State Specific Question About: PENNSYLVANIA (PA)

Before you do anything see first if you are zoned for apartments. If you are allowed to rent out a converted garage unless you have permits and a certificate of occupancy.

can't help you with costs but with suggestions. Being that small, don't go overboard. I've got three 600 sq ft units and they rent like hot cakes. No bells or whistles required.

Have the first floor be one open room with perhaps a bar/counter in between the "living room" and the kitchen ... no need for a table and chairs. Put a nice sized closet on the first floor. If possible, put a little enclosed area outside the front door for the porch so they can take off wet shoes & coats ... coming right into the living room from the alley will ruin floors, no matter what.

Upstairs, again, have a nice closet. Keep the 2nd floor walls about a foot lower than the ceiling, it will allow for better air flow.

Make your stairs a little wider than necessary.

Two good sized windows needed upstairs for cross ventilation.

Kitchen - depending on your area, see if you can get away with just a microwave and a toaster oven rather than a range. Put in a small refrigerator (perhaps 14 cu but can't remember). Mostly open shelves, rather than actual kitchen cupboards.

shower stall only, no bathtub.

Robert, thanks. I plan to make a call to the Zoning Office during business hours tomorrow, but read a good bit of the Borough's code online today and gathered what I could.

I just renovated a garage apartment. Garage on the first floor, living quarters on the second floor. One turn to the stairs. A landing outside the front door, a landing at the turn. Even though I thought it was pretty roomy, it was tight getting a 14.4 cu ft fridge up those stairs. (Oddly enough, much easier taking it out.) The slanted porch roof is great for shade, but makes it difficult to maneuver a couch and a California king sized mattress in. Somehow, they managed to do both. :o) If I was doing a major remodel, I'd probably have widened the door. (Ours is 32".) But yes, be aware of landing sizes, turns in the stairs, and overhangs, and how they will make move-in/move-out difficult.

If you think of the apartment as being a long rectangle, the three main rooms are the full width of the garage. The doorways go straight through the middle, and there are no doors. First room is the living room; the second room is split between the kitchen and the dining area; and the last room is the bedroom. Some of the bedroom space has been sacrificed for a bathroom (shares a wall with the kitchen) and a closet.

The thing I like more than my "real" 1br sfh's is all the garage space underneath. (DH has dibbed it for his workshop, so it's not included. However, there's space under the stairs for outdoor storage, and a small shed for tenant's use.) The hot water heater and CHA are located in the garage part of things. There were preexisting washer/dryer hookups. When I have the budget, it would be possible to wall off the laundry room and provide an exterior access. But I like how those things aren't taking up valuable living space.

The plumbing had to be entirely replaced. $1220.

We put in CH&A. We installed a used 2-ton unit, and already had the outdoor unit left over from another house, which probably saved a few hundred dollars. $1650 to install everything, $850 of which was labor. I need to ask him why he didn't use the preexisting floor vents (which were covered over with flooring from a previous remodel).

Before we installed CH&A, we had to get the electricity up to code, replacing the meter loop, installing a new electric box, etc. It was $706, $420 of which was labor.

The flooring was really decent. Mostly, it just needed cleaning (people had been squatting there a few years back) and new paint. The ceilings weren't quite 8-ft high, so I didn't put in my usual ceiling fans.

I was hoping to go all-electric, as Nicole recommended, but I found if I was going to do CHA, I needed to use gas in the winter.

In the kitchen, the only cupboards that had doors were under the sink. Everything else was open shelving.

In the bathroom, it came with a tub, so we kept it. We installed a shower curtain ring supported from the ceiling and an add-a-shower bathcock diverter so that showers could be taken. A shower stall would have been much more space-efficient, but we liked the flexibility of tubs. (We also knew our incoming tenant needed to take baths for medical reasons.)

Re: no doors, I could have sworn there was a bedroom door, but I've been told that the only interior doors are the bathroom and closet doors. In hindsight, having the three rooms flow into each other, from most public to most private, does help make it feel larger.

Sounds great! I like the idea of openness in rooms, cupboards, etc. In a small area that probably goes a long way.

Painting and flooring will be new at my place also. Doesn't seem too bad, can certainly do it myself and have low cost options--which as mentioned earlier lower cost is king in a small place.

As a licensed contractor I was employed by many new home owners that purchased a home with an illegal garage conversion. They were counting on the extra rental income to help pay the mortgage. Neighbors reported them when a "tenant" living in the garage had their first "party" and kept the neighborhood up at night. The Building and Safety gave orders, "turn the garage back into a garage, or else".

As an expert at local code, there were several ways I could keep the structure and not have to tear it down. It's called bringing it up to code with permits. But this garage could only be used by family members or as an office, but not as a rental bringing in income.

I had to provide for extra on site parking since the garage was no more.

Brendan,

$5000 for PERMITS?!?! Yikes! My remodel permit would be $150-200 and cover all trades.

I'll add this: go visit several projects like this and get ideas on how to keep it simple.

We make ALL doors 36" to accomodate furniture, appliances, and wheelchairs. (our population is aging)

I'm fascinated by the TINY HOUSES you can tour on YouTube - making every inch count and everything does more than one job.

FYI: many tiny house ideas will not pass code in a permanent structure.

I've witnessed first hand novices coming to the Planning and Zoning Commission asking questions on getting permits and how to proceed with certain projects. Seems to me that those people had the proverbial book thrown at them while others who had done their homework seemed to have no problem getting a permit or going before the Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance - if that were to be the case.

can't you just figure builder's square footage price x sq foot of building... $100 x 750 =$75,000

divide by half because half of it is already standing $37,500

with rent at $650 it would take 48 months to get your money back.

Thanks Charlie, CTLL and Robert. Certainly have to make sure I'm good to allow a residency in the garage. Want to make sure I'm 100% up to code because I have seen landlords that have had to deal with their prior mistakes. That's why I an trying to take everything head-on and ask these questions because most responders here are experienced and very helpful, for which I am very grateful!

Brad, this is mainly comprised of borough "tapping fees" for getting water and sewage to the detached garage. I assume I will have to pay these and set them up separately and cannot route them from my primary residence, and that makes up $4,000 of it. 36" doors is a great idea, and I think is near the requirement (my borough requires that at least 1 unit in a rental property is handicap accessible; may apply to single unit).

Patty, certainly plan to have separate meters which are covered in the $4000 I mentioned above. I was expecting $25000 so hopefully not 37500, but thanks for mentioning that basic rule of thumb. Certainly may be in for a more expensive project than I hoped/expected.