Garage Remodel Plans: The Second Story Before!

Last week I wrote about our garage remodel plans for the main floor, and today I’m going to share the plans for the second story! If you remember from the new house tour I posted right when we first moved in, this garage was a huge reason I fell in love with this house. It is large and spacious, it’s reasonably new construction, and it has a second floor! I knew as soon as I saw it that it would make the perfect home office/craft room. And now that there’s this baby on the way and I need to clear out my current craft room to make room for her nursery, it’s the perfect excuse to get started on the garage!

Right now, as you can see, the second story of the garage is mostly a storage area, rather than a place where I can actually do any crafting. But just look at the potential!

Just like with the downstairs, we’ve hired a contractor to do the big stuff like electrical work, insulation, and drywall. But we plan to finish the space out ourselves. My dad and brother are coming out in a month or so to help with some of it, and JM and I will do the rest. We plan to prime and paint everything, trim out the windows, doors, baseboards, etc., update the railing upstairs, add flooring, and eventually build in cabinets; it’s a lot of work, but it’s going to be so amazing when we’re done!

We will add a light above this stairwell, and we plan to add a door right where I was standing to take this photo (on the landing of the stairwell). Then we plan to frame out and drywall the stairway. This will allow us to heat and cool the office upstairs without having to worry about heat escaping into the main floor of the garage.

Upstairs there are two bays where the roof was raised up to make it possible to stand. So there are three giant “sections” of the second story that can be used for workbenches, cabinets, sewing tables, craft tables, etc.!

This bay on the right faces the house, so I plan to have this be my main crafting space. It’s a really gorgeous view and I’d love to be able to look out on the house and the yard while I work. So I plan to put my craft desk up there, and maybe add some shelving or storage on the weird little triangle walls on either side.

This section between the two bays (in the photo below) is the longest wall space available, so I’m thinking of adding another large workbench under the window so that I have tons of room to spread out. It would be especially nice to have a deep workbench so that I can spread out entire yards of fabric at once!

Since I plan to use all of the vertical walls for workbenches and storage, we are going to have to add a few walls so we can install electric baseboard heaters. So we’re going to kill two birds with one stone and frame in a few small knee walls. This will give us a vertical wall on which to install the heaters, and also separate out the slightly useless triangular portion of the room where the roof meets the floor! The plan is to leave the small triangles to the left and right of the knee walls open, and to use those spaces as storage. It’ll be the perfect place to store Christmas stuff, Halloween lights, and other random seasonal decor that I’m not currently using!

This last bay is my absolute favorite because it’s where all the natural light comes in! For now I’m not planning to put a workbench there. Instead I’ll just add a small table and use the area as my photography space. That way I can lay my backdrops out over the table, or hang them on the walls or from the ceiling in the middle of the room and take advantage of the natural light!

I plan to replace the current guardrail with something pretty and sturdy, and perhaps put a low cabinet or a desk there for storage. I plan to have my computer desk right in the middle of the room, and our contractor is adding an outlet in the floor so I can plug in my laptop, etc. But it might be nice to use the space next to the railing as a designated space for other small machines like my Cameo, scanner, printer, Minc, etc.

The contractor has already started on the electrical work, so we spent the last few weekends clearing everything out of the garage and moving it into the basement. And of course, we’ve been having crazy storms here lately so our basement is flooding again! Everything is up on shelves or in plastic buckets so it should be ok, but we did move a couple of things into the sunroom in the house just to be sure they were kept dry.

So everything is a bit of a mess right now, but I’m so excited that this project is finally in the works! And of course, as soon as this project is done, I can start clearing out my current craft room and get to work on the nursery!!!

I will keep posting updates as we make progress on the garage, so check back later!

• Garage Remodel Part 1: The main floor before and plans
• Garage Remodel Part 2: The second story before and plans
• Garage Remodel Part 3: Drywall on the main floor
• Garage Remodel Part 4: Upper floor framing and electrical work
• Garage Remodel Part 5: The drywall is finished and ready to paint!