12 Coolest Metal Garage with Apartment Idea to Try for Your Home Remodeling

If you live in urban areas, especially the older ones, it is quite common to find metal garage with apartment.

Garage apartment are often known as “carriage” or “guest” house.

This idea actually came up after people start to needing a larger foundation and footprint to accommodate storage. People tend to store their previous things on either side of vehicles in the garage. However, that makes the whole garage look cluttered.

So the solution is building an apartment above the garage.

The apartment here cannot only be used as a storage. Most of the time, the space can also be used as a guest room. That additional space is also useful for home office too. The ideas are practically endless (will be discussed above).

If you’re interested in building your own garage apartment, here are some ideas for you to consider.

PS. These ideas are metal garage apartment. Why metal? Because it is a strong and durable material for a garage’s exterior. It provides a modern, minimalistic, and chic style too.

1. Retreat Homely Garage Apartment with Rusted Look Metal Door

This mountain style garage that can contain three cars inside. There are four wood pillars at the front. The side door is meant to be an entrance to the apartment. The garage, on the other hand, has its own entrance.

The garage building is attached to the apartment. Instead of building a two-story garage apartment, this building has apartment and garage built side by side, attached.

The doors here are off-the-shelf insulated masonite doors. They are clad in steel onsite. The clad looks as if it was rusted. In fact, it was the designer who treated the clad steel to achieve the rusty look.

According to the designer, the mixture used was one part of acetic acid, one part of 35% peroxide, one part of salt, and one part of water.

The metal doors look perfect combined with the vertical siding. If you are wondering, the siding is reclaimed Wyoming snow fence. It looks like it was stained, but in fact it wasn’t at all. The color is natural from a reclaimed wood.

2. Large Traditional Detached Garage Apartment with Metal Roof

This garage apartment is a perfect example of large transitional design. It features metal gable roof, soft yellow vertical wood siding, and wooden doors.

This property shows that combining metal and wood is a perfect choice if you want to achieve a traditional and natural design.

What makes it standing out is the size of the apartment. It is more than a studio apartment.

There are side porches, upstairs and downstairs. And on the other side, there is a greenhouse too.

The greenhouse’s windows are similar with the garage doors, they are made out of cedar wood. While the windows of the apartment are made out of mahogany wood and coated with a clear finish.

3. Farmhouse Two-story Garage Apartment with Black Metal Roofing

It is undeniable that white is a perfect color to choose if you want to achieve a clear, polished look. Moreover, white is also a neutral color, which makes it ideal for a minimalist and modern design.

Look at this garage apartment. Even though it doesn’t deliver a modern design, it looks polished in its farmhouse style.

Because this is a farmhouse garage, this building is also known as a barn, even though it can accommodate a car too.

This two-story pole barn is made out of whitewash pine board and batten siding. The white siding exterior seems nicely contrasted with the black metal roof, Rough Sawn pine double sliding door, and the windows’ trim.

Speaking of the windows, they are double-hung vinyl windows completed with grids, from Okna 5500 series. The shutters are a custom-made tree cutout, painted in black.

There is also a weather vane on top of the metal roof as an architectural ornament. The vane is a custom Dachshund weather vane. It looks perfect standing on top of a Azek cupola with steel roof.

4. Rustic Garage Apartment Idea with Black Metal Door

This large rustic garage is a detached one. It can accommodate two cars and has an apartment upstairs that is functioned as a workshop.

The dimension of this garage apartment is 24’ wide and 34’ deep. The workshop upstairs is a bit smaller than the garage, because of the roof lines.

The siding here is made out wood. To be exact, it is a shiplapped poplar in random width. In each side, the siding is coated with Sikkens Cetol and marine grade sealer. It holds up well, because of the large overhangs.

The siding was also installed on a vented drain plane. It is perfect combined with the garage doors. The metal garage doors are from Clopay Classic Premium in flush style.

Above the metal garage doors, there is an awning matched with the doors. The awning is a standing seam metal roof. The whole exterior is accentuated with fixtures from Barn Light Electric. It makes the whole garage look warm and inviting.

5. Two-car Garage Apartment with Hardie Plank Siding and Standing Seam Metal Roof

This detached garage can house two cars inside. Above, there is an apartment that is used as an office space.

The dimension of the garage is 4’ x 24’ and the dimension of the home office is 18’ x 8’. It features 10’ walls. The concrete driveway leads to the white metal double garage doors. The dimension of the garage doors is 9’ x 7’.

The entryway to the apartment is different from the garage. There is a side metal entry door beside the garage doors.

The exterior here is a combination of Hardie Plank siding and stone overlay. This combination is also matched with the standing seam metal roof. The whole look really screams a country style.

6. Eclectic Attached Metal White Garage with Apartment

This polished and flawless attached garage has an eclectic design. It is a two-car garage with an exposed aggregate concrete driveway in its front. This mid-sized garage has an upstair apartment. It looks homey with a gable roof like this.

If you are wondering, the roof pitch here is 8/12. The trim is Board and Batten. The battens are a cedar installed over a cement board. It is spaced on center 1’0.

The garage doors are from Crawford Carriage House Doors, and the dimension is 9’ x 10’. The doors are accentuated with the arbors. The arbors are wood, coated with a transparent sealer.

7. Modern Cottage Garage Apartment Remodel with Metal Window and Door

This minimalist garage shows a perfect modern style. It features an apartment on the side of the building. Unlike most of the garage apartment which has an upstair living space, the living space in this garage was built right inside the garage.

Right at the front of the garage, there is a stone driveway leads to the sliding door. The stone is Schist. The sliding wood door can be mistaken as a glass window. However, the wood slides over the glass. This delivers a perfect privacy for the homeowner. This beautiful sliding wood door is from Haas.

The window and door trim is from Loewen. They are an anodized aluminum, a perfect material if you want a durable and strong door/window. When it comes to the roof, it is an Englert roofing. The grey color used here was a Dove Gray. It looks nice combined with the white cedar shingles and yellow cedar trim as the exterior.

8. Glass Metal Garage Doors on a Contemporary Farmhouse Style Garage Apartment

This farmhouse garage features an aluminum and glass garage doors. They make a modern modern look on this cottage house.

The highlight on this building is, of course, the garage doors. They are Clopa Avante Collection. The combination of aluminum and opaque glass is perfect.

The metal frame provides a low-maintenance and durable frame, while the glass creates a privacy. It can keep the cars and other belongings stay hidden.

This Clopay door is available in a plethora of colors for the frame. There are anodized, bronze, black, and even clear. It is perfect to complement the look of the house, despite the style used. There is also an option of multiple glass that lets you bring the natural light in as much as you like.

This detached garage can accommodate two cars at a time. The apartment here is used for a workshop, which is a nice idea due to its perfect privacy.

9. Trendy Four-car Apartment Garage with Bronze Clopay Metal Door

This trendy attached garage is different than any other garage. It can accommodate four cars at a time. Instead of dividing the garage into two separate large areas that can house two cars each, this garage has a separate four rooms, one for each car. Imagine how big the space is!

Above the garage, there is an apartment with huge glass windows. This way, the apartment can be a morning room too, where the natural light can pour into the light.

In front of the apartment, there is a porch too, accentuated with an iron railing. Above the windows, you can see the pergola too. The pergola here is made out of steel, with structure supported with redwood.

The metal pergola is matched with the garage doors. They are made out of metal too. If you are wondering, the doors are from Clopay Premium Series 2, with bronze factory color. This garage structure is set in place concrete.

10. Three-Car Stylish Garage with a Mezzanine Apartment and a Metal Insulated Glass Door

If you ever wonder what it’s like to be inside a garage apartment, here’s a sneak peek. This is an example of a mid-sized garage in modern style.

This garage can house three cars at a time. In the back of the garage, you can see a sliding door that leads to an apartment.

There is a stair that opens to a mezzanine too. The mezzanine is supposed to be a private area, that can be used either for a home office or for a media room.

The main door of this garage is a sliding barn-track carriage door. It was custom made in Lancaster County. The railing is metal and also custom designed in Lancaster too.

The door is completed with glass panel too, so the sunlight can penetrate the room easily.

The floor is insulated. It is a combination of insulating glass and aluminum extrusions, mixed in a laminated wood and aluminum panels. The finish is semi-gloss.

The insulation was also installed in the roof. The roof consists of 5” polyisocyanurate rigid insulation covered by plywood sheathing. And for a weather protection, there is a fully adhered white TPO membrane too in the roof.

11. Unique Garage Apartment with Sustainable Cedar Siding and Recycled Metal Roofing

This garage was made in a design of a cabin. So it is known as a cabin, since it is detached from the main property.

This unique garage cabin is situated at the end of a meadow in Methow Valley. It was built on the slope of a mountain.

This cabin is perfect for a winter holiday or even a weekend getaway. The garage below is completed with a compact living space above.

You see here that the roof is “heaved” by a sustained band of clerestory windows. The apartment on the second floor also features a huge glass wall that faces a breath-taking view of the mountain

This building is completed with a durable cedar siding. It is a red cedar and stained with semi-transparent stain from Cabot.

The siding is combined with metal roofing to create a modern look. When it comes to insulation, the roof and the walls have at least 40% higher insulation values than common construction.

12. Timeless Three-Car White Garage Apartment with Englart Metal Black Roof

This traditional garage is a detached one. It was made to match the main property in the historic district, so the design was made vintage and classic. However, since it was painted in a usual classic white, this garage apartment has become timeless. Because neutral color is never out of style.

This garage can house two cars at a time. You see here that the access to the apartment is separated from the garage. There is a side door as an entryway to the living area above the garage. Both doors, though, the garage’s and the side door, are from Ranch House Doors. They are solid wood doors.

The roof is from Englert. Englert products are known the best. No wonder if they are often used on many remodeling projects. This garage’s roof, to be exact, is an Englert metal black with 17” seams. It looks a bit gray due to the natural light. And for the accent, there are Crossbend Large 2 Light Outdoor Lantern in textured matte black by Craftmade to light up the whole exterior during the night.

Closing

So what do you think of those metal garage with apartment ideas? Which one do your prefer, a detached or an attached one? If you still can’t decide, here are some benefits of detached and attached of garage apartments.

Upsides of Attached Garage Apartments:

• Since it is attached, it means your garage apartment is connected to your main property. It can be cheaper when it comes to the cost, because the builder and the designer can use the structures that are already set in place.
• If you have a senior family member or any relative who lives with you and they want to live independently, an attached garage apartment can be useful for your. The additional member of your family can live separately from you, but not totally isolated so you can check them out regularly.

Benefits of Detached Garage Apartment:

• A detached garage apartment is considered more secure. In what way? If there’s someone breaking into your garage, he/she will not have a direct access to your main property. This also applies if you store your most valuable things in your garage. If someone breaks into your main house, he/she can’t directly access your garage.
• The security of a detached garage apartment is not only limited to burglar and thief, but also risk of fire. A separate space from the main property can lessen the risk of a fire.
• A detached garage apartment delivers a more private space too. So it is perfect if you want to rent out your apartment above your garage. It seems attracting for the renter to know that they can live separately from the owner of the house.
• Last, it will be easier to remodel and expand your detached garage apartment if you want to in the future. You can make your garage larger to accommodate more guests and it’s easy to renovate it if it’s separate from the house.

Now, let’s talk about the cost. The average width of a garage apartment is roughly 400 square feet. Additionally, a small bedroom is approximately 100 square feet. So a garage apartment is usually about 500 square feet. When it comes to the cost, basically building a garage apartment will cost you around $75,000 to $200,000. The amount of it largely depends on the finishes you choose.

The cost is not cheap. But it obviously includes technical things, like insulation, plumbing, electrical wiring, etc. Speaking of insulation, you should know that insulation is a common issue with a garage apartment. It is because garage is basically meant for cars. Transforming your garage into an apartment means the insulation may be insufficient for people who live in the apartment. Hence, you should consider adding insulation in the floors, ceilings, and walls during the renovation.

However, if you have prepared the space and the building cost, there are many reasons why you should have a garage apartment. Here are some of them:

1. A garage apartment can give you extra rental income. It is actually easy to rent out a place in an area of fast-growing city or college towns. The apartment above your garage can be rented to give you some extra cash each month.
2. It can be used as a guest house too. If you have your relatives come over for a visit, you can use your garage apartment as a guest house. That living quarter may have its own entrance, a different door from the garage’s door. So it will give more privacy to the guests.
3. A garage apartment can be a home office or personal studio. If you have a business, a freelancer, or a part-time writer, a garage apartment can be your headquarter. It provides a separate space from your home, but you never really leave your home.
4. A garage apartment is useful to downsize your property. If your kids are already left the house, there may be many unnecessary rooms in the house. They should be maintained regularly. If you think it is useless to have a large property for an empty-nester, you can sell or rent your house. You and your partner can live comfortably in your garage apartment.
5. You can also use your garage apartment as your personal retreat. If you need some regular down time apart from your house, a garage apartment can provide a perfect getaway spot. Who needs a vacation if you can build your own best vacation spot?

Good luck with your garage apartment building!