The garage is easily one of the most under-utilised spaces in the average home. Indeed, many garages are no longer fit to be used according to their original purpose – the storing of cars. Some are too full of junk to fit a car, and some are quite simply too small for the modern car.
If your garage is being unfairly maligned like this, then it’s beyond time that you bring it back into usefulness. Not only can renovating your garage increase the value you get out of your home, but can also increase its monetary value quite significantly for the work involved.
The ideal garage is a multi-purpose one; so, with today’s household having different priorities, what can you do to render your own garage space multiply usable?
Maximising Storage Solutions
The obvious place to start is storage. After all, most garages in the UK become glorified storage units, homes to seasonal items and things which don’t have anywhere else to go. Your functional garage space needs to have ample storage, not just to free up your floor space but also to organise the relative mess of items you’re likely to find in there! Simple wall racking, made using timber studs, should be easy enough to mock up; pegboard can be highly valuable for storing things you need quick access to, as well.
Creating a Workshop Area
Speaking of which, your garage will benefit highly from a workbench at which to use your tools! Whether you’re working on your car (more on which shortly), cultivating a hobby or simply need a base for making home DIY easier, you should be thinking carefully about giving part of your garage up to a decent table at which to work. Your pegboard could go above it, and additional storage could go beneath it.
Designing a Vehicle Maintenance Zone
The essential purpose of the garage was to safely store and work on your car. If you’ve a double-length garage, you may still have room yet to do just this – but if you’ve a single-width garage, you may have to make do with keeping your car outside, and making space for a maintenance zone inside.
Unless you’re a bona fide petrolhead, you should leave check-ups to the professionals, and use an interim car service for your pre-MOT tune-up rather than try work yourself. For the simple stuff, like pumping up tyres and changing oil, you can create an easy base from which to maintain your daily driver.
Incorporating a Leisure or Fitness Space
Your garage represents a serious amount of additional square-footage, and if you’re not the handiest of people then you might not be likely to use all that space for your handiwork, hobbywork or DIY. As such, you might have more room to devote to other uses, and hence an opportunity to do something fun. You could easily devote a rear corner to some gym equipment, or with a little more budget create a leisure space for things that wouldn’t fit in your living room – at-home arcade, anyone?
