Turn Your Garage Into a Kid Space
If you think that the only use for a garage is to park your car every night, you’re wrong. There are so many different things you can do with a garage! Yes, it’s a great place to park your car, but this is an entire spacious room in your home that often goes underutilized.
Your car can live in the driveway, because there are so many other things you can do with your garage, and really, it’s untapped potential. You can turn it into an art studio for pottery, painting, charcoal, or photography.
You could even turn it into a dance studio. You can use it as a really big storage room (although, this is what sheds are for.) Or you could turn it into a kid friendly place for your kids to play and explore.
Cleaning the space
Maybe your home is small, or smaller than you’d like it to be. You’ve always wanted a dedicated play room for your kids. Or a place for them to experiment and try new things. A garage is a perfect place for this.
A garage is usually thought of as dark, dingy, and dirty. But the only reason the garage has this reputation is because your cars and outdoor equipment are dirty and stinky, which makes your garage dirty and stinky.
If these things aren’t in the room, then there’s no reason for the garage not to be a perfectly safe space for your kids to play in.
The first thing you’ll want to do when converting your garage into a kid friendly zone, is to clean. You’ll want to remove everything from the room completely, even the things that will go back into the garage.
Using soapy water, and some sponges/mops, scrub down the ceiling, walls, and floor, to remove any harmful substances. It’s also a good idea to let the garage air out for a few days to get rid of any leftover fumes and bad smells.
Check for openings throughout the perimeter, whether that’s at the garage door, or in vents and utility lines around the bottom of the walls. When you bring things back into the garage, make sure they’re organized off the ground, to eliminate the chances of getting pest infestations.
This article has more ideas for preventing pests in order to make your garage a safe space for children.
Improving the garage space
If your kids are going to be spending a considerable amount of time in the garage, you may want to consider investing in a few things to make the room a little more comfortable year round.
One thing that will probably be the most helpful? Updating the insulation. It would be a shame to put so much time and effort into making an area for your children to play, only to have it be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, meaning that they can only play in there a few months out of the year between the more extreme seasons.
By adding insulation, you’ll trap heat during the cold winter months, and you’ll contain the cool air during the summer. Insulation might be a matter of weather-proofing windows and doors, updating the material of your garage door, or even changing the siding. This article has great tips for considerations when insulating your garage.
Probably one of the easiest ways to keep this room temperate is to bring a space heater in in the cold months and a fan or portable A/C unit in the summer. With the insulation, you’ll save a lot of money because it won’t cost nearly as much to maintain a comfortable temperature in the room.
Organizing what’s left
As mentioned earlier, it’s okay to leave some of your garage items in the room, but it’s important to keep them out of reach of curious hands. Harmful chemicals should be put up on high shelves that can’t be reached or knocked down.
Heavy items should be placed on the ground, so there’s no chance that they can fall down on them. If you have actual dangerous items that you keep in your garage (like firearms or chemicals) keep them in a safe.
Sometimes the garage is still the best place to store these things, even if you’ve converted the main purpose of the room to something entirely new. It’s okay to still store these things there, but you’ll want to ensure that there’s no chance your children could accidentally, or purposefully, get into them, for their safety and your peace of mind.
Foam mats
Since a garage generally has a cold, hard cement floor, it would be a good idea to lay down something softer to prevent injury. A great option is foam mats. You can get them as puzzle pieces with different games, pictures, and words on them, which makes them an incredibly fun addition to your children’s new play room.
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Category: Family Finances, Home Improvements
