Biggest Project Yet - The finale

Part One and Part Two.  ***Photo heavy***

Here is the big reveal!

So now we were ready for finishing touches and furniture!

Instant fun... just add teens! They are enjoying their space immensely and I am so amazed at the transformation!  I'm also once again so amazingly blessed that my husband sacrificed so much time and effort to create a beautiful, inviting, comfortable space for our kids and their friends.

Now if he can only get around to that shed....

Blessings on the journey~

Biggest Project Yet (Part 2)

Part 1 of this project is HERE.   ***LONG AND PHOTO HEAVY POST***

If you remember from the last post, we are now to the point of mudding.  This was the most ridiculous part of the entire project!
We went through SO MUCH mud!  Like way more than any of us would have ever thought.  I think we had 4 complete 4.5 gallon buckets plus a couple smaller ones and then part of another 4.5 gallon bucket

We had never done this part of a project before and were totally winging it.  Steve watched several YouTube videos and we bought some special tools and gave it our best shot.  If you notice the ceiling is VERY high and has some seriously funky angles - with accompanying enormous gaps.

Steve worked his regular job during the day and then came home and worked here for hours more to fill holes, seams and then did all the final sanding himself.  Crazy and so wonderful!
Finally we were at the point where we gave the boys the task of washing walls (ok - I did help a little) and then a couple gallons of primer and some rollers (this I did NOT help with!).  And let them go to cover the ceiling and the walls to seal the sheet-rock and get ready for paint.

They also painted the ceiling with only minor touch ups after the fact.  They did a great job and I was very thankful for the help.
After some negotiation and about a hundred paint chips and some samples on the outside area wall, we decided on a two color scheme of Behr paints "Dark Storm Cloud" and "Tibetan Orange".  I'm not sure who names paint colors.
Then Ben helped me paint the walls.  I started with all the edging of the ceiling and where the two colors would meet and he began with the first coat of roller work.

It took about 2-3 days to do two coats of each color on the walls, but it came out really terrific.

Next came the windows - which all had to be trimmed out with extension jambs, sills, and molding.  We also opted to simply cover the yucky window with a vinyl privacy film until we can figure out about replacing it. I painted a million feet of baseboard molding to be installed after the floor was installed.

Then onto the flooring!  That remnant piece of carpet we bought was almost large enough for the space, but not quite, so we decided to install laminate floating 'wood' flooring in part of the space and do the carpet in the rest - sort of a divided living space idea.  It was, again, something we'd never done and Steve did some research, rented a tool and we dove into carpet installation.

Then Steve installed the laminate flooring.

To be continued...here.

Biggest Project Yet (Part 1)

**Warning: Long and photo heavy**
16 months ago we moved to our home.  In those months we've tackled a lot of projects here.  We've ripped down wall-paper and painted, had the roof done, painted, had septic & well work completed, painted, had a floor re-done, painted, built a chicken coop, painted, got chickens and did I mention all the painting?  So we have been pretty busy.
On Memorial Day weekend B (our teen son) and a friend were hanging out and discussing how it would be cool to take the storage area over the garage and make it a hang-out space for all the teens that God has blessed us with as friends to our 2 young-adults.
So Steve told them that the first thing that needed to happen was to clean out the space of all the piles of junk/stuff that was there.  It was a massive catch all for anything and everything from recycling buckets, chicken food to outgrown bikes and light fixtures we didn't need.  It looked like this.

In short... it was a disaster!

But during that one day the boys and Steve worked hard and by the end it looked like this.

It is hard to see, but the walls and ceiling are covered in sheetrock that looks like it was installed by drunken blind people.  The gaps are HUGE and it is crooked, not screwed into studs in some spots, hung in wonky directions and with LOTS of odd angles and about a zillion seams. And the window in the center of the back wall is an old mobile home window with a broken seal and moisture between the panes of glass.

At first we thought - fine - they can hang out in the empty space.  We found a remnant piece of carpet on craigslist and bought that to throw on the floor.

THEN... Steve started thinking, and drawing, and planning.  I prayed that God would allow us to do whatever was possible to create a fun, comfortable space for our kids and their friends to hang out here at home.

Steve took the week of his birthday off in June - the plan was that he was going to begin building himself a shed in the yard.  Then he did something characteristically marvelous of how he lives his life and loves us so well.  He and B and his friends started working on the room - jokingly christened Club Temple on Steve's drawings.
First - Steve took down some water damaged sheet-rock and did some electrical work - moving a ceiling fan and switches.

Then he and the boys built a wall.

Then they hung sheet rock on the new wall.  We also took turns beginning a first coat of spackle/mud on the 90-bazillion screw heads and seams.

To be continued....here