn’t pulling its weight? Is it full of crap you don’t really need? Well you can either keep filling it and moaning about how you’ve not got enough room to swing a cat. OR. You can getting loading that car boot and get a cat. I know what i’d do!