Converting a Garage into Living Space

By Mark J. Donovan

A simple and low cost way to add living space to your home is to convert your garage into a finished room. Frequently you can gain a couple of hundred square feet of new living space by converting over a garage.

Prior to framing in garage doors and installing insulation and sheetrock, you should first check with your local building inspector to understand what you will need to do to bring the garage up to formal living space code.

Once you have spoken with your local building inspector, you should next talk to your prospective plumber if you are planning to add water into your garage. Adding drainpipes and supply lines into garage areas can be a dicey and dusty job. You can either cut out sections of the concrete floor or raise the entire garage floor to enable drainpipes to be installed.

Typically people just frame in the garage door openings when creating additional living space. You may want to build up the base of the garage openings with concrete or concrete block to the same height as the adjacent foundations walls to achieve a better curb appeal.

Typically garage floors consist of a slab of cement. Frequently they are un-insulated. Raising the entire garage floor with 2”xN floor joists can enable you to add insulation between the concrete slab and the finished floor space. Also, radiant floor heating may also be an option to consider.

Along the lines of insulation, frequently garage exterior walls are framed with 2x4s. If you live in a colder climate you may want to add furring strips to the exterior walls studs so that you can increase the insulation R-factor of your exterior walls.