Oak framed garages with a room above

What do you get with a room above?

An insulated, finished room upstairs: an office, a studio or a spare bedroom, with the cars underneath.

An oak garage with a room above costs from about £2,600 per m² of footprint including VAT for the whole building, designed and built, for two bays or more. Built within 90 minutes of Abergavenny.

What does a garage with a room above cost?

About £112,000 for two bays, garage and room together, designed and built, including VAT.

Whole building, including VAT

• One bay: quoted per job
• Two bays, 6 × 6 m: about £112,000
• Three bays, 9 × 6 m: about £151,000
• Four bays, 12 × 6 m: about £189,000

For 3 m bays 6 m deep. The room roughly doubles the price of the garage beneath it. That's the heavier posts, the deeper footings, the floor, the stair, the insulation and lining upstairs, the rooflights and the full set of drawings. Correct at October 2026.

What's in the price

• Design, planning application, building regs drawings, our engineer
• Strip footings and the base
• The oak frame on 200 mm posts, with an oak floor beam across each frame
• The garage below, open at the front, boarded in cedar
• The floor, the stair and a fire door
• The room above: insulated, lined, skimmed and decorated, with lights and sockets
• Two rooflights and an escape window; a tile roof

Quoted on top

• Heating, plumbing, a kitchen or a bathroom
• Dormers, a balcony, an external stair
• Garage doors below
• The council's planning and building control fees

Is the room upstairs habitable?

Yes, as we build it.

Insulated walls and roof, plastered and decorated, a fire-rated floor, a proper stair and an escape window. It's a room you can work or sleep in. What it isn't, at the basic price, is a self-contained annexe: heating, plumbing, a kitchen or a bathroom are added to the quotation when you want them.

Do you need planning permission and building regulations?

Both, almost always.

A room above takes the building past the height that permitted development allows, and a habitable room needs building regulations approval for the floor, the stair, the insulation and fire safety. We prepare the planning application and the building regs drawings; they're in the price. The council's own fees are paid direct.

Can I have the building and finish the room myself?

Yes. It costs less up front.

We build the garage with the floor, the stair opening and the roof ready for a room, and you or your builder insulate and fit it out later. The building regs sign-off for the room then sits with you. That's how the Portskewett building was done. Shells are quoted per job. The stair goes inside in the basic price, taking the end of one bay; an external oak stair is an extra.

Which garages with a room above have we built?

Each one has its own page, with the photographs and the story of the job.

Oak frame garage with room over at Portskewett: Portskewett, Monmouthshire, 2025. Designed and built: three open car bays, a porch and stairs to a room over. The clients fitted out the room themselves.

Oak frame garage and annexe at Crickhowell: Crickhowell, Powys, 2026. 125 m² over two floors, designed and built inside the National Park. A workshop below and a guest annexe above.

More of our work: see every project.

What should you read next?

• Does a garage add value to a house?
• How much does an oak frame garage cost?