Deconstructing the Construction Zone & A Preview of What’s to Come

We have been living in a construction zone since September. Our entire basement is covered in a layer of drywall dust that has drifted out from the new master bedroom. Jeremy  has been working so hard, and let me just list for you the things he has accomplished.
– Removed existing drywall on walls and ceiling
– Installed insulation
– Built an outside wall and installed a window (with the help of his dad on this one)
– Built a new wall to create a closet
– Hung Drywall on walls and ceiling
– Mudded and sanded drywall (I helped a bit with this step)
– Raised air ducts 6 inches for more ceiling clearance
– Built a door that looks like a bookshelf…from scratch.
– Re-routed all the lighting from one central light to 6 flushmounts (I didn’t know I married an electrician).

My husband is so handy! What a stud. I still can’t believe he did so much by himself. There were moments of frustration and a few slip ups in the process. For example, he drilled into a water line and water spewed out all over the room. But, overall, he worked hard toward a goal and we saved unbelievable amounts of money by not hiring help. I may do cost breakdown later on with the big reveal.

For now, I leave you with some progress. If you were to come over now, you would see the walls and ceiling primed and painted, and they are looking lovely, but I will save those photos for another day. We are planning on beginning to move furniture in NEXT WEEK, guys!

We do not claim to be construction experts. Jeremy’s dad has a lot of experience with this kind of renovation and was always a phone call away, but until this point we hadn’t really ventured past the furniture flipping and building, wall painting kind of DIY. So, I will spare you all the details because I don’t think we are the right people to teach you how to do construction, but I still want to share an overview.

We started here. With a regular old one car garage.
To be honest, it looks better than it was. We thought we could get away with just adding the outside wall and then painting the existing walls and calling it a day.

Who were we kidding? It’s never that easy.

Our basement (of which this garage is included) was finished out in 2009 after the house was foreclosed on and purchased by a house flipping company. They cut all kinds of corners and did a really poor job with the finishing work. In order to make the room really look like an intentional bedroom rather than an old garage, we had to start from scratch…

So this happened.

But first, the garage door came out and a window went in…
Better pictures to come of that outside wall once everything is finished. It still needs another coat of paint.

Anyway, back to the inside…you see that really low hanging section in the middle? That is a terrible air vent that hung 12 inches from the ceiling. There was no way to remove it completely, but Jeremy was able to re-route the ducts to the top and raise the entire thing by 6 inches.

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but here it is raised. The mark on the pole (which will eventually be boxed in like a proper column) is a good indication of where it used to be.

A close up preview of the lights he installed and the door/shelf he built.

And I leave you with a couple more photos of the process

Here is what we have left:

– Prime everything
– Paint walls and ceiling
– Paint floors (Dark Charcoal Gray)
– Install baseboards
– Install trim around shelf door
– Paint all trim and doors
– Install closet hardware

That is what’s left before the room itself is done. We still have a lot to do for the decor part of things. But we have gotten some great new furniture pieces lately and our mattress came in next week. Here is a preview of what’s to come…

This duvet.
And this dresser which I will refinish. Swoon.

Such a tiny taste of all the projects coming down the pike!

Stay tuned, friends.