For those who don’t know, I work out of my home. Our house is 2 stories with a finished walk-out basement. When we first moved in, I had my office in what I think of as the back of the basement. As you come down the stairs you can go right to enter the family room where we have our TV and walk out into the backyard. Or you can turn left and enter the room that was my office.
The Loft
After our son was born, this was no longer a good office for me to work out of at home. We moved Terri’s office there, which had been in the back of the family room and moved my office up to the loft outside of our bedroom. This had the advantage of being far from the family room where Gabe would be spending much of his time during the day and it was much better lit with a skylight directly above. This is where I work as of right now.
Over time, though, this space has shown its flaws. The loft overlooks the living room, so whenever Gabe and Terri are upstairs, it tends to be a noisy space. This is normally fine because I very rarely find the noise a distraction. It does mean, however, that during my regular weekly phone meetings (usually 2-3 each week) or if I get an unscheduled call (rare), they have to bug out or I have to dodge back into our bedroom and close the door. This isn’t a huge problem, but it’s annoying. Also, having the skylight above my desk is a mixed blessing. During May, June, and July the sun shines directly on my desk. I’ve designed a very affordable window shade (see the file folders?) to help cope with that, but it’s ugly and imperfect. I could install a real shade, but haven’t. The small space has led to some problems with keeping things organized as well.
The Plan
Therefore, I began formulating some plans over the past few months to try and fix this. There are two possible solutions. There is actually a large unfinished space in the attic over the garage. This would make for a nice den built off the loft and is something I’d like to do someday. However, due to structural, ventilation, and electrical issues, finishing that space would be expensive. The other solution is to install a door somewhere in the basement and move back downstairs. So, this is what we’re doing.
If I’m going to do this, I’d like to create a space that I’m very happy with, so I’ve decided on doing the following:
- Upgrade the lighting in the room.
- Paint the walls a better color.
- Tear out the carpet and lay down new flooring.
- Put up a white board.
- Install a short wall and hang a door.
Today, we started Day 1 of this remodel.
Day 0
Prior to today, Terri cleaned out her stuff from her office and we cleaned out the garage and the spare bedroom so we could store her stuff there while we begin this transition. I enlisted the help of my neighbor and friend Jay to move out the large furniture.
Day 1
Today, we made our first (of many) trips to Home Depot to pick up supplies and get started. Today we picked up paint and a new light fixture along with looking for a second time at other materials I’ll need. (I went there a couple weeks ago to figure out what my rough budget should be.)
When we got back home, I cleared out the rest of the furniture and pulled all the nails and screws out of the wall.
Then, I began replacing the light fixture with the new one we bought today. The old light was a single (hideous) flushmount ceiling fixture that generally sported a 60 or 75 what bulb. This was definitely not enough lighting, particularly with the avocado walls and forest green carpet. The light cast sharp shadows and the only thing that made it tolerable was the halogen lamp Terri had in her office to provide even brighter indirect lighting.
I installed a new fluorescent fixture this afternoon to replace the old fixture. The new light is much more adequate. Initially, we weren’t sure it was quite bright enough, but I’ll come back to that.
Earlier in the day, I also looked into what it will take to move the light switch. I’d like to have the switch inside the room, but it’s currently sitting outside. I have a couple different ideas on where to put it and how to move the wiring. I’m still thinking on what I want to do there.
While I was working on the light, Terri filled in all the holes in the walls with spackle. After I finished installing the light, Gabe and I sanded down the spackle. Gabe informed me later before going to bed that, “Today was a really, really, really, really, really good day. I liked sand papering those white spots on the walls.”
After we finished with that, I took my first irrevocable act: I cleaned and then ripped up the dark green carpet. As I was cutting it with the razor, though, Gabe started to get distressed that the carpet was going away, so we let him run around in the room one more time before I pulled it out. When cutting the carpet, I cut much wider than I needed to. I plan to have a professional come in and do whatever remediation is needed to fix the carpet back down. I don’t think I trust myself nailing tack strips into cement and using a carpet stretcher. I’ll let the pro cut the carpet to precisely the right size.
Once the carpet was up, we noticed that the lighting seemed much more adequate than before. It would appear that the dark green carpet was absorbing a huge amount of light. The laminate flooring I think we’ll get is lighter and more reflective and so is much of the furniture I’ll be putting in, so I think the lighting is going to be just fine.
Finally, I began working on pulling up the tack strips. They seem to have been nailed down with two different sets of nails. One set being the usual 5/8” short nails and the others being some much larger ones. My pry bar was able to get the little ones with no problem, but I may need a heavier pry bar if I’m going to get out the larger nails. I had to stop though shortly after starting as Gabe’s bed time had arrived and whacking a pry bar with a hammer on concrete is one of those noises that carries pretty well.
Looking Ahead
Tomorrow, I will resume pulling up the tack strips and see if I can do something about those larger nails. I will also need to pull off the trim around the floor in preparation for the new flooring. I also need to get something to patch the holes in the floors where the tack strip was. Next, will probably be washing the walls and then painting.
After that, I’ll start working on prepping the floor and then putting down the floor. I’m putting off the framing, dry wall, and hanging the door a bit because there are some challenges there that I’m hoping to get some help with. I also need to get a door and stain it too.
I hope to have another update on the progress toward my ultimate office tomorrow.
Cheers.
