I love your black and white idea! Would love to see pictures of the final.

Why??!!!! Most garage conversions are a terrible mistake.

Your new house has a lovely front elevation and a conversion will ruin it, IMO. Why don't you live with it as it is for a while and make sure you actually need more living space? Perhaps a better solution would be an addition off the back.

We're four people in 1200 square feet and while I wish for a family room occasionally, I usually just send the kids outside to play.

benjesbride, thank you for your insight! Why are most garage conversions a mistake? We were considering that rather than adding onto the back because I thought it would be much less expensive to use existing roofline/foundation....but we're just getting started! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Also, the stairs to the basement are in the garage. We will finish the basement and use that for a bar/tv room/more bedrooms....It's very important to us that we can somehow get to the basement without going out to the garage.

A garage conversion isn't necessarily a mistake, but I would not put a new garage in front of it. It will ruin the lines of your house. Is there another place the garage can go?

I think a garage conversion will be fine, I know plenty of people thst have done this. Some thing to watch out for/consider:

1. If you build a new garage and day-to-day point of entry from that new garage to the house is thru the converted area, make sure you have space for mud, shoes, coats, water, snow, keys, umbrellas, etc.

2. How will Hvac be run to the new space - it's very unlikely the space is currently conditioned. Most of the time what I've seen of garage conversion is that any new HVAC is pretty inadequate

3. Make sure to define exactly what you want this space to function as, and have good idea of how to accomplish that, instead of generic "living space". All too often I have seen these garage conversion go unused because their use was ill-defined and it turned out that the family living pattern was quite different than what they thought it would be.

Do you have a basement that you can finish/update instead?

At minimum, I'd consult with your realtor about the resale value of a garage conversion. We have a wonderful realtor who has been in the business for decades and when I asked she said a lot buyers won't view a house if the garage has been converted.

ETA: You posted above while I was typing :-)

I suggest after you close on the house and get settled in, you start a new thread with a sketch (with dimensions) of the floor plan.

Garage conversion = ZERO added value. Finishing the basement to create more living space = added value at resale.

^Chiflipper is right.

You lose not only value, you lose buyers because a huge percentage won't even consider a home with a garage conversion.

Your house has beautiful, classic American ranch lines, so I'm with the others about not converting the garage for many reasons already stated. There are so many ways to use space in a ranch's living areas where you can relax, entertain, and enjoy one-story living without adding an extra room in a conversion or addition.

Take a look at the early entries for a blog called "Young House Love" of fixing up a ranch that's smaller than yours. Classic. And by the way, their red brick looks amazing. You might want to wait on repainting the bricks white since it will require future maintenance and instead make the most of the red brick and save your $$$ for professional landscaping instead.

To save $$$ on your move and on renovations, be ruthless when you pack up your current. possessions. Do a major decluttering before you put stuff into boxes. Get rid of duplicate kitchen equipment, dishes, and glassware. (You have a two-car garage. Invest and steel shelving by the kitchen door to store large-size appliances you don't use daily. Set aside one of those steel units for canned and paper goods you bring home from Costco.)

Your kitchen looks well laid out and could look something like this with paint, new countertops, backsplash, and flooring (if that's vinyl).

Contemporary Kitchen · More Info

Evaluate your furnishings now. Do you have a honking "manatee" leather couch and a humongous TV? If so, they're going to make your new home feel too small. You'll save money by not having to convert your garage by getting a well-designed, low slung but comfortable sofa and smaller TV. Go for those.

Boho Family Home · More Info

Before ranch living room:

Good luck with your beautiful home.

Most garage conversions are so poorly done that they are a complete waste of the 50K it took to do them. And that is if there is no plumbing in the conversion. Plus another 50K for a new garage. That would just look like a wart on a nose on that house.

Agree about not converting the garage, and think about converting the basement also, especially adding a bedroom. Your photo doesn’t seem to show your lot sloping towards the rear. That may make it difficult to have the egress required by code for a bedroom. In many areas, below-grade space is not valued as highly as above grade square footage.

If you truly need more space, why aren’t you buying a bigger house? That is an easier, and probably cheaper, option.

If you’re just thinking, “this space is here, let’s convert it”, then try paring down your stuff and living in your new house. If you need more space, save up and do a proper addition off the back. The cost of moving appliances is important in a kitchen reno budget, but small relative to a properly done addition.

Consensus seems to be not to convert the garage, so I put it back, but I did give you a real driveway. It's possible you can add onto the back of the house without moving the kitchen.

Thank you housegal200 - that's a great point about decreasing clutter for the move. I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind.

Latifolia, I totally hear you about "buy a bigger house"! lol The reason we've chosen this one is because for the city/schools we're wanting, it's almost impossible to find a house with a large lot in our budget. Anything around here that's sitting on an acre is either a small fixer upper or an oversized mansion. At 3/4 acre, this is the nicest lot we could find in our budget after a year of looking. Gross, I know...Since the yard was most important to us, our motto was "we can always add onto the house, but we can't add onto the yard."

Wow groveraxle, I have to say you might have changed my mind about the brick! That looks great with the black windows - thanks for the mockup!! The black gutters in the image I posted also get my gears turning, it's quite unique. Thanks again!

Black gutters and fascia:

groveraxle - I really appreciate how you mock images up so beautifully for people. It's difficult to visualize ideas and I'm certain your images have spared many many people from bad design decisions over the years.

^benjesbride is right! Thanks groveraxle!

I'm starting another thread about the addition options in case anyone would like to follow/contribute. :) Thanks all.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1965-ranch-addition-plans-dsvw-vd~5427525

Thanks, benjesbride. I hope I've spared people from bad decisions and hope I've saved them enough money to contribute to their kids' college funds. ;-)

Just wanting to add a Houzz article ranch houses and ways they've been renovated. Consider creating a Ranch Ideabook as you plan your house:

https://www.houzz.com/magazine/ranch-house-love-inspiration-from-13-ranch-renovations-stsetivw-vs~13074564

Pinterest probably has pages of ranch images and links.

Check into Limewashing your brick, before you paint it. I have read you can do that for 30 dollars, an average size home. dyebrick.com you can also dye brick. I really like a light limewash of brick as dark as yours. Think of it as a glaze on a redvelvet cake. It allows the brick to breathe(dry out). Learn about it online, youtube videos, etc. You will see many examples. Don't do the German Schmear. It is nice, but your type of home, well, I think it also 'seals' the porous brick and you don't want to add mold to your problems in times to come. DYEBRICK, is very very nice also. Many beautiful homes with that treatment. Lime washing is less expensive. Enjoy this post!!

Another blog you might want to check out is housetweaking. She is no longer active but start reading at the time when they purchased "the underdog." They had two boys when they closed on it (downsizing from a typical huge builder house in a neighborhood), then she found out she was pregnant! They lived in the house for 5 years before she dropped off the radar. Good info about making a small house work for a family.

My last house had stairs in the garage to the basement and it was the greatest thing ever. No space was wasted inside the house for the stairs. There is no way I'd have ever changed it.

Dyebrick isn't the easy solution that everyone makes it out to be. There is an extreme amount of prep you have to do, and the results are not good on dark brick.

Stairs into a basement from a garage are against current code. Carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t a good thing.