UK HOUSEHOLDERS are most likely to give up their garage to create a much-needed extra bedroom, a new study has found.

One in five of us has converted a room in our house, with the garage and dining room the most popular, says interiors company Hillarys.

The average cost to convert is £2,200, and the top reasons given were "I needed an additional room for my expanding family" (35 per cent); "a friend/relative unexpectedly found themselves without a home" (29 per cent); and "an elderly relative needed a bedroom on the ground floor" (26 per cent).

The most common rooms to transform into a bedroom were the garage (32 per cent), dining room (23 per cent), attic/loft (21 per cent), living room (11 per cent) and conservatory (10 per cent).

Tara Hall, for Hillarys, said: "Spaces like traditional dining rooms aren’t so important to a home now, so people are looking to use those rooms differently.”