Turning a Bonus Room Into Well A Bonus Room

With six kids we really feel like we need 5 bedrooms.  

Enter our bonus room/office with arch.

(Please excuse the mess. We live here. 

 No really though, this was less than 2 weeks moved in.  Let's just be impressed there is a picture hung on the wall.)

After some deliberation we decided the easiest thing would be to wall up the arch and put a door in the hallway.  

After we had the wall tested because our house is old and got back negative results we got busy cutting through the plaster in the hallway to make the door.

Then Wes used 2x4s to make a doorframe and installed the door.  We bought a prehung door at Home Depot.  But of course the wood behind the plaster on the wall made the door jam wider than the premade doorjam.  So Wes got the "fun" job of taking it down and make his own door jam.

Once we had a door, we used 3 pieces of 8x4x3/4in sanded plywood to make the wall.  Floor to ceiling our walls are like 8'4" inches.  So we ended up centering the plywood between the ceiling and floor.

We used a 2x4 vertical on the floor across the space of the arch as support for the plywood.  

(Caleb having a fit on the floor about something earth shattering, like a 2x4 being moved a few inches from where it was a few minutes ago).

We put one solid panel up centered in the middle of the arch and then cut the other two to fit on each side using Wes' table saw.  We screwed the plywood up, sanded side facing the living room.

And with that we made a Bonus room from, well a bonus room...

I have some exciting future plans for this archway thingy!  

For now we are just glad we have a quiet place Caleb can take a nap in.

The Day the Carpet Didn't Come

Or technically it did come but it was not the carpet we ordered.

Grrr!

The previous owners had a cat.  And I'm guessing by all the scratched up carpet by the doors their cat had separation anxiety.  

Ha!  

And there were two different carpets upstairs.  Which is cool.  I get it.  You don't want to replace the whole thing if just one room needs it.

But at this point it all needs replacement.  So I ordered some new carpet from our local big box store.  They said it would be a good month out before we got it.

So we've been waiting to really unpack and finish our kids' rooms until the carpet was installed.

Well the install was thankfully scheduled sooner than a month.  The night before we took out what little was in their rooms to prep for it.  The guys showed to install it.  They showed me the plan and I showed them where I wanted the carpet.  

Then they took me out to the truck to show me the carpet.  I was thinking, this isn't necessary.  I'm sure it's fine.  But it wasn't!  

The carpet was not what we ordered or thought we ordered.  It was what we put in as a holding so we could have someone come measure our carpet.  It wasn't our final choice.  Anyways, I had a few moments of sheer stress.

  Ha!

I don't know why.  It's not like the remainder of my unpacking and settling hinged upon the carpet being installed or anything.

Anyways, after a few short phone calls it was all worked out and our real carpet is coming in a couple of weeks.  

I was still super grumpy.  So many things have been like this lately.  Where I think it's all going to work out and last minute it turns into a complete do over.  What am I supposed to be learning here?  I'd like to learn it quick so this doesn't keep happening. It gets old.

Anyways, to work off some frustration I got my pruning sheers out and Wes electric chainsaw.  After a very informational video on youtube about how to tighten the chain, I got to work.

I always wonder what my neighbors are thinking when I bust out the chainsaw.  Haha!

Below is a picture of the bushes in front of the house.  The ones in front of the living room window have been driving me nuts since we moved in.  I don't mind vegetation around the house.  I think it looks nice in fact but these (I'm guessing) Rhododendron bushes were way over grown and not well maintained.

 So I cut them down. 

 I love that I can see the window again.  I will probably plant some boxwoods around there at some point.   Also my little boys are so fun to have outside while I'm working.  They love to count and stack all our pumpkins. 

I don't know how but we have 11 pumpkins and only 8 people.  Well I do know how... it's just hard to resist a cute pumpkin at the store.

I also cut a bush down in the back yard.  

For whatever reason our backyard was divided in half by a line of bushes and trees.  I really want to open it up and believe it or not, divide the yard in halfish again but in a different way.  

Goodbye random bush in the middle of our yard.  

Now Wes just needs to use his wench and pull all the stumps out for me.