This is it!  We are officially done with the complete renovation of EVERY ROOM in the house!!!

(pause for dramatic effect)

After spending approximately 18 months getting our house to be inhabitable, we moved in.  Then we worked for the past four years moving renovating the details room by room, starting with the 2nd floor kids’ rooms, loft, bathroom, master bedroom, laundry area, then down to the first floor for the bathroom, kitchen, dining room, piano room, vestibule, living room, staircase and now… the playroom!  It’s a pretty unbelievable feeling.  I mean, we aren’t completely done with the house yet, but the fact that we no longer have to tape up plastic, walk through construction zones, haul around tools, and migrate furniture from room to room is really an amazing feeling!

We have some (hopefully) interesting blog posts planned so that we can reflect on this journey, but for now, let’s just appreciate the completion of this last space.

The room that we planned on turning into a playroom was probably originally a den or study.  It is off to the side from the main four rooms on the first floor.

The playroom was separated from the other side of the house with a drywall addition.  We assume it was added to create an additional rental on that side of the house.  The wall came down pretty easily after a swift kick from Amy.  Opening up that space returned the house to it’s original floor plan and, as you would expect, made the house seem so much bigger!

The only staircase in the house was extremely steep, narrow, and emerged to the 2nd floor at one end of the house.  It we kept that staircase it would have meant that all traffic to the 2nd floor would have to pass through the master bedroom.

This would have essentially made it impossible to have 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.  After much debate, design, and alterations, we were able to find a way to squeeze in a logical place for a new stair case located in a different part of the house – the playroom. Unfortunately this meant removing two closets from the first floor.

We hated to demolish these closets for so many reasons, but it was a sacrifice we had to make if we wanted the 2nd floor to be practical.

We hired a friend of ours to construct the stairs.  You can see from the picture below that the first flight of stairs is in the old closet space and the 2nd flight cuts into the playroom a few feet.

We wanted to take advantage of every square foot of the house.  This small area under the stairs will became a secret hiding place or reading nook for the kids.  We framed it to allow the re-use the upper cabinet doors as an entry for this space.

A huge transformation took place when the drywall was added…

Before the drywall was taped and mudded, we scraped off the old wallpaper.

The taping and mudding of the drywall took almost two weeks, but the guy did a great job (although I think he was pretty cranky about it).  He did a lot of repair work on the areas where the drywall and plaster come together and really cleaned up everything.