Ever-Changing Family Room

​One of the long-term projects in our house has been the evolution of our main basement space.  When we first bought the house, it was a closed-off illegal bedroom (everything was there except the egress window).  It became our office space for a while after that, but when the condensate pump broke and flooded the carpet one weekend, we decided to start making changes.  The main change then was to remove the now-moldy carpet and drywall in areas where it had wicked water up from the floors.  

​​Then we had a friend become a roommate for a little while. To make sure she had enough space (and improve egress), we moved a wall into a storage area and opened it up to the stairs.  She chose a lilac purple for the new walls, and we kept the room that way for a while.  It went back to being an office, then it became an office/storage while we were renovating to add basement bedrooms and start the rainbow room... before finally getting dedicated to a full-time family space.  

As part of the bathroom addition, we removed the wall between the family room and the new bathroom: the same wall that we had moved before.  It is the best of both worlds with its new location.  Since the floor drain moved, we can add a lot more hall and linen storage, and we were able to move back a wall for a larger family room.  There is no longer overlap between the bookcases, and the window is more open letting light natural light come in.  

The Library

​For the last year and a half, I've also been turning this space into a library to store out large collection of books.  My kids especially are big readers, and I love having my own reference material for projects.  Plus, there's nothing like the feeling of pages or the smell of an old book.  It also gives us some storage for board games, DVDs, and Legos.  It's a truly adaptable room for whoever needs to use it.  

Getting this space to really function as a library while being central to our house has also had its challenges.  When we added the bedrooms we also moved HVAC access to this room.  This gave me an almost perfect opportunity to add a "secret room" bookshelf-door.  The biggest challenge is how short the ceilings are in this area, so I hacked a Billy bookcase from Ikea to fit under our ceilings.  With casters on the bottom and bolts into the wall we can easily open or completely remove the door to access what we need, and when it's closed the HVAC access is hidden.  Plus, the kids love that we have a secret door; it doesn't stay secret for long.

​The Bookcases

Prepping and painting a full set of Ikea bookshelves was not a very easy task.  We decided to build the library at the height of lumber prices ($12 for a 2'x 4'??), so using Ikea's bookshelves was a far more economical option.  I lightly sanded each and every piece to allow a bondable surface for the primer and paint.  Then I primed every piece with Zinsser's BIN primer.  I alternated using Sherwin Williams Emerald acrylic alkyd paint and Polycrylic to get a really solid surface that would resist chips, scratches, and scuffs. 

That was all over a year ago.  Now, since we moved the wall again, I landed on a final plan for the room.  Layout won't change much from what it currently is, but I finally decided to paint the walls and the bookshelves the same deep teal: Sherwin Williams Riverway (6222).  It's a fairly muted color, almost navy with a little bit of green.  The ceiling will have a few different soffits around HVAC ducts and plumbing.  The ceiling will be bead board, like our kitchen and bathroom upstairs.  And I'll paint it the color of our old kitchen cabinets: Sherwin Williams Delft (9134).  It's a few steps lighter than Riverway.  With the casings in place the consistency of the color will obscure the dimensions of the room and make it seem larger. For now, it's the largest room in the house; in the end it'll be second in floor space to our -very short- attic.