Home Tour: The Final Chapter

Bonus Room and Storage.
When we built our house we made the decision to add a bonus room upstairs. It was originally used as a playroom for the kids. When the kids were a little older Bob's parents were downsizing and we inherited their pool table, so it took over the room. That pool table was never used very much and we finally were able to find a new owner for it and the bonus room eventually evolved into our workout space. Most of the time this room is used every morning by at least one of us (unless we are going through a bit of a lazy stage!). At this point it isn't much to look at, but I do have plans to eventually turn it into an exercise room with a little more style. It also needs to be kid friendly so that Henry and his future siblings/cousins have a safe place to play.

The room is very functional as a gym, no need for a membership anywhere!


One of the great things about this space is what is behind the two small doors...STORAGE! The problem with storage is the space can easily look like this...

and this...

After some sweat and tears things are looking much more organized. This room holds all of my Christmas decorations (including our tree), tables and chairs, Junior Miss paraphernalia, Bob's camping gear...you get the idea.

The storage room on the other side of the room has always held toys. We had thrown down scraps from the original carpet on the floor, put in a few shelves and... voila!, we had a toy room. Of course it tended to get pretty disorganized as well. Over the years I had gotten rid of a lot of things, but I still had a lot of junk.

This is mid way through the cleaning out phase.

Loads of stuff needing to go to Goodwill.

After I cleaned out the whole room and weeded through the toys I had a blank canvas to finally fix this room up the way I had been dreaming about. I had always thought this room would make a cute playroom, not just a room with toys shoved into it, so I got to work. First I took a trip to Ikea and bought some shelving units. After the room was cleaned up I used up some old paint I had on hand and painted the walls and the ceiling. I really wanted to put some carpet tiles on the floor, but my budget had been blown at Ikea, so I settled on using the scraps that had been in there. I measured and cut and wound up with a patchwork piece that fits just fine. Next I had to put together all that Ikea furniture, paint the shelving that had been in there originally, paint the table and chairs, and finally load everything back into the room. It was a lot of work, but I think the end result was worth it.

Note the table and chairs that I posted about on Friday.

This corner of the room is for the girls. The bins are full of old dance costumes and dress up clothes.

I wish I had taken a picture of Henry when he first walked in. He gave it his stamp of approval by promptly pulling things off the shelves and playing with a big smile on his face. I would still like to add some things like a chalkboard painted on the wall and maybe some art work to add more color, but it is fine just the way it is for now.