Category Archives: House 2.0

Basement Playroom – Original

Basement, House 2.0, Playroom

There’s a standard unfinished basement under the original portion of the house, but when the previous owners renovated in 1988, they added an extra basement room. (The addition room is a few feet lower than the original basement to allow for more head room.) They used it as a billiards room; we are turning it into the playroom.

Here’s what it looked like originally:

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We added the heat source in the corner because the room does not have its own heating. This is a garage heater with a built-in thermostat, so it turns on automatically when it gets too cold in the room. It was the most cost-effective solution and much safer than having space-heaters within reach of the kids.

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This square really puzzled us when we bought the house, but we later figured it must have been the support for a dart board. Or they just really liked the look of random squares.

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This is the dart board after Andy took a sledgehammer to it. The whole left side of the room had this bench seating, covered with brown indoor/outdoor carpeting.

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Here’s additional seating, with the odd little drop-off behind the door. (The two steps you can see outside the door lead to the unfinished part of the basement.)

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Here’s a view of the right side of the wall after Andy removed the pool cue holders from the wall.

In its original form, this room was cold, dark, and very mustardy. We fix that.

Kid’s Bedroom 2 – Final Robot Room

House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

We had a robot-themed bedroom in our old house, and I saw no need to scrap it just because we moved. So here are the before and after shots of the robot room, which our 3-year-old son loves.

Before:

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After:

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The dresser on the left was inherited from my parents and painted with Rustoleum Kona brown. Here’s a better photo of the retro robot prints over the dresser.

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Before:

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After:

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Bedding from The Land of Nod—including robot duvet cover and shams and orange blanket and shams. The Mr. Robot Pillow available at Branch Home. (The creases in the bedding are courtesy of my son, who would not stop jumping on the bed before I took these photos.)

The decals above the bed are available on Etsy in many color combos.

We created the initial above the bed ourselves. I bought the letter from CraftCuts.com, which allows you to choose a variety of fonts and sizes. (This is Cooper Black.) We painted the edges of the letter orange, then set it down on robot paper from Paper Source. We cut the paper to approximately fit the letter, sprayed it with repositionable spray glue and cut the excess paper away from the letters with an X-acto knife. (For more full instructions and photos, click here.)

Before:

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After:

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A bargain print from AllPosters.com and a pennant created by my mother-in-law complete the reading nook, which also includes bins and a chair from Ikea.

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The wall behind the door includes this custom coat hook. I commissioned Andy to make it because I couldn’t find any I liked. It was super easy — measure out the dimensions of wood you want (he added a routered edge, mostly because he had a new router he wanted to use), then add vinyl decals and hooks.

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And here is a fun little surprise in the closet. The robot decals came with two bonus monster decals, so I put them in the closet. When our son says he has monsters in his closet, he’s right. When he says he can’t go to bed because his room is “full of bees” — well, he’s full of crap, but he gets high marks for ingenuity.

Kid’s Bedroom 2 – Stage 3

Crafty, House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

I was looking for a piece of furniture for this room and liked the cubic bookcase from Land of Nod. I did not, however, like the $299 price tag.

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Instead, I found the Nornas sideboard at Ikea ($169 when I bought it; now $179) and decided to stain it to match the furniture I already had for the room.379

Here are the stained pieces as they dry:381

And here is the completed piece, which includes two more cubes of storage than the Land of Nod model, for $120 cheaper. Done.

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Kid’s Bedroom 2 – Stage 2

House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

The next steps included painting the walls (we went with Benjamin Moore Blueberry), adding overhead lighting, and replacing the windows. (The windows in this room did not fit the frames correctly and there was a full-on breeze coming through both of them. The room is at least five degrees warmer with the new windows in place.)

Here’s a photo of the white trim, blue walls, overhead light and new windows with Prairie-style grids.

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Kid’s Bedroom 2 – Stage 1

House 2.0, Kid's bedroom, Uncategorized

The first step was painting the trim white. This bedroom had many of the same issues as the other bedroom we already renovated–the trim was comprised of mismatched pieces and stain finishes. Painting the trim was the best solution, but we kept the doors in the original wood stain.

After the walls had been patched, we removed the doors and painted the trim. It was boring, but we caught up on Serial. This bedroom will forever remind me of Adnan. (Seriously, what of the Asia McClain alibi?) Here are photos of the painted trim, pre-wall paint.

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Kid’s Bathroom – Final

Bathroom, House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

We were able to turn this kid’s bathroom around pretty quickly because it was more of a redecoration than a renovation. Here are the before and after shots:

Before:

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After:

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The shower curtain came from Urban Outfitters. I chose these Pottery Barn towels because the dots coordinated with the constellation dots in the shower curtain. We also swapped out the toilet seat to make it match the toilet — the other one was inexplicably beige.

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The “So Many Stars” Andy Warhol print has always been one of my favorites.

Before:

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After:

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All we did here was add a mirror over the sink.

Before:

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After:

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After:

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We used star decals on the wall because they are less permanent than wallpaper. It seemed like a good idea, but spacing them turned out to be a huge pain. We measured the whole wall, planned how to space them appropriately, and set to work– applying the decal, measuring down and across from the center of it, and placing the next star. It was ridiculous. Yes, it looks great, but I think my mom contemplated filicide halfway through this project. So be forewarned if decals seem like a swell idea to you–go random with the pattern or be prepared to hide sharp objects from the person doing the frustrating measurements. They will cut you.

 

Kid’s Bathroom – Stage 2

Bathroom, House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

This bathroom is connected to the dinosaur-themed bedroom. Since the bedroom is so firmly rooted in terra firma (what with the green walls and the dino accessories), I decided to go celestial in the bathroom.

I wanted an element in each room that hinted toward the theme in the other. In the bedroom, I chose a star-shaped overhead light, which is one of my favorite things in the house.

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And in the bathroom, I went with a toilet dinosaur. (Yes, I’ll explain.) Here’s what you do. Take a standard Apatosaurus toy.

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Spray paint it silver.

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Add an extra roll of toilet paper to his neck.

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And there you have it. Toilet dino.

Kid’s Bathroom – Stage 1

Bathroom, House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

This was a fairly straightforward redo because we decided to keep the white tile and fixtures. They are still in good shape and, after all, this is a 5-year-old’s room. He doesn’t need a luxe toilet. (You have to be out of diapers for at least 10 years before you qualify for one of those. Thems the rules.)

Step one was bleaching the joint from top to bottom, which made a huge difference. Then we painted the walls (Charlotte Slate by Benjamin Moore) and stained the unstained door to match the doors in the bedroom. (I forgot to take before photos of the door. Just imagine an untreated wood door. Now look at this after shot. Amazing, right?)

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Then I wanted to replace the white towel racks so we could go with silver fixtures. This should have been easy. Andy went over one night to work on the house before we moved in, and I received this text:

“Tried to remove the towel rack. This happened. I have to stop now because I have lost my will to live.”

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This was one of many projects that should have been a cinch and then turned into a frustrating nightmare. For whatever reason, these towel racks were installed to withstand chin-ups. So then there was a night of patching the hole, followed by a night of repainting. All for a silver towel rack. Worth it? Probably not. But once there are gaping holes in the wall, there’s really no going back.

Kid’s Bathroom 1 – Original

Bathroom, House 2.0, Kid's bedroom

We designated the bedroom with the ensuite bath for our five-year-old son, using the sound logic that he was our only potty-trained child at the time. This bathroom was added during a previous renovation, probably in the late 1980s. Luckily the fixtures are inoffensively white and in decent shape, but as you can see, everything was in need of a good scrubbing.

Here are the before pics:

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