Playroom Addition {PART ONE}

We have slowly realized that our cozy little house is starting to feel like a parka in the middle of summer. Do you ever get the feeling that you just need room to breathe??

This feeling really came to us when we found out we would have 4 adults and 4 children coming to visit us for Thanksgiving!!

So, we thought and we thought and decided to renovate another part of our home. Now, keep in mind that if we ever go to sell our house with someone like Door or other realtors, this will not be counted as square footage, but trust me… IT’S A LIFESAVER!!!

We had a timeline of, oh…….. about 3 WEEKS!! From start to finish usable space!

I am talking about the storage loft in the garage! Sounds crazy right? Well trust me, it makes the perfect “Clubhouse” for the kids!!

Also, I will say these are not glamorous photos that will be seen on Pinterest, they are the raw real deal.

Very first step was to clean out the storage, which meant a LOT of stuff went to Goodwill! There is so much stuff up there that you forget about half of it. In fact, some of the things we came across can be reused. And most of the things haven’t even be used at all, so they will definitely be coming out of the loft.

Now we just have the problem of finding somewhere else to store these items until we decide that we want to use them. This was going to be hard, as all of our rooms were already occupied by people or other things. My friend told me to have a look into these metal storage buildings that can be built on your own property if I was really struggling. She’s recently had one and has said it is the perfect space to house extra items you have, instead of them cluttering up the house. If you ask me, that sounds like a really good idea. We’re always in need of extra space, and this might be a good way to do it. But I’m not sure that metal will go too well with the property, I had a look at some wooden he shed ideas and they looked a little better. Then I realized I was getting ahead of myself a little bit, we still had to sort through everything first. We didn’t know precisely what was going to Goodwill and what was being kept and that would mean choosing a shed size would be hard to call at this point.

This is what the view is like from the original ladder (which i did not get a picture of, so just use that imagination).

Then we went on to building a new safer staircase for the kiddos. My awesome daddy came over to help since neither one of us had ever built stairs in our lifetime! And boy would we have had a hard time on our own! So thanks Dad!

These before pictures are what use to house my stockpile.

This was one VERY excited little boy!! He helped his dad and papa for hours!!

Now onto the full process of construction! My father in law came over and helped re-wire the room. We added 4 outlets and 2 light fixtures! Again, a lifesaver!! Had we not had my father in law, we probably would have gone with somewhere like Kalahari; you can check out Kalahari Electrical Services here.

Allen and I hung all of the insulation, and most of the drywall. My Father in law was a big part of that as well. Thanks Dad!

After this came the tape, mud and texture… which Allen did most of, and i missed out on pictures due to that J.O.B!

Once texture dried, we slapped a quick coat of white paint in there using my dads friends commercial sprayer! In love, I want my own!!

Then I ran to Home Depot and purchased carpet and pad. I watched several how to’s on the carpet and thought we would have to rent all the tools. Well we decided that because it is such a small space, we cut corners and stapled the carpet down! Sounds bad, but trust me, its not going anywhere!

We finished the carpet install at 12:30am, and our guests arrive from Spokane Washington at 12:45am!! Now that’s timing!!!

Stay tuned for PART TWO to see what we did with this space!