Extending the house - keep or lose the garage?

sweaty_betty

Hi there - we're looking at extending our semi-detached house by building a two storey extension at the side (and also extending the back two rooms by about 6ft).

Down our road there are a mixture of extensions, some people have built a new room across the driveway (two storeys), so have no garage. Others have built a garage connected to the house and have a first storey room above this.

Does anyone have any thoughts on which is best? Is it best to keep a garage or just create extra living space?

We currently have an old asbestos garage which is full of junk at the moment (plus things like bikes, old furniture, car maintenance stuff etc. While I don't want to keep space just for junk, it seems a shame to lose that space completely.

Any thoughts on the best way forward?

becs

The majority of people would want a garage even though 90% of us never put a car in it! I can't imagine not having somewhere to put all the accumulated stuff we have in ours, no idea how we managed before but definitely couldn't again!

sancho

I would rather a play room/pool room/dining room/study than a garage

Innys

The first two replies have proved your dilemma.

I guess you could look at it from another persepctive - how many rooms does your house currently have? Both bedrooms and living rooms. If the answer is "Not enough", your dilemma is resolved.

tanith

I've lived with and without a garage and honestly I think if you have an empty garage you will find stuff to fill it.. if you don't have one you manage without...I don't know anyone who keeps a car in the garage they just store stuff . So I'd rather living space than storage space any day

sweaty_betty

Thanks all - it's so difficult!
At the moment we have two average-sized reception rooms, which is enough to be honest. However the kitchen is tiny, so we have two options:
1 - build to the side and widen the kitchen into one enormous room
2- build a garage to the side, but with an extra 9ft or so on the length, to make an L-shaped kitchen

I would so like to have a sociable kitchen instead of one where two people get under each others feet.

tanith

If it were me I'd go for the big kitchen , I have a fair kitchen with room for a table but as my kids and grandkids have grown up it doesn't seem so big nowadays.

alinwales

my house was extended to the side by the previous owners, and sounds pretty similar to your situation. They built a garage and dining room on the lower floor, and a bathroom and bedroom on the upper (the old bathroom was removed to extend the hallway across, and they put a big built in wardrobe on the landing with the extra space).

Now in some ways the garage is good. It's long enough to have utility stuff at the back (including spare fridge and freezer), but it really isn't wide enough for today's cars (can only just get the wife's fiesta in and open the door), so it's used for storage. Unfortunately, the thing I don't like is that because of the garage, we can't get 2 cars on the drive.

If it was me, I would have decided on one of 2 options: 1. make a short 'garage' and use it only as a utility room (plus space for a couple of bikes), and so that the bathroom above isn't compromised, use stilts to ensure upstairs stays a decent size (carport underneath?), or as you mention OP, extend the kitchen to the side, but trying to keep the driveway long enough for 2 cars (which is my issue, not necessarily yours!)

mishkanorman

One of our neighbours has converted his garage and across his driveway into rooms, The most noticeable problem this causes is now his 2 teenage children both have cars, as do their boyfriends/girlfriends and both parents have one each, the front of their house looks like a car lot. If they hadnt built over the side return they would have had at least a bit of space for some of them.

*debbie*

One of my friends has had an extension converting her garage and extending above it. she retained a portion of the garage at teh front to store bikes and junk (!) and is using the rest in her new kkitchen area. She was also able to extend at the back of the garage so this made this viable, if you only have a single garage and no space behind this wouldn't work.

sweaty_betty

Thanks again - yes I'm quite concerned about off-road parking, as our street has restricted parking and as we have a drive we can only get one car pass. Not an issue at the moment as we only have one car and a decent sized drive (at the moment!) but something to bear in mind. Perhaps we should just move instead