Ok, so here we go.... picture this, when I bought this house it only had one living combined dining room so I always knew I would have to add a room on somewhere but that is difficult when there is no money! So the obvious thing was to convert the cobwebbed, spider heaven with asbestos ceiling, single unlined brick walls with numerous vent holes, double car garage. After all why does the car need a home when my kids need a family room!
Well it was revolting, for the first year or so, I tried just doing a temporary makeover....hiding the garage doors and junk that we all need to store in the garage behind a wall of curtains (the only cheap ones I could find that were cheap enough to cover the whole wall were a lovely shade of poo brown).I also scraped back the muck off the bare concrete and painted it and the unlined walls. The room only had one small window on the western wall and an old door that was the only entrance into the room from the back deck (apart from the garage doors which I had now sealed off and removed the mechanism so that you couldn't enter there).
Lesson learned in removing the ancient mechanism of the old tilt-a-doors...when using angle grinder (for the first time) make sure you get son to wear tight flame proof top as he holds the mechanism for me. Instead son was wearing loose open necked T shirt as a cascade of sparks fell down the back of his neck and he couldn't let go....very crucial that he didn't ...so he just kept yelping...whilst I struggled to hold back the giggles.
I had the old rear door changed to a glass door to let in a little more natural light but still the kids weren't feeling the love in there! It was freezing in winter, still quite ugly, and that asbestos fibro ceiling just seemed foreboading.... so after saving up some more money I decided to have it fixed up properly.
Enter my ex who is a builder, to help out (thank you) he framed up the walls and with some help from me and the long suffering son (well he wanted the family room too) we gyprocked the walls. As well I had bought from Ebay a second hand window complete with plantation shutters (score!) so cheap, and a beaut pair of french doors which were top half glass from an old terrace house in the city (these doors are now in the internal entrance from the lounge into the family room - so much better than going outside to get in there!!!!)
Here are the new doors leading into the family room, they look like they have been there forever!
Open doors, please come in....
About the only picture I could find of the work in progress. I got rid of the pool table, the kids begged me for it and then never used it!!! Well with the money I bought them a large screen TV instead!!!
All newly gyprocked and painted, just waiting on new coffee table from the competion I won
This is it, cant wait, it was out of stock so I think I have at least another 2 weeks (the other one is so wobbly)
I love my new red ottomans, they are light weight with little carry straps so the kids can move them round the room as needed for playstation or games or just TV watching.
New TV to keep everyone happy!!! The doorway on the right leads to the storeroom I had built in, it runs the length of the room and is only about a metre wide, just enough for shelving and room to walk down.the side. Most of the furniture, art and accessories in the room I already had. The leather sofa is a least 15 years old and still going strong ( I gave its pair to my older daughter when she moved out) it looks so much better when its mixed up.
I love this print, it won the Archibold Prize in 2004, I saw the original and it was magnificent.
Craig Ruddy's portrait of indigenous acter David Gulpilil titled Two Worlds
This area gets a lot of use, it's my son's and my studio bench. The cupboards were left over from when I bought the second hand display kitchen for my laundry on Ebay, so free!!!! (well cheap anyway) and then I just bought a laminate bench top for practical studio use. I made the pinboard with some old skirting board I had hanging around and covered some soft board with a curtain panel I had.
It is a great room that gets a lot of use now... no longer the scary spider playground of before. The fibro ceiling was left in place and gyprocked over, safer than removing it. The floor had another coat of floor paint and one day when I can afford it I will have a floating timber floor put in with a moisture barrier underneath it. And when I get round to it the long wall will have some sort of gallery wall when I can make a decision on what to do!
Linking to
Savvy Southern Style
It is a great room that gets a lot of use now... no longer the scary spider playground of before. The fibro ceiling was left in place and gyprocked over, safer than removing it. The floor had another coat of floor paint and one day when I can afford it I will have a floating timber floor put in with a moisture barrier underneath it. And when I get round to it the long wall will have some sort of gallery wall when I can make a decision on what to do!
Linking to
Savvy Southern Style
