I’ve used my garage for several different things over the years, but there’s always been one requirement: my wife retains her parking space.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you could build a second kitchen in your garage, this is how I did it.
For several years, I used the garage for growing plant starts, what I call garage farming, for my own garden and for sale. My rolling shelf units raised thousands of starts in about one car space out of a two-car garage.
The Garage Farm
Once I finished my greenhouse and moved those rolling shelves out to my insulated shop, closer to the garden, my garage space opened back up. That left me with a question: what could I use it for next? There was just one problem. My wife was enjoying the extra space. If I wanted to use that garage for anything else, I’d have to be creative about it.
The Idea, and the First “No”
I like to cook, can, and bake, but just like her car, my wife is particular about her kitchen. So I decided I’d build myself a garage kitchen.
You’d think she’d be thrilled, no more mess from canning tuna or garlic, no more cleaning garden produce and eggs in her kitchen. I casually brought it up. Besides thinking I was crazy, she figured it would take up too much room and cost too much money.
Marking My Territory
So I got creative. I had to make sure it didn’t take up too much space and didn’t cost much either.
I started by putting storage shelves at the edge of what would become the garage kitchen. That footprint ended up a little smaller than what the growing shelves had used, so she actually gained room. I moved the spare refrigerator and freezer that were already sitting in the garage into that space, and put my canning jars on the shelves.
My usual motto is use what you have, but I still needed a propane stove, kitchen cabinets, prep tables, and more. So for this project, the motto shifted: use what’s cheap or on sale.
A Year of Patient Shopping
The garage kitchen didn’t come together overnight. I spent about a year finding clearance items and storing them in my shop. I did that for two reasons: I paid as I went and got everything cheap, and my wife got used to her piece of the garage while my storage shelves quietly marked off my space.
During that year, I’d casually bring it up. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sink out there to wash lettuce? Wouldn’t it be nice to process garlic or tuna somewhere besides the house? By the time I had everything I needed and announced I was building it, I already had an answer ready for every objection. Too much space? The shelves were already there, it wouldn’t get any bigger. Too expensive? Already paid for, sitting in the shop. Will it damage the garage? No, everything would be temporary, removable in a day if it ever needed to come out.
Built in One Weekend
It took one weekend to install the entire garage kitchen: a gas stove converted to propane, a dishwasher, a standard kitchen sink, two rolling prep tables, cabinets, a hood vent over the stove, the refrigerator, freezer, storage shelves, and a dehydrator. Water, venting, and propane lines all ran out through the windows, and I got lucky, an RV sewer pipe nearby let me route the sink drain without much trouble.
Finished garage kitchen
What It’s Actually Good For
Family and friends had nothing but good things to say once it was done. Having my own space to cook, can, bake, and process garden produce and eggs turned out to be wonderful, and it’s a great space for making soups and bone broths to can and freeze.
A few Thanksgivings ago, I prepared the entire Thanksgiving dinner in the garage kitchen so my wife could relax and enjoy our guests. She’s learned to love the garage kitchen.
When It Actually Mattered
The garage kitchen proved its worth for more than convenience. We built it after a five-day winter power outage, and in the outages since, the electric stove in the house was useless, but the propane stove out in the garage kitchen kept working.
That’s really the heart of it. A space like this isn’t just a hobby setup. It’s redundancy you build before you need it, along with the extra capacity to turn garden and coop output into a little income on the side.
Removable in a Day, Just Like I Promised
Years later, when we started getting ready to move, I took the whole thing back out, stove, sink, cabinets, tables, all of it, in a single day, just like I told my wife it would come out if the time ever came.
[PHOTO: The empty garage after removal]
It’s a good reminder that “temporary” doesn’t have to mean flimsy or half-built. You can build something that works exactly like a real kitchen and still walk away clean when you’re done with it.
— Doug
