Hi All!
After far to long I am finally getting to sit down and write about our latest project. The third floor of our house and what we are envisioning for it! When we moved in we always said it would be such a cool space to finish so here we are! I would say about a year ago we decided that having the third floor finished would be a nice addition to our house. We do have people stay over several times a year and having additional room for them to be is convenient. We wanted to have additional space when guests came to our house and this felt like the perfect fit. Our initial plan for up here was to always keep it an open floor concept. Andy is doing about 85% of the work on his own. He loves to do projects like this and the different obstacles that they bring. We knew hiring someone to do this would be probably close to $200k or more given the cost of labor and materials at the moment so we opted to take it on ourselves.
Andy was envisioning having a big movie theater type screen for movie nights, and I on the other hand was like wait can I use this space as an office? Once I got that idea I was full steam ahead haha. My former office turned into his after the pandemic so I can’t wait to get creative upstairs. While we won’t have any walls and are keeping the floor plan very open I do have a specific area I am thinking for my desk. We only have one window up on the third floor so I want to maximize that by not adding anything that will block the natural light from coming through.
One of my favorite parts is that we have two built in beds with shiplap that will go on the walls by the beds and then above the ceiling space where the beds are. The entire ceiling will be shiplap which I am so excited about. The below photos were my inspiration behind this idea. I pulled these from Instagram and Pinterest. We don’t have any “official” framing plans we are really learning and doing along the way but so far so good:) Andy loves this type of stuff because it is a challenge.
Just to give you an idea of what the space looks like currently and how the ceilings look here are some photos:
Lately we have been managing life, work, and everything else going on in our lives so the third floor is a project that we get to as much as we can and with a baby it has been kind of on the back burner BUT we are making headway which is a good feeling. As I mentioned we are doing this all on our own with the exception of outsourcing HVAC & electrical.
*In the top left photo this is where I think an area for all of Rory’s toys and some sort of reading nook for him and Sofia would be nice and cozy:)
*The stairwell I think I will do a gallery wall of photos on the way up and potentially changing out the bannister
*The living area I love because it is the perfect size and it allows us space for a sectional for family movie nights
*The office area where my desk is going to go and the built in beds will look so beautiful once they are complete. I am going to have one sconce put in for additional lighting in each built in
What Andy has completed so far:
- Insultation on the entire third floor
- Framing of beds and walls and he shiplapped the ceilings and walls of the built in beds
- Drywall is 80% done
- Electrical is 85% complete. We hired someone to assist with this
- Tape and plaster on drywall
As with any new project in our home I always begin with a design board. Here is an image of what my inspiration is for this project. I wanted something a little more modern and moody looking for this space. I am sure I will change a few things on here as we get closer to completion:
We still have the hardwood floors to install, finishing up the drywall, electrical, HVAC, trim work, wooden beams to go on the ceiling, all of the shiplap on the ceilings, and a ton of other things that I won’t list out here but they all need to be done as well.
We don’t plan to be done with this until probably next winter. Slow and steady wins the race they say haha. Honestly I am enjoying seeing it all come together but it is a lot of hard work. As more happens I will continue to keep you updated and along for the ride:)
I am most excited to see this space come to life!
