Converting Your Garage into a Gym: Things to Consider

Garages don’t have to be used solely as a place to store your gardening equipment or your car. In fact, thinking so narrowly is to miss a great opportunity to utilise another room of your property for other, more exciting purposes. One such repurposing involves turning your garage into a gym.

But transforming your garage brings with it its own set of problems that you’ll need to address to ensure a smooth transition. These involve ensuring that you create adequate storage solutions and that you install proper insulation to protect all your gym equipment. In this month’s article, we’ll be looking at these considerations in detail.

Storage

When you start bringing all of your brand new gym equipment into the garage, you’ll need the space to comfortably fit it all in. If your garage is already full of gear, you should consider combing through it all and selling on any unnecessary items or moving them to the shed. Ultimately, this should make rearranging your garage a whole lot easier.

Shelving and boxes should be your first point of call for storage. The type of equipment you fill your garage with will affect the type of storage solutions you’ll opt for. If you’re going to be using treadmills and similar complete apparatus without using other training equipment, you might not need anywhere for storage. However, if you use skipping ropes, weights, or if you have a bicycle and its accompanying maintenance kit, stylish boxes may come in handy.

Flooring and Plug Sockets

Most garages come with a concrete floor that just isn’t suitable for a gym. Not only is concrete harder than traditional gym flooring, it is also significantly tougher to clean, too. You’ll need proper floor cushioning to protect it from weights as well as protecting yourself.

At the same time as you refit your floor, you should also consider whether or not your garage has enough power outlets. If it doesn’t, will this influence how you lay the gym equipment out? If so, will you need to have more outlets installed?

Headroom

If you have an up-and-over garage door or an automated panel door, there is likely to be less headroom in your garage. Exercise requires adequate space to move, so when you’re considering the layout of your gym you must pay heed to how much overhead space there is. After all, you don’t want to be banging your arms or your head every time you exercise!

There are two ways to ensure there is enough headroom in your garage. One is to install recessed ceiling lights to avoid hitting your head on hanging lights. The other requires a little more work. Installing a roller garage door will see your garage lose the cumbersome overhead frame that would be the plague of your gym. These doors are compacted into a roll above the door, freeing up vast spaces in your garage for a gym.

Insulation and Security

Keeping all of that gym equipment safe and in its prime might be difficult with your standard garage door, especially if it’s a poor insulator. If the refurbishment takes place in winter, you should install a new, well-insulated garage door before anything else. Cold weather can damage sophisticated equipment, so you need to protect it.

Likewise, once you start filling your garage with expensive gym equipment, you’ll make it a target for thieves. As a result, you’ll need every bit of added security you can get. A new garage door can add a strong physical barrier that will deter thieves, but when combined with a comprehensive security alarm system it can prove impenetrable. Be sure not to overlook securing your garage properly when you refurbish it.

Dimension Garage Doors have specialised in providing high quality automated and manual garage doors that are reliable and affordable throughout the North West of England for over 20 years. For more information on services including the supplying, installing, maintenance and repairs of garage doors, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.