The cheapest square footage inside a house you already own
A garage conversion is the least expensive way to add finished living space to a house, and the reason is simple: the expensive parts already exist. The slab is poured, the walls are framed, the roof is on and the structure is tied into the house. An addition of the same size has to pay for all of that before a single room appears. A conversion pays only for making an existing shell habitable.
One of our Google reviews describes exactly this job — a garage turned into two bedrooms — and it is a call we take regularly around Dalton and Chattanooga, usually from families who need another room and do not want to move to get it.
The thing that separates a good conversion from an obvious one is whether it stops feeling like a garage. That comes down to four things: the floor level and how the step into the house is dealt with, insulation in a shell that was never built to be warm, what happens to the garage door opening from the outside, and ceiling height. Get those right and it reads as part of the house. Get them wrong and it reads as a garage with carpet in it, no matter how good the paint is.
- Floor leveled and built up. Garage slabs are deliberately sloped to drain. A level, insulated floor build-up is what makes the room feel like a room.
- Insulated properly. Walls, ceiling and floor perimeter — a garage shell was built to be cold and has to be made warm deliberately.
- The door opening dealt with. Framed, insulated and finished outside with siding and a window so the elevation does not announce what it used to be.
- Moisture handled at the slab. A garage slab frequently has no vapor barrier under it. That gets addressed before a floor goes on top of it.
- Heating and cooling planned. The room needs to be on the system properly, not served by a plug-in heater and an open door.
- Trim, doors and finish to match. Baseboard, door casing and door style matched to the rest of the house so the join is invisible.
How we convert a garage
Work out what it can become
Bedrooms, a suite with its own bathroom, a den or an office are all common, and they are not equally easy. A bathroom means drainage, which means either cutting the slab or a pumped solution. Bedrooms mean egress and light. We look at the space, the ceiling height and where the services are, and tell you what is realistic before you get attached to a plan.
The floor
This is where most conversions are won or lost. The slab slopes toward the door on purpose, and often has no vapor barrier beneath it. We build up a level, insulated, moisture-managed floor, and we deal with the step between the garage and the house so the transition is not a trip hazard and does not feel like a threshold into somewhere else.
Insulation and the shell
Walls, ceiling and perimeter insulated, and the shell made airtight where it was designed to be ventilated. A converted garage that was not insulated properly is cold in January and hot in July, and no amount of heating fixes it.
The garage door opening
From outside, this is the giveaway. The opening gets framed, insulated and finished with siding and usually a window, matched to the rest of the elevation. Done well, a passer-by cannot tell. Done badly, it is a flat panel where a garage door used to be.
Services, then finish
Heating and cooling, power, lighting and any plumbing go in, then insulation is closed up, then drywall, trim, doors and decoration matched to the house.
Why homeowners choose us for this
It stops feeling like a garage
Floor level, insulation, ceiling and the door opening are the four things that decide that. We treat them as the job rather than as details.
Honest about what fits
Not every garage should become a bedroom, and a bathroom is not always practical. We would rather tell you at the estimate than halfway through.
The outside gets fixed too
We side and trim the old door opening so the front of the house does not advertise the conversion. Being roofers and siders is why that is not a subcontract.
You get the parking back
We build carports. Converting the garage and adding covered parking is still substantially cheaper than an addition.
Garage Conversion Questions
It depends on the house and the street. In areas where every comparable home has covered parking, losing it entirely can count against you — which is exactly why a lot of our conversion customers add a carport at the same time and end up with both the rooms and the covered parking, still for less than an addition would have cost. Adding finished, heated square footage generally moves value the other way.
Often, but it is the thing most likely to change the cost. Drainage has to get from the new bathroom to the existing stack, which usually means cutting a channel in the slab, and sometimes a pumped solution instead. Neither is exotic, both cost money. We will tell you which one your layout needs before you commit to the idea.
Yes, and this is the part people are tempted to skip. A garage slab is deliberately sloped toward the door, so a floor laid straight onto it is not level. It also frequently sits without a vapor barrier, which means moisture coming up into whatever you put on it. A built-up, insulated floor is what makes the room feel like part of the house rather than a converted garage.
It gets framed, insulated and finished properly — siding to match the rest of the elevation, and usually a window so the wall reads as a wall rather than as an infilled opening. This is the most visible part of the job from the street and the one that tells everyone what the room used to be, so it is worth doing well.
A conversion changes the use of the space and generally does require permitting, and requirements differ across Whitfield County, the City of Dalton and the Tennessee jurisdictions we work in. There are usually specific requirements around egress and light for a room being used as a bedroom. We will tell you what we understand applies when we come and look.
Typically several weeks, driven mostly by the floor build-up, the insulation and the finishing rather than by anything dramatic. Adding a bathroom extends it. The advantage over an addition is that the work is almost entirely inside a shell that already exists, so weather does not stop it and the rest of the house stays liveable.