A garage conversion into a bedroom is one of the most practical home improvements or modifications you can make based on your circumstances. I know lots of people who have converted their garage into a bedroom for guests, to escape their snoring partner, or maybe even to add value to their house.
More on that in a second, this article will show you why converting your garage to a bedroom might be a great idea for you, and how to go about it.
Why convert your garage into a bedroom
Some of you may be thinking that your garage would be the worst place to fit your bedroom. It’s cold, cut off from the rest of the house, and close to the road where you can hear the traffic.
While that may be true for some of the more basic garages nearer urban areas, for the most part, garages can be easily converted into a living space or bedroom. If you do need some convincing or ideas, here are a few:
Easy to Move and Fit Furniture in
Think about it, you’ve got a garage door, no stairs, and your toolkit lying around in the garage already. It couldn’t be more perfect. Moving furniture into your garage is easier than moving it to any other part of your home, so take advantage of that and save the heavy lifting and headaches for another day.
Add Value to your House
I know I say this in basically every garage conversion article, but I say it because it’s true. If you convert your garage properly, your 2 bedroom house goes to 3, 3 to 4, etc. you can even add another bathroom while you’re at it if you decide to be fancy and add an en-suite. Nevertheless, you will rarely lose the investment you put down for home improvements. You will gain much more money on your house if you convert your out of use garage into a bedroom than your spare room upstairs.
Escape the Noise
If you struggle to sleep and need complete silence at night like I do, then a bedroom in your garage may be the perfect solution. Garages tend to be more cut off to the rest of the house than other rooms, so use this to your advantage and use the space to seek refuge from your noisy family. Another thing to consider is that you don’t want to use your bedroom as a space to sleep and study/work. I’d suggest having a separate place where you sleep such as a converted garage and using your current bedroom as the area you work. It may sound odd, but many studies have found you sleep worse if you work where you sleep.
What you will need in your garage bedroom
The amount of furniture you’ll want to put in your garage bedroom will depend on whether you want to use it as a multi-purpose room. For example, if you want it as a bedroom and study or longue. Let’s just assume you want to treat this as a normal bedroom, here are piece of furniture and utilities to fit in your garage bedroom.
• Bed and Bed-stand: This goes without saying, I’d just obviously check the dimensions of your garage first to see whether you can fit a king or queen sized bed in. This is where the garage bedroom comes in handy as you won’t be hauling the component of your bed upstairs. A good bed-stand/nightstand is a great feature as well, I’d recommend buying them as a pair if you’re planning on having company, and also buying it as a set coming with the bed as the dimensions and height of the stand will be perfect. I’d recommend this bed stand to go in your garage bedroom.
• Lighting: Since you’re using this area primarily to sleep, a lamp will do, but it’s not the best option in my opinion. I’d recommend getting a lamp or light that will change brightness settings to your liking (getting a multiple colour option is a good choice as well). This way, you can gradually increase or decrease the brightness levels as you need to relax or wake up. Feel free to look at this great lamp here, I guarantee it will make the world of difference to you getting to sleep if you’re not doing it already.
• Garage Heater: Especially during the winter months, garages tend to lose a fair bit of warm air, especially if there are not properly insulated. To combat this, you may want to invest a one or two garage heaters. These will make sure the temperature in your garage bedroom is perfect as you drift off to sleep. it also offers nice white noise to help you drift off.
• Fan/Air conditioner: Your body needs a finely tuned temperature to be able to sleep well and it goes both ways. There’s nothing worse than not being able to sleep because it’s too hot in the middle of the summer. By investing in a simple fan, you’re going to make a massive difference and get some of that white I spoke about earlier as well. You can find some great fans here, they are usually very cheap but will heavily impact your sleep quality, especially In the summer.
• A Floor Mat or Rug: This is just so you don’t have to start the day by putting your feet on some potentially freezing cold concrete, definitely makes a difference to your day compared to a soft wool or cotton. I personally like a nice thick one that will cover a good chuck of the room, such as this one.
Useful tips for a garage bedroom conversion
Moving swiftly on to things you should consider when converting your garage into your sleep sanctuary. First of all, it’s a good idea to get some peace and quiet.
Cut out all noise
One of the main benefits of sleeping in the garage is the lack of sound, take full advantage of this by investing in some noise cancelling measures. You can start by closing any windows in your garage and using a fan as mentioned above to keep you cool.
First of all, an insulated garage is a quiet one, be sure to insulate your garage, especially your garage door, assuming this is where the bulk of the noise will come from, more on this later.
Another main tip I’d suggest is to install a noise reducing drywall. Installing drywall in your garage will work to redice the soundwaves coming from the rest of your home. This is the case since you’re increasing your wall mass and therefore making it harder for soundwaves to enter your garage. Feel free to do the same to your ceiling if there is a floor above.
Insulate your garage well
I know I bang on about insulating your garage all the time, but especially in this case, it is very important as it will impact the quality of your sleep massively. First of all, if you’ve got lots of single glazed windows in your garage, consider getting them double glazed. If you’ve got a massive garage door that is uninsulated, consider insulating it with a garage door insulation kit. This relates back to blocking out noise from outside, a well-insulated garage door will also help to block out most of the noise such as cars on the road or birds I the morning.
Make sure to cover all bases, such as your door, walls, ceiling, and even your floor. If you insulate your garage walls and install drywall as well, it will be both insulated and noise-proof at the same time, just like your garage door.
Make sure to ventilate your garage as well to keep fresh, cool air coming in and preventing your garage from becoming too stuffy, having a good fan, and occasionally keeping the window open will go a long way.
Plumbing and electrics – if you have an en-suite
If you decide to turn your garage into a 5-star bedroom, you’ll have to consider both plumbing and electrics.
Assuming you’re installing a toilet, sink, and shower, you’ll most likely need a professional to survey the area for plumbing and wiring, the good news is, installing a bathroom into your house usually doesn’t requirement planning permission (but it is worth a check). Since I’m not the professional in this case, I will give you a quick cost guide to help you decide how fancy you want your en-suite to be.
Before you get worried at the size of the expense, it is worth noting that adding a downstairs bathroom will usually increase the value of your house by 5%, in most cases, this is worth the investment. A garage conversion to bedroom and bathroom will definitely do wonders to your house price.
Adding an en-suite will most likely take 10 days and cost anywhere from $2,000-$10,000. The average amount paid is around $5,000, I’d say it’s worth it to not walk all the way upstairs when you need to go!
Nevertheless, the choice is yours, but you first need to make sure it’s a viable option as prices could increase if you haven’t got the correct infrastructure for plumbing in your garage.
Final Thoughts
A garage conversion to bedroom may sound complicated, but when you’re creating a bedroom space for yourself, you only need to consider a few things; security, room temperature, and noise cancellation. As long as you can’t worry about being broken in to, not too hot or too cold, or even worse, woken up by the birds outside, you can rest easy.
That’s why I can suggest garage locks, to keep you safe, garage heaters to keep you warm, or even fans during the summer. Noise cancellation can be a bit more tricky, I can suggest using earplugs as a solid, cheap solution, I use them religiously and haven’t looked back since I started using them.
In terms of the en-suite, it is completely optional, I personally think you’d need a decent sized garage to do so as you’d want to install extra walls, albeit thin walls, but these will bump up the cost.
With that being said, I hope you learned something about ow to do a garage conversion to a bedroom. If you have decided that the bedroom option isn’t for you, then check out my other garage conversion articles for living spaces, gyms, or just general garage conversion tips. Please share this if you found it useful and sweet dreams!
