If you would like to expand your home’s footprint but can’t add to it, look at the garage. Weigh the extra living space versus precisely how much your car needs to be protected from the elements. Then, shake the thought of these bad garage conversions in which the driveway goes right up to some awkward doors and windows which clearly used for a garage opening. We are not talking about these conversions. We are looking at some very clever conversions where a trained eye will probably not guess the space was a garage. See if any of those remarkable transformations motivate you to leave your car parked on the road.

FABRE/deMARIEN

The architects at Fabre/deMarien in Bordeaux, France, transformed this 441-square-foot garage into an innovative modern home.

FABRE/deMARIEN

The interior is light and open, and there is even a little bit of outdoor space.

FABRE/deMARIEN

Because of its teeny size, the home is filled with clever storage tricks that allow for dining, sleeping, living and work spaces.

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AHMANN LLC

Thomas Ahmann of Ahmann Architects changed a narrow garage within this family kitchen in Washington, D.C.

AHMANN LLC

The beams on the ceiling help unify the L-shaped space.

AHMANN LLC

A bay which juts out onto the patio provides a lounging area at the border of their kitchen.

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Menter Byrne Architects

Architect Margaret Menter flipped this garage into a creative space which will grow with the family as their needs change.

Menter Byrne Architects

For now, while the kids are young, it includes play space and equipment to do crafts, and it is easily cleared out to become a party pavilion.

Menter Byrne Architects

The space also has a utility sink and a bath.

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Katherine Robertson Photography

It’s difficult to think, but the part of this house with the chimney flanked by windows was the garage.

Katherine Robertson Photography

Indoors, you would never guess you were sitting in which the lawn mower used to sit.

Katherine Robertson Photography

Soft upholstery and finds out of the Round Top, Texas, antiques market afford the renovation a notch.

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BEFORE: I hope you are braced for this “before” shot! This was the distance Pi Smith, of Smith & Vansant Architects, was faced with before beginning a ranch house’s major renovation.

Smith & Vansant Architects PC

AFTER: The space currently includes a “sand street,” in which the relatives enter the house and hang their snowy outerwear, organize the mail and leave their wet boots to heat next to the woodstove.

Smith & Vansant Architects PC

The opposing side of the sand street includes a comfy and light family room.

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Ira Lippke

We can not talk about garage conversions without including artist, welder and designer Michelle de la Vega’s 250-square-foot former garage house in Seattle.

Ira Lippke

The open, industrial space has a very small kitchenette, a sleeping loft and a bath with a bathtub. The toilet was the only part in which she added to the single-car garage’s miniature footprint.

Ira Lippke

The steel sculptures to the left of the woodstove are by de la Vega.

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More:
More Living Room: Converting a Garage
Take Back the Garage

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