Gym Make-Over

I've been mostly focusing on what's been happening outside at our house lately.  But, we've had some stuff going on inside, too.

Remember our gym, from the house tour I gave back in February?

It's a perfect room, off the far end of the basement, for a home gym.  It's far from other bedrooms, and stays nice and cool.  In my mind, the only thing that would make it better was adding a ceiling fan, and ripping out the carpet and replacing with some sort of hard-surface flooring.

Well, in January, we had a handyman here working on some wiring and small maintenance projects.  One of those projects was moving the ceiling fan from the master bedroom (since we were replacing it with the chandelier during our room make-over) to the gym (which also required installing a support box in the ceiling for the fan).  Check the fan off the list!

Then, one afternoon, right after our big snowfall and rapid melt-away, I walked barefoot into the gym and found myself standing on soggy carpet.  A little investigation revealed that there was some sort of leak coming from the wall by the window, which had left some of the drywall soggy, as well as a section of the carpet.  Further inspection revealed mold inside the wall, which indicated this was not a new problem.

So the good news?  I got to have the carpet ripped out of the gym, like I had wanted.  The not-so-good news?  Our pocket book is lighter and the gym was quarantined for about six weeks until the work was all completed (by mold-certified professionals). 

The room has been completed for a couple of weeks now, and I am finally back into using it on a regular basis.  Yay!

For the flooring, we went with stained concrete.  Since the room is in our basement, we already had concrete slab under the carpet.  So we just had the existing concrete stained and sealed.

The color is hard to see from the pictures.  It was a three-color process, starting with a steel grey, then a charcoal, then finished off with a milk chocolate.  It's the perfect blend of cool and warm tones, and I love it.

We still have some plans for this room, like installing large mirrors on the walls, mounting a TV on the wall, and maybe adding some more equipment like a pull-up bar and some weights.  But first, back to yard work....

House Tour

I am finally sharing a full house tour.  My slowness in getting these pictures up has nothing to do with wanting projects done first.  In fact, I am showing the house in as-is condition -- well, "as-was", as I took the pictures back in December (hence the Christmas trees).  So forgive the holiday decor and the messes, as I wanted to capture rooms in their true state.  This will also help to provide great "before" pictures as we make our way through projects.

So without further ado....welcome to my home!

From the bottom of the stairs, looking out.

Standing at the front door.  To the right is the dining/living room, straight ahead is the nook.

Dining/living room (this was taken at Thanksgiving).

Standing in the kitchen nook, looking back towards the front door.  

Standing in the nook, looking into the kitchen.

Standing in the nook, looking into the family room.

Another view of family room.

Fireplace in family room.

View of the school room from the doorway that connects to the kitchen.

Another view of the school room.

Heading upstairs, from the entryway.

From the landing near the top of the stairs.  Braxton's door and Isaiah/Noah's door.

From the top of the stairs looking down into the entryway.

Laundry room, at the top of the stairs.

Hallway, looking down to Emma's room at the end.

"Tech Center" desk in the hallway.

Emma's room.

Emma's closet & reading area.

Emma's vanity.

View from the reading area to the door. 

Isaiah & Noah's room.

Play nook in boys' room.

View from the play nook.

Braxton's room.  If you look closely you can see that he was actually sleeping when I took this picture.  Hence the reason I only got one picture.

Upstairs bathroom.

Bathroom again.

Master bedroom from the door.

Master bedroom from the bathroom door.

Master bathroom (plus closet door).

Back to the nook, looking at the foyer, the door on the left goes into the basement.

Top of the basement stairs.

Looking up the basement stairs. 

Door into the guest room (it's a scary sight behind that door).

It's actually worse now.

Around the corner from the stairs; storage closet and view into the rec room.

Rec room, with bar area on the right.

From the far side of the rec room.  

Past the bar is a full bathroom and Biniam's room.

From the bathroom looking back into the rec room, toward the gym room.

Gym room (notice Noah doing Ab Ripper).

View from the sectional sofa.

Standing near the bar, looking back down the hallway towards the stairs.

Well that's pretty much it!  I forgot to show the powder room, which is right off the foyer.  And the garage.  You don't care about the garage, do you?  There isn't much to show outside yet, but there will be plenty of before and after pics as we get started on landscaping this spring.

I will also have plenty of updated pics to show you all soon, as a lot of the rooms have already had some major changes.  Stay tuned!