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Our rumpus room was initial built so Bubbs could have a music room to play guitar in while T was asleep, as a guest room, and a general storage area for our family.
When we bought the house it was a garage, plain and simple. The original 1948 gravity heaters were in place as well as some 10-15 year old water heaters. They took up the majority of the space. There were also cracked sinks, broken doors, funky work benches, and a creepy room we hear from the neighbors was a recording studio.
We upgraded the furnaces and water heaters, made the windows bigger, added a real door and sheet rocked the garage. We had some cabinets built to store all of our junk plus the stackable washer and dryer and added some ikea doors to hide it all.
Some of this happened there:
We had a place for our 1000+ records to be stored (and played)...
Our Manstad sofa bed did its job for lots of folks hosting grandparents for overnight stays:
And our storage, well, it stored a lot of baby junk (that now lives upstairs in our house):
I think we'll be done today - with construction - of the Au Pair's room. The laundry is now out in the main part of the garage (excuse the mess) - can you see it on the left side of the photo? I'm actually thrilled to have it in a more easily accessible place. Carrying loads of laundry through four sets of doors is annoying - now I only have two to fight with while I bring it up and down the stairs.
We had the plumber do hookups for a small kitchen while the walls were open so eventually this could become a little inlaw unit that either inlaws actually live in or we use as a guest suite once again.
When you walk into the room, what used to be a large open space with a huge beam in the middle, is now an L shaped room with a small bathroom to the left. I wanted them to incorporate the beam into the wall as much as possible. The crazy thing is that the room seems just as big now as it did with the beam there b/c that thing made it impossible to use the entire room in a cohesive way.
This is the old space...(in the middle of our last round of construction):
Same angle now (in the middle of construction):
(you are looking into the bathroom from the Au Pair's bedroom, and through it to the hallway which allows us to still access the backyard).
The flooring didn't turn out so bad for 99c a sq foot! We might use it in the river house if we get totally desperate and run out of money.
There's a tiny corner shower - and two doors to this room. One that leads into the bedroom, and one that leads into the hall.
Since our Au Pair needs a private place to live, had we not created a hallway and added a new door to the backyard, we would be in for a year of no backyard access. And while we use it pretty infrequently, there are a few days a year that we love it out there. Plus, T really wants to paint. And he's SO not doing it in the house.
I think her bed will go here (I scored a great frame off Craigslist last weekend) with our old side tables and lamps beside it.
And in this mess of furniture and storage, we'll add a small loveseat, desk, TV and a microwave and mini fridge.
(what the area looks like minus the storage :)
Here's our hallway with our door to the backyard.
Don't worry, they are creating steps for us...and a cat door for the cats...
And this is her door to the backyard - that will only be accessible by our Au Pair.
I'm exciting to get all the furniture in place and get construction out of our hair (and that damn dust out of my house).
Since we now don't have a guest room, our guests will have to come visit and stay at my mom's (upstairs) or visit us in the riverhouse :) In the meantime, we have tentative plans for my best friend to come up from LA to stay in our room before the Au Pair arrives so a deadline is fast approaching...
Most people are out buying cribs or clothes for their new baby - our big purchase was building a bathroom for our Au Pair. She comes in 5 weeks!
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