Who remembers the old furniture-and-pillow hoarding space at the end of the hall that we used to call “the storage room”? We took a slice of that square footage to create our laundry room, which left a more rectangular bonus room and made the new glass door at the end of the hallway much more useful.
If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen that this space has been slowly transforming into a proper finished room.
Here’s some background: when we moved in, the area above the garage was only framed with HVAC rough-in, and for a while it served as a catchall for seasonal decorations, spare furniture, and my wife’s enormous pillow collection. Because it lacked insulation and finished walls, we kept the HVAC off and treated it like a storage attic rather than a usable room.
We didn’t show much of the room before because honestly there wasn’t much to show. You can glimpse it in an older house tour video and during our laundry renovation posts, but mostly it was the sort of place where you’d find that missing shoe or a forgotten box of raisins.
At first, finishing this room wasn’t a priority—we figured it would be useful down the road when the kids got older. But as our family grew (and with friends’ kids visiting frequently), 360 finished square feet started to sound a lot more appealing than another pillow storage zone. Late last year we began converting the unfinished storage area into a functional bonus room.
Our process was straightforward: update the electrical, add insulation and drywall, install flooring and trim, then paint. We had our electrician add outlets and recessed lighting while there was no drywall to work around, and we hired a local window company to replace a single window with a triple window to bring in more natural light. The opening was already framed with the necessary header, so the swap was simple.
Because drywalling a room roughly six times larger than our laundry wasn’t appealing to us, we hired a local pro who completed the drywall, taping, mudding, and sanding in a few days. It was the right call—fast and much less stressful.
That left finishing touches: priming and painting the walls and ceiling, installing hardwood floors, and adding trim and baseboards. We chose to continue the oak hardwood used throughout the upstairs to keep the visual flow from the hallway into the new room. The room’s plywood subfloor allowed us to install the hardwood with a traditional nail-down method, which was a satisfying change from the floating floor installs we’ve done elsewhere.
We painted the walls (Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore—the same hallway color), then installed the flooring and finished the trim and window casings. By that point the kids were so excited about the new room that the finer details didn’t matter much to them—they were just thrilled it was usable.
Now the room is ready to be furnished. We’re taking a slow approach: bringing in existing pieces, relocating toys, and adding a hand-me-down craft table so we can see how the space is naturally used before investing in a lot of new furniture. There’s a plan for the recessed sloped area around the window and we’re updating a Craigslist find to fit the room. For now, imagine kids (and Burger) running laps, playing, and echoing laughter through freshly finished walls.
Psst—We finally put together a Shop Our House page to help you find furniture, accessories, and our paint colors from around the house.