When you have a home with an automatic garage door, there is always a chance that a mechanism on the door will break. A garage door spring lasts for only an average of ten thousand cycles, so when you got a broken garage door spring, you have two options: You can easily have it repaired and put your garage back to work protecting your vehicle. Or, you can use your garage area for another smart purpose and increase your home's living space. Here are four alternate uses for your garage space.

Workout Room

To make a good workout area in your garage, lay the floor with cushioned gym flooring tiles. This will protect you, your weights, and the cement floor underneath from any accidents. Then, you can set up your cardio training machine, a weight bench, and several different hand weights. 

You may want to hook up your sound system so you can play some motivating music. Line the wall with a floor length mirror or two and your garage will be ready for you to exercise and get in shape without leaving your home.

Your Kids' Play Area

If you are tired of your children's toys left scattered throughout your home, the garage is the perfect place to keep them. You can lay padded flooring tiles or mats to make the floor safe and comfortable for your children to play on. Then bring all your children's toys out to the garage and set them up for use.

If you live in a cold climate you will need to turn on a portable heater to heat the area while your children play when it is cold outside. Also, make sure you put away any dangerous tools or other items in the garage to make it safe for your children.

Your Own Roller Rink

Roller skating was invented in 1760, and by the 1970's the quality of the roller rink was at its best. But, now skating rinks can be somewhat hard to find around the country. With an entire garage space void of vehicles, you can turn it into your own personal roller rink. 

To prepare the garage floor for roller skating you may want to clean up any oil spills. You can do this by sprinkling kitty litter over the oil stains, which will soak up any wet oil. You can help this process by rubbing the kitty litter around with your shoes. Then, sweep up the oil-soaked litter. 

Scrub the surface of the cement with a scrub brush and some liquid dish soap and warm water. Rinse the soapy oil off when it has been scrubbed up from the cement.

Now, you can sweep the entire garage floor surface. When you roller skate, you don't want to have any pebbles or trash. Any small stone or piece of plastic on the cement can stop a wheel on your roller skates, sending you falling face first into the pavement.

If you are a die-hard roller skating fan, you can paint the floor of your garage light blue to look like a roller skating rink, or seal it with a light blue epoxy coating. The epoxy coating will give your roller skating wheels the smooth-gliding feel of a real roller rink floor.

Hang up a disco ball and set up your music system to play some of your favorite songs that you and your family and friends can skate around the garage to.

A Man Cave

Many men like to have a space that they can have all to themselves. It might be nice for the man in your life to have a special area in your home that only they can use to watch television, play pool, or play cards with his buddies. 

You can turn your garage into a man cave by adding comfortable touches such as a comfy recliner and couch, a coffee table, and a flat-screen television. You can also add a popcorn popper and a mini fridge to make pleasant the time spent in the man cave. Just make sure you securely lock the garage so none of the man cave items are stolen.

These four creative ideas help you to use your garage for something else besides parking your vehicle, and make good use of any extra space you have in your garage.