Converting A Garage To A Playroom: Our Plans + Progress!

THE TIME IS NOW!! We’re officially underway on the most exciting (in my opinion!) project yet on our house, converting our garage into a playroom! This new space is going to be a game changer. It’s right off our new backyard, so it makes for a great play space for kids when we have guests over, and for Arlo to be able to run in and out since we can do that year round here in California. It’s ALSO going to double as my work space, for any creative projects I’m working on, which is something we don’t currently have in the house!

We are trying to keep the “renovation” part of this project minimal, since we don’t know if future owners will want to turn it back into a garage. We bought the house with the garage already partially converted, it had dry wall and a sliding door out to the backyard, but did not have insulation, flooring or a weather-proofed door so that’s what we’re focusing on. Today I wanted to share some before photos, plus our plans and progress… including our brand new floors from Home Depot, who I partnered with on this post!

They have an incredible selection of gorgeous and affordable flooring options. They literally guarantee that you can’t beat their prices. Excited to share about the one we chose!! I could NOT be happier with it.

Easy and Affordable Flooring Update

Above you can see what the space looked like when we bought the house. The first thing we did was add insulation to the walls and bring all the outlets and electrical up to code. Then, we moved onto the floors.

The space just had basic unfinished concrete floors, which we knew wouldn’t be safe for a play space with a rambunctious toddler, but we also didn’t want to make too big of an investment (hardwoods to match the rest of the house) or do anything that had to be glued down. We wanted something that could be easily installed, that was durable for a play and work space and that would be light and bright, since we’ll be photographing in the space as well for work projects.

We ended up going with LifeProof Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring in “Driftwood Beach” and seriously they feel like the dream playroom floors. It was able to be laid right over the concrete floor with no prior prep (easy install, check!) since it has a drop-and-lock installation system. It also has a ScratchProtect coating to help prevent scratches and stains (durability, check!). And perhaps what I was most nervous for, the color (I don’t like when tones lean TOO cool/gray), ended up being perfect. It’s white and bright with just a subtle cool undertone and exactly what I hoped it would be!!! (CHECK!!!)

Creating A Storage Space

Since we still need to use the garage for storage, we needed to section off a space to do so. And in order to do that, we needed to get rid of the current garage door and it’s track that ran through 2/3 of the garage space.

We ended up going with a simple bi-fold style door that our contractor custom built. We’ll then be adding a “faux wall” of faux built-ins to section off the front portion of the garage for storage. We’ll leave a pathway open so we can easily access the storage space and put shelving in it so we use the vertical space we have efficiently.

The built-ins will be used for toy, art and craft supply storage. I’ll be adding a big work table in front of it for me to use during the days for work, and on the evenings and weekends for craft projects with Arlo.

As a bonus (!!) we found out that there was storage up above the garage as well, so we’re PUMPED about gaining some extra storage space there too! We’re planning on adding some sliding doors so we can easily access the things we put up there.

Furniture will be kept pretty minimal in the rest of the space, since we want as much open floor space as possible. We’ll have our new piano below that small (awkward?) window and on the far wall, we’ll have a couch but that’s about it!

Photos by Jeff Mindell

I’m gonna keep sharing that photo of Arlo and the piano because it cracks me up. Haha!

I’ll chat in my next post all about the rest of the design inspiration and color palette so stay tuned for that!! In the meantime, if you’re working on a renovation project and researching floors, you can check out The Home Depot here for the most recent trends and low prices!

This post was created in partnership with The Home Depot. All content and opinions are that of my own! Thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep the Studio DIY party going! Read more about my editorial policies here.