6 Incredible Garage Conversions
Trading car storage for capacious living space, these garage conversions leave their former incarnations in the dust
If you want to expand your home’s footprint but cannot add to it, look to the garage. Weigh the extra living space versus just how much your car needs to be protected from the elements. Then, shake the thought of those bad garage conversions where the driveway goes right up to some awkward windows and doors that clearly used to be a garage opening. We’re not talking about those conversions. We’re looking at some very clever conversions where even a trained eye would probably not guess the space used to be a garage. See if any of these remarkable transformations inspire you to leave your car parked on the street.
The architects at Fabre/deMarien in Bordeaux, France, transformed this 441-square-foot garage into an ingenious modern home.
The inside is light and open, and there’s even a little bit of outdoor space.
Ask an architect where you can carve out more living space
Ask an architect where you can carve out more living space
Because of its teeny size, the home is full of clever storage tricks that allow for dining, sleeping, living and work spaces.
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Thomas Ahmann of Ahmann Architects transformed a narrow garage into this family kitchen in Washington, D.C.
The beams on the ceiling help unify the L-shaped space.
A bay that juts out onto the patio provides a lounging area at the edge of the kitchen.
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Architect Margaret Menter turned this garage into a creative space that will grow with the family as their needs change.
For now, while the children are young, it includes play equipment and space to do crafts, and it can be easily cleared out to become a party pavilion.
It's hard to believe, but the part of this house with the chimney flanked by windows used to be the garage.
Inside, you'd never guess you were sitting where the lawn mower used to sit.
Soft upholstery and finds from the Round Top, Texas, antiques market take the renovation up a notch.
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BEFORE: I hope you are braced for this "before" shot! This was the space Pi Smith, of Smith & Vansant Architects, was faced with before beginning a ranch house's major renovation.
AFTER: The space now contains a “mud alley,” where the family members enter the home and hang up their snowy outerwear, organize the mail and leave their wet boots to warm next to the woodstove.
Cozy up to a freestanding stove
Cozy up to a freestanding stove
The other side of the mud alley contains a comfortable and light family room.
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See the rest of this home
We can't talk about garage conversions without including artist, welder and designer Michelle de la Vega's 250-square-foot former garage home in Seattle.
The open, industrial space has a tiny kitchenette, a sleeping loft and a bathroom with a bathtub. The bathroom was the only part where she added to the single-car garage’s tiny footprint.
The steel sculptures to the left of the woodstove are by de la Vega.
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More:
More Living Space: Converting a Garage
Take Back the Garage
See the rest of this home
More:
More Living Space: Converting a Garage
Take Back the Garage