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dalma darling One more pic I had to include is the transformed exterior. We have carriage doors as the entrance to the bar...I'll snap a pic and add that one in too to get the full effect of the exterior transformation.

roxanneroxanne Awesome transformation! I'd love to know more because I'm eyeing a house with a garage I'd like to convert into a guest house (we're in SoCal and don't need to park indoors)

Reico Kitchen & Bath That really is awesome. Love how you reinvented that space! Cheers!

Stoneshop This is great! Excellent job thinking outside of the box and accommodating a "his" and "hers" space. Enjoy this new extension of your home!

Christopher James Interiors Love it...great space for the 2 of u

dalma darling Thanks for the kind words, houzzers! We are so thrilled with the outcome and can't imagine not having that extra square footage now.

Roxaneroxane- I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. We did all the work ourselves so I'm well versed in the project planning and reality. We are in Northern California and found that we didn't need our garage for that purpose either.

nnouza This is awesome! Great job!

Dytecture Love the brightness and clean design, now that's my kind of office !

dalma darling One more shot to add in. It's a bit dark (taken on my phone) but I wanted to include a shot of the carriage doors we did on the front for the bar entrance. The doors open out and the width is enough for a single car should a future owner want to use it for a garage they still could.

Studio S Squared Architecture, Inc. Very cool, love the true carriage doors. What did you do for heating/cooling?

dalma darling Yes, the true carriage doors were a must for me - I love the way they look when they are opened up!

For heating and cooling we did a baseboard electric heater and fans in each space after fulling insulating the structure. We live in the Bay Area so our average temps are pretty mild.

Paradise Restored Landscaping & Exterior Design This is so personable and a tremendous transformation - thanks for your story. You both look very happy and it sounds like a smart investment all round. Looking at before photos all I can say is,
whew! A labor of love obviously!

roxanneroxanne The carriage doors really make it shine. If you're willing to share your source, we'd be ever grateful! Did you include a bathroom or any running water? That's the daunting part to me!

zonso Awesome transformation! You totally changed the environment. What did you do with all the stuff accumulated in the garage?

dalma darling Roxanneroxanne -I'm more than happy to share our carriage door resource! Evergreen Carriage Doors in Oregon built them for us - here's their Houzz Profile: http://www.houzz.com/pro/evergreencarriagedoo/evergreen-carriage-doors

They were so easy to work with. We gave them the measurements of the opening once we built it - they custom built the doors in the style that we wanted. They arrived as natural doors (no paint, hardware, etc.) and we took it from there. I would recommend having professionals help hang the doors. We did and are so glad we didn't take that one on ourselves. The cost was minimal for that and well worth it - those guys know just what they're doing.

Zonso - ha! great question :) We did some serious purging of junk. We dedicated 4' of storage behind each of our spaces with built in shelving to keep our "garage" stuff. It's all in labeled bins now and is easy to keep track of. I'll snap a pic of that for you as well - that was a project all in itself!

I took a few updated shots that are a bit higher quality of the exterior for this thread. Thanks to all for the love on the project! It was a labor of love and we're so pleased that it can inspire others! Yay for Houzz!!
(you'll notice we also did a huge landscape renovation - yes, we've been busy!)

Christelle This is a project of ours too we are purging our stuff from the garage to transform it a a comfy extra room for huby the carriage door is wonderful and we are definitly doing this too. Good job !

roxanneroxanne Thanks a ton!

roxanneroxanne Everyone on this thread needs to read this post from the guy who made the carriage doors -- http://www.evergreencarriagedoors.com/articles/carriage-doors-when-money-is-tight.htm

dalma darling Great story, thanks for finding and sharing that roxanneroxanne!