Look at your garage. Shelves of hockey sticks, rusty rakes, mystery cardboard boxes that haven’t been opened since your last move. Now close your eyes and imagine—a guest bedroom, a studio, a clubhouse. For inspiration, take a look inside ten garages that have been magically transformed:
Lower Saxony, Germany
![A remisenpavillion—a multi-use garage in the farmlands of Lower Saxony—designed by Bremen-based Wirth Architekten for a country house estate, serves utilitarian needs like car and tractor storage, as well as whimsical ones: as a loggia for summertime outdoor parties. Photograph by Christian Burmeister, courtesy of Wirth Architekten.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/wirth-architects-brick-garage-gardenista-1-733x524-733x524.jpg)
For more of this garage, see Outbuilding of the Week: A Glamorous Garage in the German Countryside.
Melbourne, Australia
![Melbourne, Australia-based Hearth Studio turned a garage into a small home complete with kitchen, dining area, bedroom, and bath (with green clawfoot tub). The designers managed to fit it all in while retaining the character of the garage, including its hardworking concrete floor. For more, see Outbuilding of the Week: Garage Turned Studio Apartment. Photograph by Lauren Bamford.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/hearth-studio-carlton-north-4-lauren-bamford-gardenista-733x1098.jpg)
Seattle, Washington
![Seattle-based JAS Design Build turned an old boathouse on Lake Washington into a multipurpose family center with changing room, shower, and storage for sports equipment.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/lake-washington-boathouse-remodel-gardenista-733x412.jpg)
For the whole story, see Architect Visit: Lake Washington Boathouse by JAS Design Build on Remodelista.
Mill Valley, California
![A one-car garage outside of San Francisco became a guest cottage, or \2\20;grottage,\2\2\1; with the addition of French doors, a wall of storage space, and a tiny kitchen and bath. Read the whole story in Outbuilding of the Week: The \186-Square-Foot Guest Cottage. Photograph by Nicole Franzen for Gardenista.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/steal-this-look-grottage-kitchen-1-gardenista-733x487.jpg)
Austin, Texas
![A garage turned guest house has a bedroom alcove with a dormer window (above the bed) which mimics and size and shape of a kitchen window in the main house. Photograph courtesy of Tim Cuppett Architects.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/clarksville-_back-alley_bed-733x489.jpg)
For more of this garage, see Outbuilding of the Week: Back Alley House by Tim Cuppett Architects.
Oakland, California
![Architect Christi Azevedo\2\17;s hands-on knowledge of fabrication, construction, and materials is on display in her renovation of a dilapidated, 360-square-foot \1908 carriage house in Oakland, California. Photograph by Susanne Friedrich and Henry DeFauw, courtesy of Christi Azevedo.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/christi-azevedo-oakland-remodelista-3-733x504.jpg)
See more in A California Carriage House Transformed on Remodelista.
Auckland, New Zealand
![Designer Karin Montgomery Spath transformed a garage, for clients to live in while their house in Auckland was being renovated. “I suggested that I could make a loft apartment above the two-car garage for them to live in during the renovation, and that it wouldn’t cost much more than a rental,” says Karin. Photograph by Matthew Williams.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/garage-studio-apartment-11-by-karin-montgomery-spath-remodelista-733x488.jpg)
For more of this project, see Small Space Living: An Airy Studio Apartment in a Garage on Remodelista.
Portland, Oregon
![A Portland, Oregon couple converted a garage into three distinct parts: a ceramics studio, a storage room for bikes, and a wood shop. The ceramics studio, shown through the sliding glass doors above, is partitioned from the rest of the space to be free of dust from the wood shop.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/700_vitrifiedstudio-studio-portland-gardenista-700x463.jpg)
Read the whole story in Rehab Diaries: A Garage Turned Studio Workshop in Portland, OR on Remodelista.
Los Angeles, California
![](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/annette-garage-remodel-la-4-733x1100.jpg)
Washington, D.C.
![Architect Catherine Fowlkes of Fowlkes Studio converted a unused garage into a guest cabana and to create direct access from the house into a large backyard. Photograph by Brandon Webster courtesy of Fowlkes Studio.](https://media.gardenista.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cabana-fowlkes-studio-gardenista-3-733x500-733x500.jpg)
For more of this project, see Outbuilding of the Week: A Guest Cabana in Washington, D.C.
Find more ways to make better use of the garage:
- Garage Envy: 10 Sleekly Styled Garages
- 10 Easy Pieces: Budget Garage Shelving
- Hardscaping 101: Garage Flooring
- The Studio Apartment, Garage Edition
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