One More Room

 When we bought our house there was one unfinished room on the second floor.  It's kind of a strange room as you have to go through the guest room to access it. This means it can't be listed as a bedroom, even if finished.  There is an exit through the large window, but you need two exits for a legal bedroom. The other exit would be through the guest bedroom, but the theory is someone could lock or block the bedroom door, making it impassable.

My younger brother's room was behind my older brother's room in our very old house when I was a child.  So people do have these but it can't be listed as a bedroom on a real estate listing and can be unsafe in an emergency.  Finishing this room can't make it an additional bedroom, but it can be a playroom or a game room. It could even be used as a future homeschooling room.  It is above the laundry room so someone, other than us, could make a fabulous en suite bathroom at some future date.

We first got a quote from a contractor tor.  In typical Loudoun County fashion, the quote was ridiculously high.  We have done a lot of construction work in the past, so we decided to do the stuff that was the easiest and hire the rest, being our own contractor.

The first thing was to finish the subfloor. It was dangerous to walk around the the open spaces.  Before we could do that we aded the flooring insulation before we closed off the floor.  The room is above the garage so we had to insulate the floor, unlike a traditional second story.

We had to add to the existing framing for the future drywall installation.  We found where the A/C ducting ended.  We cut into it and added new ducting with two vents into the new room.

 

Next we added insulation to the walls and ceiling.  This is a yucky job.  You have to wear long sleeves, gloves and masks.  The fiberglass is itchy and not something you want on your skin.  It was amazing how the room warmed as more insulation was added.

Drywall is a skill we don't have.  We can repair drywall, but hanging it is better done by the experts.  Also that stuff is heavy and no way did we want to carry it upstairs.  We went ahead and paid the drywall crew to paint the room. Raw drywall needs a primer coat and then two coats of paint.  I can paint and I'm pretty fast.  But this had a lot of ceiling work and that is hard on my neck.

We picked luxury plank vinyl that looks similar to wood flooring to finish off the room.  

We bought a few pieces of playroom items, a table and chairs, an easel, and a bookcase with toy bins. We moved in an extra chair from another room.  I'll bring up more furniture from elsewhere in the house and I want to get a rug for when Wesley is playing around on the floor. 

It looks like it's turning into a fun room!

After doing a lot of the work ourselves, we managed to save $20,000.  So that makes us pretty happy.