I agree about the 2 doors most buyers would like a double garage so make it as easy as possible to convert.

is this a real renovation or just practice space? will it still be garage like inside?

if you arent going to take out the asphalt leading to the unused side, or raise the floor inside, then have the garage framed for two doors, buy two doors. no one cares there is a drummer inside one of the doors. don't break the outside of your house unnecessarily.

buy your husband an oriental rug.

we took out one garage door on our vacation home, (to put in oil heat instead of the heat pump that was there... no basement.) the swing door is very convenient. we have a separate 3 car garage but i'd be the first to say the house looks less good this way than with two doors.

Depending on the cost, I intend to do a full-fledged professional conversion of the left half of my 23 ft wide x 20 ft deep garage into a 10 ft wide x 20 ft deep practice space for my very loud drummer husband who currently practices in our aluminum sunroom (bless our neighbors who have put up with him for 15 yrs! & me for having no sunlight entering the back of my house ; ). Most say I'm crazy to do this, but this is probably our forever home, Charleston is a hot market, and I could describe it as a theater room if I ever were to sell. We live in a flood zone so our house is 5 ft high. There are steps leading down to garage which is at ground level. We would begin by framing in half of the garage facade & installing a new single door to replace the current double door. Once that is done we would have the most expensive part: the concrete piers extending from the garage slab floor to support the new floor so it is level with the rest of the house. We are lucky to have a garage with a huge ceiling! Sooo back to the original question, how do I make the exterior look normal? It helps that we have a huge oak tree in front so the driveway is only a few feet long in front of where the new room will be, helping it blend. My concern is merely what will become the dead/negative/blank space. It will just be a wall of nothing but boring vinyl siding 10 ft wide and 8 ft high (see photos/it will be the left side). Thank you all so much!!! Sorry for being so long winded.

So, a 150K drum practice area? Because it will have to be above BFE to get permitted, so half of the garage will need to be rebuilt entirely to make that happen. Then you will need to redo the driveway entirely. And don’t think you can do all of anything without permits either.

Better to just hang some acoustic foam and put in a motel unit heat pump for climate control. And leave it a garage.

Your idea of a faux window is best.

Wow! What a great community. This was my first design dilemma & you all gave such great advice. Sophie, I think you saved me a lot of time & heartache from the quotes I would have received. I think what I will do is keep it at floor level & save a lot of money. For the exterior, I will either split the door as most of you suggested or reduce to a single door, square off the corners as groveraxle suggested & dress it up like phuninthesun so beautifully demonstrated. Ninigret, your home is lovely & the work you did looks completely natural. I will definitely get a beautiful rug. Drums look so nice in the photo you sent. We are short on contractors here so it may be a while before I post a result. This is so fun! Again thank you all & if you have any more thoughts I'd love to hear them,