Dawes Avenue Garage Conversion
A detached Culver City garage rebuilt into fully permitted living space — new kitchen, bathroom, and laundry, framed and finished from the studs out.
Garage ConversionThis project converted a detached garage in Culver City into fully functional, code-built living space — new construction from the ground up. Bela Development ran every trade in-house: structural framing for three new window openings and four new door openings, a new electrical subpanel with a full circuit rebuild, complete plumbing with a tankless water heater and a new sewer connection, mechanical ductwork, Title 24 insulation, exterior stucco, drywall, tile, flooring, and a finished kitchen and bathroom. The result is a permitted, code-compliant space built to the same standard as the main house.
The Goal
The owners wanted to turn an underused garage into real, livable square footage — a space with its own kitchen, full bathroom, and laundry, built to current code from the studs out rather than patched together informally.
The Challenge
Converting a garage into livable space means solving problems a typical remodel never touches. The existing garage door, motor, and shelving had to come out before anything new could go in, and three new window openings and four new door openings needed structural headers and a reframed shear wall. Getting water, gas, and drainage into a garage that never had residential plumbing meant trenching a new 4" drain line inside the slab, camera-inspecting and digging up sidewalk concrete to tie into the street sewer connection, and running all-new copper supply lines. Every system — electrical, plumbing, mechanical, structural — had to be built and inspected to residential code from scratch.
The Solution
Bela Development sequenced every trade behind the walls before closing them up. The team demolished the old garage door, motor, and shelving, then reframed the structure with new posts, headers for the windows and doors, and a new interior shear wall. A new subpanel and full circuit run added 15 outlets, five switched lighting circuits, nine recessed LEDs, exterior lighting, and a dedicated 110V line for a mini-split. Plumbing brought in a tankless water heater, new hot and cold lines for the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry, and an all-new drain and sewer connection tied in after camera inspection of the existing line. The team insulated to Title 24 standards, installed new windows and pre-hung doors, applied a three-coat stucco finish, hung and painted drywall, tiled the bathroom and kitchen backsplash, and fabricated and installed the kitchen countertop and cabinetry.
Final Outcome
What was once a bare garage is now a self-contained, code-built space with its own kitchen, full bathroom, and laundry — wired, plumbed, insulated, and finished to the same standard as the main house. Every system is new: electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and structural, with a dedicated mini-split line ready for climate control.
The Finished Home
The result, room by room.
Multiple services. One design-build team.
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