Behind a Garage Door, a Family Fun Room

olldbobbi "Eat, drink, play, enjoy. Repeat" Twist my arm!!! Great space, love the horizontal stripes and the color palette, but my favorite is the shelves made from reclaimed materials. Great job! What a happy space!

laracarson Can you share the paint colors for the stripes on the walls?

Anita Roll Murals Great entertaining space! Color palette works so well and I love all the different elements going on in the room.

Shearer Painting & Wonderfulcolors.org What color orange is the side entry door? Thanks John

sylvietrepanier Love the little flowered chairs. Very cool room.

Casart Coverings We love stripes-wide, narrow, subdued, bright, vertical, horizontal, even crisscrossed and our Karen Robertson Collection stripes make it an easy installation for one person. No pasting, no nailing, just easy, change-at-a-whim decorating.

kennedytarheel Simply funkilicious! Love it

saycheese Beautiful! Passed it on to a couple doing a basement makeover. What a fun space, thanks for the inspiration. Love the walls especially

dianecooper Strange to go to all of this work and not insulate the garage at all. With the open beams you can see there is no insulation to keep out the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter, making it more comfortable to use the extra room. With this being said, seems the furnishings wouldn't hold up well either. What was the logic there? Was this done in an area where you don't need to insulate your homes?

jessicaleah How is the floor done? What is it made out of?

jhowellfineart Yes, I would like to know how the floor was done as well.

leeni123 where does the car go????

Gwen Lowry My husband and I did this same idea about a year ago to add space to our 1900 sq. ft. ranch. It is really an all purpose room, but primarily used as a playroom. We converted it from a carport and insulated the walls, added drywall and most importantly added a glass garage door that is frosted so that you can see through it. The sun really heats the space in the winter and does get pretty warm in the summer... although we added a "hotel unit" that is air and heat so during the extremes it is very usable. We love spring and fall and rolling up the garage door having friends over to play.

lulusf415 YES! I'm doing something similar to my garage. Mine is bigger though, going to make it an office/dj room/ lounge with pool table.

Beth Woodson and Kristy Harvey Hi Lara, The paint colors are swiss coffee23, chadwick 217, and Greyswood 3958 all by Kelly Moore. There is a link to the paints at the beginning of the article. We love the stripes too!

Beth Woodson and Kristy Harvey Jessica and J Howell, the floor is the plain concrete garage floor that is painted with concrete paint.

poochiemoo to me this is about useless. must be fine for a family of tv watchers or gamers but what about people who actually use their garages for cars, for hobbies, for lawn care equipment - cute room, but give up a garage for it? naw

Amy Copeland I like how the bookshelves incorporate industrial pipes, that keeps a bit of garage feel in there. I love the silhouettes of each family member in a different color.

lulusf415 @poochimoo For myself we have a shed in the back yard that we put all the tools in and we have a long driveway to park the car and plenty of street parking. No need to put the car in the garage. But everyone has their thing. Maybe if my husband was into cars and liked fixing things then yes, that would be his, but we decided to make a big extra room for work/entertaining.

kmw50 Did you insulate the existing garage door or purchase a special one? I have a garage I'd like to transform. I live in AL and the door faces east, so it would be a real A/C user...

Hugh Wolfe I've said it before and I'll say it again... Garages are meant for cars, not junk or conversions. American families have way too much stuff, thus the filled to capacity garage. Typically the conversions usually push the cars worth at a minimum $10 - 15K, even being a used car, out in the weather to deteriorate faster. It's simply amazing the numbers of people that will rush out to purchase a protective cover for their $200 phone, but they won't think twice about shoving the $30K car out in the weather. Now that the garage is converted where are all the yard maintenance tools kept... are they out in the weather, or in the trunk of the car?

astraea Everyone's so concerned about off-gasing of home products; what special preparations were there in this conversion, making it safe to spend so much time in what used to be a garage?! Even slight leakage of auto fluids onto the concrete floor, absorbsion of carbon monoxide from car exhaust, etc.

scribbler Mine is being converted to a laundry/studio! Great ideas here. I love the red wheels on the industrial coffee table -- great detail!

skeye Ok, but where to you put the cars now? It's fine so far as a marginally useful family space but I'd rather have somewhere to keep my cars out of the weather and maybe, ya know, work on 'em and stuff.

Melissa Brauen LOVELY! However they must live in an area with no humidity. ;-)

lilizav que lindo espacio. me encanto el color de las paredes!!

aliadevos I love the horizontal stripes and colour selections for the wall. It would definitely work for our basement reno. I would personally not convert my garage due to the resale value of the house, our cold Canadian winters and lack of privacy. However, I could see how this conversion would be attractive to someone without these concerns.

CAROLE MEYER This is a fun, functional and lively looking space. Great job.

jdp890 What good pointers from fellow readers about garages-are-meant-for-cars, to climate considerations. However, if the conditions are right, this area pops and sizzles! Love the furniture, color, layout and function.

joutwest Well done and affordable! How was the floor done? Looks like it's still cement with something over it.

vineyardflute Love how you kept the rafters open and the fireplace is killer!! Who says you can't live in the garage?

hossamelrays I like this colors it makes you optimistic

vegasvic777 Looks like it would not take much to park your car in the garage if you wished. The insulation issue does seem to be a major factor with the weather in Sacramento. 100 plus in summer, 40s in winter. Is it legal in Sacramento to convert garage into living space?

Studio NOO Design Very nice, love the colors and patterns !

W. David Seidel, AIA - Architect Before converting a garage or any other off-street parking space, check with your local Planning Department. Many towns have rules about requiring at least one parking space per living unit and you may be forced to undo the garage conversion if you did not bother to obtain a permit. Parking your car in the uncovered driveway is typically not considered "off-street" since that is an eyesore.

cheriebarr Hi, Could you please tell me where the orange vase (?) is from on your bookshelf? Thanks! p.s. LOVE the space.

astraea @W. David - Very true, about indoor parking! I used to be on my town's Zoning Board of Adjustment, and homeowners came in for approval to build a large stand-alone garage, and discovered that the home they'd bought was already not in compliance, because the previous owner had converted the attached garage into living space .. without any permits too!

dianahb We had a 1929 detached garage and potting shed (which was attached to the garage), that was 600 square feet of totally wasted space. I wanted it converted into a working studio for me, which we did do-- and it is spectacular. We live in a recognized historic district, so we're actually getting a very nice tax write-off for maintaining and improving what was considered a historic building. Much of the original 1929 features (that could be saved) are there (exposed brick; exposed rafters and beams with that gorgeous 1929 wood), and a wood stove. I just love it, and I cannot tell you how much this conversion-to-art-studio has improved my life and changed my approach to my own work. It's one of the smartest decision we've ever made.

I don't think I've ever lived anywhere, where I actually used a garage to house a car. (Some houses don't even have garages! Oh, the horror!). I personally find the idea of having a little house (next to the 'big house') as a separate home for my damn car, which-- really-- is just a mode of transportation-- a bizarre idea. I really do.

I love what they've done here. And it has a wonderfully airy and light, yet warm, look to it-- a real feat given that I don't see any windows in the pictures. I really like the grey used, and the rug, too!

Hugh Wolfe @ dianahb

OK... I'll give you your studio in the wasted 600 sq. ft of unused garage/potting shed... I could live in that much space.

To some a car is simply an appliance, a Toyota Prius, a Honda Accord. However I'm on the opposite wave length from your thinking as I love my Mini Cooper (attached photo) it's the most enjoyable car I've ever owned, bar none... a couple of Corvettes and a 3 series BMW amongst them. I want to keep it clean and in good shape so I'd love to have a garage... unfortunately I don't have that option available to me at present, so I use a car cover. Yeah, it's a little extra trouble, but I'll bet my car retains it's value more than the one you have parked out in the weather. I know it's more fun to drive as it's always clean.

So park your appliance out on the street and every few years replace it, the automobile dealers love this thinking and their getting rich because of it... Oh BTW I purchased a 1980 Volvo 242DL new for $11,300... sold it 17 years later with 115K miles on it for $6000... it was garaged and covered the entire time, and still on the road (attached photo). Pretty good return on my investment.

So the difference here is your getting a tax write off for maintaining an old building after renovations, and I'm saving money by not purchasing another car every few years, nor am I contributing to the scrap metal collection at the junk yard.

To each their own...

dianahb Hey Hugh,

Well, gosh, that IS a pretty blue mini-cooper. I'd want to protect that, too.

And, hey- I'm with you on the 600 sq foot space. I could live there, too. I love it.

My sense is that giving a car its own little protective house is probably of more value if you live in a part of the country that gets severe weather. I don't live in that part of the country.

And you are correct that I've never owned anything as nice as a BMW. In fact, one of my last "appliances" was a Toyota (not Prius) that I bought used, kept for over 10 years (outside). It had over 200,000 miles on it. We ultimately donated it to Public Radio, where-- at auction-- they got around $1500 for it. (Yeah-- it's true. We're all about those tax write-offs!) Someone bought it to actually continue driving it. In the end, though, all those "appliances" will find themselves in that metal scrap heap in the sky (or, rather, in the ground, or in the excess acreage on a farm, or . . . ) no matter how well or long they've been covered in the past.

But, really, I'm not just "maintaining an old building for a tax write-off." I'm getting so much more. My studio is an amazing place to work (it's a business for me, too), to create, to teach, and to thrive. 22 steps from my house to my studio door, and it's like walking out in my back yard to a job I adore. I'm sure the people who did the lovely renovation above feel just as happy as I do.

retromomma This has been a great post and discussion! houzz is awesome and technology is grand!

freemck I would really like to know how the silhouette photos were done? I love that idea and would like to incorporate it.

Carol Lewis I would also like to know where the silhouette pictures came from.

dianahb Not the person whose house this is-- so don't know exactly what they did to create their silhouette photos-- but I do know that Adobe Photoshop has an application for this. You could also easily create this the old-fashioned way. Just use strong back-lighting (and no other light). Put the subject, in profile, in front of a plain backdrop. Your subject is obviously underexposed (because of the strong back-lighting)-- and there you have your silhouette. The easy way creates a black silhouette on any color background you want, including white. But if you want the silhouette in color and the background white, like this, you could -- again-- scan the image and do some adjustments in Photoshop. If you don't have a computer, printer, or Photoshop-- take it to a friend who does-- or to a local photo lab. Just ensure you have a plain, uncluttered background, strong backlighting, and a good camera that can manage a sharp image. Silhouettes are all about the contrast, and you want the distinction sharp.

vgannon50 Love the concept, and planning to do something with our gararge soon.luckily enough it has windows. I was wondering about the fireplace..How does it vent? I would like to include one in our conversion..Thank you for the great ideas.. One last thing, did you install one of the bottom of the garage door weather stripping things? To help keep out the damp and dust?

mangofoop where does the car go?