It’s been so nice taking a much needed break from renovation work. The holidays were very restful and Richie and I enjoyed our weeks off. I’ve decided that I really would love to be a “stay-at-home” chick! I won’t go into all of it because… well… it’s freakin’ OVER and without coming off as a grouch I’m happy it is. The holidays stress us out and we are always happy to get through it. (I know, I know.. cranky ass!)
With three weeks off during the holidays I found myself getting pretty bored near the end. I’m use to going full speed and always having something to work on. So much for the “resting”. I couldn’t stand it any more… I happily got back to working on this house.
Since the world didn’t end on December 21st I knew the exact room I needed to get started on.
MY WORKOUT ROOM! I thought if the Mayans were right all those pounds I had gained since we bought this house wouldn’t matter… but we’re STILL HERE and I just feel like a blob. It’s time to get serious and having a workout space that is not only motivating and pretty… but one that calls me to it each day…. is just what I need. So if I’m going to work out it was time to WORK IT OUT!
One of the main reasons we bought this house was because it had an extra 600-700 square feet of “play space” in the back. This studio or office space was built about ten years after the house and the architect (Rex Goode) built it to run his architectural business. It was meant to be an office space complete with a small waiting room, reception desk, sink/kitchen area, a bathroom, and of course his main studio for drafting. We knew it would be perfect for all those extra little hobbies we love and it would be a place we could “shut off” from the rest of the house and nobody would ever know it was back there.
At the end of our hallway is a door. Behind that door is our FUN space.
So lets get started! Well, whether Richie is ready or not… I’m motivated and getting back to work.
This space is REALLY rough so it needs lots of love. The entire space (the entire house for the matter) was all paneling. Although it looks okay in pictures… it was in pretty rough shape and I’m NOT a big fan of paneling unless it’s super nice!! As we began to take down the paneling we discovered that some of the walls had sheetrock behind them. This was FABULOUS news, as the rest of the house didn’t. It meant we would NOT have to hang new rock in every part of this space. YAY! The bad news was that once the paneling came down the sheetrock was in really crappy shape.
Yes, I’m actually going to keep this. It’s gonna be great!
When you walk through that door at the end of the hallway, to the right is this room which will be my workout space. Through that door you see on the right you go into a small hallway where you see the receptionist desk (yes, I’m the receptionist in this house). keep going and you hit the drafting studio.
Take a left at the receptionist desk and it winds back around where there’s a bathroom and the sink/kitchen area — which you can barely see on the left.
I first started by putting a skim coat over the walls. Some of it didn’t require complete coverage but others did. I did two coats, sanded them and then did a light crows foot texture to hide any imperfections. I’m good… but not that good. HA HA!
The little cubby hole was used for a public telephone but I’ll use it for some sort of artwork.
It also got sanded and painted.
Holy White Walls! Doesn’t that make a huge difference. It’s going to totally brighten up this space and feel so crisp and clean. Sheetrock compound works miracles!
Now to the right of the door you see above was a little nook with a couch for clients and some built-in storage. You can see where that couch use to be. They painted the floor around it. We pulled it out the first week we moved in. I’m definitely keeping the storage for all the little odds and ends I use for working out. I’ll be refinishing it when I’m done with the rest of the room.
The paneling came down….
I floated the walls with compound, textured and painted. More pretty clean white walls.
Next up was the ceiling. The entire house has tongue and groove wood ceilings. I would have no problem leaving them wood and sealing them but they just aren’t those kind of planks. They also seem to make the rooms look pretty dark (especially at night) so I have been staining them white throughout the house. This part of the house will get the same treatment.
Before I could get started on the ceiling I had to call Richie in for help. When we put our new roof on they are required to use a certain size screw in order for everything to be wind storm certified. Don’t forget that we’re in hurricane zones here and in order to insure your home you have to have an engineer certify your roof. It’s a pain in the ass and as hard as the roofers tried… some of the screws went through the ceiling. Normally I would have thrown a fit, but there was nothing anybody could do about it. So Richie cut them off and let the sparks fly!
Once I stained them you can’t even tell. It turned out fine. That’s called “going with the flow”. HA HA!
Don’t I sound like an easy going kind of girl? HA! Truth be told I’m hell on wheels. But this I had no control over. All is well.
It makes such a difference to have a white ceiling. It’s like someone turned a light on! And no, I don’t even have lights in here yet. (you can see the dangling capped off electricity). So I can only imagine how nice and bright it will be in here.
Next up was to go ahead and do some of the woodwork. I sanded and cleaned the beam and window surrounds before staining. They weren’t in horrible shape but they definitely needed some TLC. A fresh coat of gray stain makes everything seem like it’s going to be okay. Here’s a before and after.
The rough cut beams are stained the same color as the outside of the house as you can see them extend to the outside when you look through the windows. We kept it all consistent.
So there you have it. I’m really just getting started on this room and there’s plenty more to do and share but I’m happy to finally be in there and seeing some progress. I’m working on one side of the room at a time because I have lots of equipment I have to work around. There’s nowhere to store it all so it just gets shoved around.
Here’s a final shot and an idea of just how bright and happy this space will one day be. It’s going to be a wonderful workout room. I can almost feel the burn!
For realz…..your house is bad ass. I want to come visit! hahaha I love the way you write too. I totally felt/feel the same as far as staying at home and being crank-tastic about the stress of the holidays. I always want them to be blissful but they are anything but.
Thanks Lindsey! I would love it if we lived closer…. A visit would be awesome. I know, I know I want holiday bliss too but it’s usually more blah than bliss. That sounds so terrible because the real reason for the season is beautiful and acknowledged at our house. It’s everything else that gets in the way. At least the time off helped me to get a good start to this project. I’m excited to get it all set up and get back in shape. Thank you so much for being here… It’s great to hear for you.
DAMN, girl! you make the process look so easy!!! you are a true inspiration. i LOVE the bright, fresh, clean look (and the plant in the telephone nook of course!). who wouldn’t want to workout in this space?! you did an amazing job and i loved the virtual tour through this portion of your house (which i had not yet seen). looks like you kept very busy and shouldn’t have had a bored second with this kind of work, but that’s just how efficient and good you are!!
now, hit that exercise bike! ;)
happy back to work to you! xo
Hey my friend! Thanks for the encouragement. I will definitely show more of this space in the next few months. Richie and I love this part of the house but its totally shitty right now so I’m pumped (no pun intended!) to get it in “shape”. Ha ha… Sorry I couldn’t resist. The great thing is I think mister cranky ass is jealous of my progress and wants his studio space done too. He started pulling down paneling in his room last weekend. Yay! I motivated the old fart. Thanks for the visit, T. Love ya. 15 pounds to go!!!!
Forget my blog I’m just going to hire you to come do our basement. I’ll bet you’d do the framing on it faster ham it’ll take James to sort out. I love that ceiling. Oh sweet mercy. I have popcorn ceiling and everytime I think about scraping it off I wonder if its be easier to just cover it up with boards. Enjoy the starts of your new workout room! It beats January’s at the super crowded gym.
Hi Alex. You think I’m joking but if I lived close I’d be down in your basement with bells on! Honestly Richie and I LOVE to work on OTHER people’s houses way more than our own. My ceiling is probably just as big a pain as popcorn texture. Each of those damn grooves has to be painted twice. Now that’s a workout! Seriously my neck was sore for two days. Ha ha! Old lady here.
Looking forward to your kitchen project. Thanks for the visit, friend. Did you ever update your wp?
I shamefully have not and there’s a very overdue email coming as to why.
I showed Paul your project, because I knew he would appreciate your spackle skillz… but after he scrolled through it, he was like: SHE did all of that. And I was like. Um. Yes? I mean, no. I think she is using the “royal” she (this is like the royal we, but um, with more woman power).
Seriously? Every time you do one of your epic house-project posts I’m both exhausted… AND motivated. I read your post late last night, on my phone, sitting on the back of a Uhaul, waiting for Paul to do something you will see later… and I was EXHAUSTED. (The project was FAR more complicated than we’d hoped.) But I seriously looked at your photos/imagined the days you spend sanding/staining/spackling… and I was like, ok, no complaining here!!
That was an incredible amount of work… you shouldn’t actually need to work out now for a few weeks!! (I know the details have to still be keeping you busy) And the more I see of the colored stain, the more I want to try it on something. Unfortunately our PO painted everything he could get his hands on, and I’m not about stripping paint. Ever.
It looks fantastic. So bright and clean. I *really* envy your window square footage. I imagine we’ll see completed pics with you in legwarmers and wristbands? Maybe some purple tights?
Ha Ha Ha! You’re hilarious. I got this crazy vision of me in purple tights and legwarmers running in place… “I’m a maniac, maniac, on the floor”!! TOO FUNNY! I hope I really can be a maniac and get this done before I gain another 10 pounds. You know how slow I am with projects.
Oh goodness… I’d faint if Richie helped “us” with any of this. He caused the sparks and smoke while cutting off the screw ends in the ceiling but that’s all he helped with. Of course I knew he’d enjoy that because all guys like fire and burning things up. He saw me getting out the dremmel to cut them and quickly jumped on that opportunity. Trust me when I say I was quite happy. Hot sparks in my face is not really that fun for me. Does that make me a wimp? Or just really smart. HA HA!
Richie laughs and says I have all the “easy” work. Sheetrock, caulking, and painting is “EASY”. It’s times like that I think I might slip a few laxatives into his dinner. Hey, if you’re going to be a shit…
Of course I know he’s just teasing me – it’s how he shows his love. Harassing the wife is too much fun!
Sounds like you and Paul had an adventure! A Uhaul!!! I can’t wait for that post!
Thanks for the fun, Victoria. You always crack me up.
Wow, what a difference! I can’t believe how rough the sheetrock started out- you’d never guess now that it’s done. All that bright white looks great. And with the gray wood- perfect.
You’re a trouper- I hate doing sheetrock patchwork- hate sanding and reapplying and sanding again. This looks so great. How do you do crow’s feet texturing?- this looks like an excellent solution for our hallway (that I’ve been putting off)
Hey Cindy! So good to hear from you. Hope your holidays were fabulous. I never got a chance to post your picture but I definitely will… now that I know you’re okay with it. YAY!
I’m excited to get going on this room. Thank you so much for the sweet words of encouragement. I know white can be SO boring but I seemed to be LOVING the simplicity and clean brightness it brings to the room.
Trust me, I’m with you… sheetrock is NO FUN! I’m only a trooper because I have to be. We had a guy come out to give us an estimate on finishing out the sheetrock in this part of the house (about 650 sq feet) and he wanted $2100.
WHAT THE HELL! I knew right then and there I’d be the wo-MAN for that job. I’m starting to think he really didn’t want to do it. BUT WAIT! I really didn’t want to do it either. WAHHHH!
I do enjoy the texturing part, though. You could totally do that and get great results. YOu just have to water down the joint compound to the consistency of watery pancake batter and get out any lumps. I usually use a mixer to make sure it’s not clumpy. Then you just dip that crows foot brush into the mixture, swirl it around on the wall to get the wall coated and start stomping the walls with the brush. It’s easy and fun!
I did a really FAST video one time when I was doing the bedroom if you want to just see the fun mess I made. CLICK HERE for the Post and Video.
Thanks again for looking. I know white walls aren’t all that fun to look at but I’m so excited I just had to post. Happy New Year, Cindy!
Whaaaat! $2100 is nuts!! No wonder you did it yourself, even though it’s a miserable job.
thanks for the video- gonna check it out and see if I’m up for the task.
You guys are crazy fast and GOOD! The new space looks incredible already. This would’ve taken us forever to get to this point.
And just one more thing I love about your house… it has it’s own studio! We looked at a TON of homes before picking the one we’re in and having a separate space like that is HUGE!
Can’t wait to see all the things you have in store.
Looks great! I heart that little cubby. And I am cracking up about the them painting around the couch back in the day.
The word that kept going through my head as I read this post was Dividend. I once got a Cosmo at the uber-fancy and old-school Bemelman’s bar at the Carlyle Hotel and when it was served, they brought a little extra that wouldn’t fit in the martini glass. The guy said in a very formal tone…”and here’s your dividend.” As a result, this word gets over-used around here, and refers to all things Extra. This is all to say: how lucky you are that you have all that Dividend space!! Wow. And yeah, if you can have a nice workout room, it will surely lure you in more easily – no need for dingy (which describes most gyms in our area.)
Bravo!
I am so impressed by your sparkling skills. That is one job I have never been brave enough to tackle myself. You walls remind me of what mine looked like when I took the paneling and two layers of wallpaper down in the living room and dining room. But they are beautiful now, both yours and mine!
What a great space, you’ve motivated me to put a work out space in our basement! I used your blog to show Sam so I could add it to his honey do list with out all the drama :) Gosh I need to learn how to skim coat from you, great job.
Wow, when you get motivated, you really get a move on! I’m impressed. I can’t wait to see all the “after” photos.
All I’m doing these days is hiring people to do things for me. In addition to the work on my apartment, I’m getting a new fence too. Worker are tripping all over each other up in this piece! :)