Gotta be pretty cold for there to be frost on the inside of the house... Insulation could be an issue, but the house is not that old. How do you heat your home? Is there any air infiltration from outside?

I know this is going to sound terrible but I am not sure. We have gas heat with a humidifer. We have 2 gas fireplaces, 1 of which we have never used. How do I find out about the air infilration? Thank you! Donna

I think you need to get an energy consultant to verify the
insulation values of the ductwork and ceiling and make sure
all the glazing is double or triple pane. Have Blower Door and
Duct blaster tests. Seal plumbing, ducts and electrical penetrations.
Repair any old or damaged weather striping so that the heat
gain/loss is minimized in addition to adding heat/cooling.
This seems to always get overlooked in older homes, upgraded
HVAC and added or remodeled rooms.
Your local utility may provide this service free or at a nominal
charge or they may provide a list of certified contractors.
Also have a Manual J and Manual D done to verify sizing and layout
of ducts and HVAC.

Your problem is almost certainly due to either no insulation/airsealing or incorrectly installed insulation/airsealing. Check an electrical outlet to see if its streaming air into the room. The room is probably losing any heat that goes to it. That wall next to garage attic space is called a kneewall and builders are notorious for not sealing/insulating these walls correctly or paying enough attention to rooms over or next to garages. Is the room over a garage? I had a similar prob in my 1950s house with a room over the garage that was freezing and then super hot in summer. 10-20 degree difference with the rest of the house and all that. Well I solved it by blowing in 80 bags of densely packed cellulose at 3.5 lbs/cuft in all the walls and the finished garage ceiling. The large room has 2 exterior walls a large kneewall 5X20 ft and a large sloped ceiling area also 5x20. The floor is over a cold garage. There was only 2 or 1 inch batts in the walls and garage ceiling and the kneewall had nothing. A lot of work but the result is like a miracle for me. It stays 68 all the time, the floor is warm btw 65-67 whereas it was 55-58 degrees before. Its being used as a playroom now and we needed a space heater before but not now. Sometimes I just go in there and sit on the floor with my temp gauge and marvel heh. Oh and it cost me only $500 and some sweat to fix this--way less, thousands less than hiring someone to do a good or even bad sprayfoam job.
Here are some links that you should read to see how to insulate.
http://www.dom.com/customer/efficiency/res/pdf/rooms_over_garages.pdf
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/documents/pdfs/26447.pdf

Definitely stick your head up in the garage attic to see what is obvious. A wall in my master bedroom is against my garage attic. When I had some work done in the garage, the contractor had to get into the attic. For some reason, one of the insulation batts on that wall was removed, apparently to ease their access into the attic. I was shocked to find condensation on the wall near my bed. I immediately went to the garage attic. The batt was left laying on a rafter directly behind me as I climbed through the entrance. I could see moisture forming behind the vapor barrier. I grabbed the batt and tucked it into the wall. I turned up the heat for the bedroom and left a fan slowly blowing on that part of the wall.

Now that the insulation is back, it's much warmer now. We'll likely have that wall and upstairs ceiling re-insulated in the spring. I wouldn't mind living in a styrofoam cooler. :-) If you need to have that wall insulated and are paying someone to do it, the spray-foam acts as both a vapor barrier and insulation. This would keep air from leaking through while keeping you toasty.

Remember that if you're seeing frost indoors, there's frost in the wall. Moisture is deadly to a house.

Hello everyone,
Thank you so much for all the advise! It was -20 below today with the windchill today. It is going to be a high of 17 tomorrow - a heatwave! Anyway, I am going to go up in the attic tomorrow. I am going to take some pictures and I'll post them to make sure I do the right thing! Thank you!!!!!

Hello,
Finally, I went up - wow NO INSULATION!

This is the other side of my DD room!

Putting up some insulation shouldn't be that hard right?

No its not hard to do. Its a shame builders do this to people. You need at least R19 in against the wall, paper to the heated room. You also need to cover it with either housewrap like tyvek or pink foamboard to serve as an air barrier and prevent windwash of the fiberglass which lowers R values. Make sure the joist spaces under the kneewall are closed off and caulk or sprayfoam it anyways if it is. here are some links you should read carefully and follow totally if you want to make the room better http://www.dom.com/customer/efficiency/res/pdf/rooms_over_garages.pdf
and the 4th page of this http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/documents/pdfs/26447.pdf
Come back and ask more questions if you have them.

Wow, that's amazing! I'm sure other houses in your area are like this. That's inexcusable. The looks a lot like my garage and bedroom wall...just that there's nothing there. No vapor barrier that I can see, no batts of insulation on the wall and no blown insulation on the garage ceiling. I bet your garage is cold, too.

This is something that a homeowner can fix, but it's definitely not a weekend project. And insulation is definitely not fun to play with.

Personally, I would pay someone to come in and insulate that properly, WITH a proper vapor barrier on the warm side of the insulation to prevent condensation.

Since you've gone this far, did you check your main attic? My garage attic is well insulated, but my main attic is spotty. Good in some places, insufficient in others.

Thank you for everyone's feedback. Our main attic is actually well insulated BUT it was also blown in and there is a huge mountain in one area - like there is a leak coming in and blowing it around! There are batts down so we need to get up there & "rake" the blown stuff back in place - right? Never ending.

Oh I forgot to mention in our main attic there is a HUGE and I mean monstrous TV antenna up there that looks like a old timey bunny ear one. It is not hooked up, its just laying on the ground. Its almost as long as the attic. I can't image how it got up there. It had to get up before the roof was put on! There will be no getting it out!
You would have thought that the home inspection would have noted that and the no insulation part!

Donna, you said your house is only 8 years old, is there a builder warranty that would cover this?

From the photo there is also no insulation or anything on the floor of the attic. If I read this correct that is the garage ceiling?

If they forgot insulation and that passed closing, what might not have been done in the garage to prevent fumes from getting into the attic?

We built 4 years ago outside of Joliet and our daughters bedroom is partially above the garage. By code our builder had to jump through hoops sealing the garage so fumes could not enter the living spaces. Also for fire protection they had to put up a double layer of drywall in the garage on the ceiling and the walls adjacent to interior spaces.

Insulation is easy, you measure and cut and put it in with the paper side out.

Blown in insulation moves with the wind. Once a year you need to go up and rake it back into place. NOT to the edges though, the soffit vents have to be kept clear.

Hello,
Thank you for your advice! I am going to look into this but I still get over that it passed inspection. Yes, that picture is the garage ceiling. The garage itself is not insulated - only the ceiling is drywalled and the walls touching the house. We live in Shorewood!