The phrase 'instead of converting' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when you want to contrast an action with another by showing that one option was chosen over the other. For example: "He decided to refinish the floors instead of converting them into an additional bedroom."
After World War II Vienna chose to retain its tramway system instead of converting to buses.
Instead of converting much of the carbon in plants into their own biomass, the microbes released more of it as carbon dioxide.
Instead of converting a factory building they bought there to more profitable uses, the developers have made it available to local artists displaced by other factory conversions.
In recent years, another alternative has emerged: instead of converting a paycheck into cash, prepaid cards let users pour it into a piece of branded plastic.
Instead of "converting my Amazon winnings into space travel," Mr. Bezos needs to pay much more attention to what is happening here on Earth.
Instead of converting a small percentage of the codeine to morphine, she converted essentially all of it, unknowingly poisoning the infant.
The study originally called for dedicated slow-moving missile-carrying submarines (instead of converted attack submarines) to embark missiles outside their hulls and rely primarily on stealth for survivability.
Among them are these findings: *Instead of converting two Harlem buildings into homes for troubled mothers, Hale House, which bought the buildings from the city for $3 each, is renting to working people, at rent-stabilized rates.
After you convert the movie to DIVX, instead of then converting to VCD, you can burn the divx movie witch will play on any DIVX DVD player.
Instead of just converting to a new currency, banks have to change first to a system of dual currencies that will become obsolete in 2002.
Connected Mathematics, a popular middle-school program used widely in New York, teaches sixth graders to add fractions by folding paper strips into segments representing halves or fourths or thirds, instead of by converting to common denominators.
