More and more people are working from home and more and more people are working freelance these days. While working at home is often a dream of many office drones still chained to a cubicle, the reality of working from home can be a bit different.
Any writer will tell you of the day that they sat down to work only to have the cat puke on their 
Macbook, their Mom call because she was worried you had died in a 3.5 earthquake two weeks ago, and … oh look Dawson’s Creek is on Netflix!
Yeah, working at home ain’t easy. Unless you have a dedicated space to do it in. That is why a lot of teleworkers and freelancers are looking for ways to carve our their own office space. One of the best ways to do that is to convert your garage into a home office.
Why Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office?
Let’s face it. You don’t use your garage for anything anyway. Unless you have a massive car collection to rival Jay Leno, or you are an amateur bodybuilder who has converted his garage into a gym, chances are your garage is filled with junk. Time to turn that wasted space into useful space.
Hey, stop watching Dawson’s Creek on Netflix and pay attention.
Step 1.: Hire a Contractor
A lot of people try to convert their garage into a livable space by themselves. Can you? Sure. But do-it-yourself room additions are often fraught with peril.
A room addition (and yes a garage conversion is classed as a type of room addition) has to be permitted and approved by your local building department. In Los Angeles, where Precise Home Builders is based, that would be the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.
If you don’t have the proper permits you can be fined by your city’s building department and they can make you tear down your freshly built room addition. And many do it yourselfers do not obtain the proper permits and spend lots of money trying to legalize their garage conversion.
Hiring a general contractor that specializes in room additions and garage conversions will make sure that your garage conversion to office is done legally. Also your garage conversion will look way more awesome and be completely functional.
Which means you can spend more time working, or watching Dawson’s Creek on Netflix.
Step 2.:Decide What You Need in Your New Home Office
After you’ve settled on a room addition builder / contractor you’ll want to work closely with him to make sure you’re old garage and soon to be new home office will have all the functionality you need.
For instance, make sure your garage has enough power to run everything you need for your day to day workflow. Computer, printer, fax machine (party like its 1996), modem and router, and maybe a television so you can watch Dawson’s Creek on Netflix.
You will also want to talk to your room addition contractor about what to do for an HVAC set-up in your newly converted garage. You’ll also want to talk about flooring options, cabinet space, and insulation.
Step 3.:Time for a Garage Sale
One of the best parts of converting your garage into an office is that it gives you license to clean out a bunch of stuff you will never use ever again. Yeah, so say goodbye to the kayak you bought because you were totally going kayaking that one year. Say Hasta La Vista to your collection of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies on VHS. Wave adios to that collection of vintage Mexican jars you bought the one night you got really drunk in Tulum when you were 22.
Step 4.: Let Your Garage Conversion Specialist Do His Job
If you’ve selected a good contractor you really won’t have much to do during your garage to home office conversion. Time to kick back, relax, and watch Dawson’s Creek on Netflix.
Still have some questions about garage conversion or room additions? Call or contact Precise Home Builders. Los Angeles’ go to source for room additions for over twenty years.
