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Old 12-06-2008, 03:00 PM
 
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Is it allowed or not? Is it a city of Weston restriction or per association? My husband and I are looking to buy a home in Weston and he would really like design himself an air-conditioned home theatre room with 2 or 3 rows of nice seats, surround sound and a big projection screen. The problem is that finding a room in a house big enough is highly doubtful unless we pay over a half a million...and extending property requires land...which is hard to add to our search criteria and keep it in our budget. He has been through forums for home theatre owners and found that lots of people have converted their 2 car garage. Do owners convert their garages in weston for other purposes, like an extra bedroom? Is it allowed by the city?

Thanks for any info you can share!
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Old 12-06-2008, 03:21 PM
 
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I don't know if it is allowed or not but while house hunting I saw many homes with converted garages.
You could check with the individual HOA to find if they allow it. Also check this web site
www.westonfl.org
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Old 12-06-2008, 04:20 PM
 
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I live in Weston and it is not allowed in our community per HOA regulation. If it's a 3 car garage, you may apply for converting 1 garage.
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Old 12-06-2008, 07:05 PM
 
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It depends on the association. In Savanna you may convert one garage if you have a three car garage. I do not know the rules at every development. You can probably find homes with 3CGs in the mid 400's.

You can also look at houses that have large L shaped family rooms. These are sometimes good for home theaters. We enclosed part of our L shaped family rooms and made a home theater with 5 seats. It's not ideal because the room is not large enough for 2 rows of seats with a 110 in screen but we have been able to make do.

What we have is a 110 in screen with an HD projector. All the sound stuff (hubby is the expert on this) and one row of 4 smaller HT seats. We converted the room for use as a family room and then decided to use it as a HT. If it had been designed for use as a HT it could have fit around 7 seats in a row in the room but we did not want to re-design the room (we have a 3CG so we could use that but we like having a 3CG).

Something like this might work for you.

Weston, FL, Real Estate Listings and Weston, FL Single Family Home for Sale - REALTOR.com®

Our house is larger and would sell in the mid $600's (if it would sell at all).
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Old 12-06-2008, 11:33 PM
 
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Thanks everyone for your input. Momma Bear, was your link to a specific house? It just sent me to the realtor.com website. I also spoke to the realtor about this and he confirmed what tankev said. People do it. I'm concerned with converting without HOA approval and then getting fined... Tankev, do you remember what communities you saw the converted garages? Were they converted 2 garages? If we convert only one garage in a 3CG, we still won't have room. We need the 2nd garage to make it fit... Momma Bear, what's the model of your house in savanna? Maybe I can use the floorplan to help us search.... thanks!!
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Old 12-07-2008, 06:28 AM
 
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I only looked at houses on the north side of Royal Palm. They must have been in The Springs (I think Brumada), The Lakes and maybe The Falls. I must have seen 4 or 5 houses with converted garages. I didn't see any homes in this area with 3 car garages. The houses I did see that were converted used the whole garage to convert. If I get time today I will look through my HOA deed to see if they say anything about conversion. I am in The Springs but not Brumada.
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Old 12-07-2008, 07:27 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear View Post
It depends on the association. In Savanna you may convert one garage if you have a three car garage. I do not know the rules at every development. You can probably find homes with 3CGs in the mid 400's.

You can also look at houses that have large L shaped family rooms. These are sometimes good for home theaters. We enclosed part of our L shaped family rooms and made a home theater with 5 seats. It's not ideal because the room is not large enough for 2 rows of seats with a 110 in screen but we have been able to make do.

What we have is a 110 in screen with an HD projector. All the sound stuff (hubby is the expert on this) and one row of 4 smaller HT seats. We converted the room for use as a family room and then decided to use it as a HT. If it had been designed for use as a HT it could have fit around 7 seats in a row in the room but we did not want to re-design the room (we have a 3CG so we could use that but we like having a 3CG).

Something like this might work for you.

Weston, FL, Real Estate Listings and Weston, FL Single Family Home for Sale - REALTOR.com®

Our house is larger and would sell in the mid $600's (if it would sell at all).
The link is to a specific house. The address is 1011 Sunflower Circle. It listed for $479K.

People do things that the HOA does not allow all the time but you need to be careful for other reasons.

There are lots of people who would NEVER buy a house without at least a 2CG (in your price range) so you may be making your house unsaleable. I would never buy a house that doesn't have at least 2 garage spaces.

Tankev. I am sure your HOA documents deal with garage conversions. Mine is very specific and they were all written by the same company.

My house is a Lark and it was built in Savanna and Weston Hills CC with the same name. You will also see a model called Heatherglen which is essentially the same floorplan.That was the name in The Ridges. It was also built in The Meadows but I don't know the name. There is a Heatherglen model in The Ridges on the market for $500K. It looks really nice. The address is 3876 Heron Ridge Ln. It is the least expensive of this model I have seen.
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Old 12-07-2008, 07:38 AM
 
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Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the information!
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Old 12-07-2008, 01:22 PM
 
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Just remember that in So. FL during hurricane season you will want to be able to park your car(s) inside the garage during storms. Also, many, if not most HOAs, require you to keep your trash cans in the garage. Finally, if you do go ahead and illegally convert, it will make it difficult to sell unless you can show the proper permits, assuming somebody would want to buy a house where the garages have been converted.
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Old 12-07-2008, 05:12 PM
 
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I checked my HOA documents. It states that no structure can be erected or modified including inside projects such as garage conversion without approval from HOA. I am guessing that you can convert as long as you get an OK and pull proper permits.I would have your realtor look into it further. We just moved into Weston and are happy we chose this area.
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