Bonus Room Reveal!

Finally, I'm ready to show you my Bonus Room. A year ago, this room was a blah dumping ground. 

It sort of stressed me out every time I was in this room. I wanted it to be functional, but also to be elegant, inviting, peaceful, and beautiful. (Not too much to ask, right?) So, one project at I time, I worked towards that goal.

Probably the most massive undertaking was planking the ceiling and making faux beams, which you can read about here.

Another time consuming project was making these built in bookshelves with cabinets at the bottom. You can read about that adventure working with the slanted ceiling here. 

On the opposite side of the room, I made this faux fireplace to hold and hide electronics. You can read about that here.

I added some doors to this IKEA cubby shelf to help hide clutter that couldn't be easily stored in a basket. See how I added a mirror- like touch here.

The chair by the window used to be a waiting room chair, which I reimagined (I have one more in my garage that I'm working on to match). See the transformation here.

I made this Murphy bed to keep our guest mattress at hand, but out of sight. To see how I fashioned a platform large enough to hold a double size mattress, go here.

I love my Harry Potter map project. To see where I got the fabric, go here. 

The piano bench was also a makeover project that used to be a coffee table, which I blogged about here.

I really feel like I achieved my goal. This room is now one of my favorites in the house. I come up here to read, but end up just staring at how pretty the room is.

Thanks for stopping by!  

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DIY Doors for IKEA Expedit Cubby Shelf

I have this wonderful IKEA Expedit Shelf Unit, which is fabulous for storage, but a bit of an eyesore with all of my junk on it.

I love the look of the Knipsa baskets, but there are 20 cubbys. That would really add up! And there are some things that I need stored here that just won't work in a basket. I decided to create a pattern by adding doors to every other cubby and use baskets in between.

First, I cut 10 doors. I often peruse the "as is" section at IKEA to pick up super cheap shelves to use on other projects. A while ago I stocked up on some square shelves that were $0.50 each! They were a little larger than the openings on the shelf and I wanted the doors to be inset in the cubby squares, so I cut the bottoms and left hand sides on the table saw so they were 13" x 13".

To attach them to the shelf, I used these:
CONCEALED EURO CABINET HINGES FULL HALF INSET OVERLAY FACE FRAME FRAMELESS   
They were $1 a piece on eBay as opposed to the $6.50 they are at Lowes!



The only problem with buying them on eBay is they don't come with any instructions to help you measure for attachment. This info can easily be googled, though :)
 

 

These hinges required me to drill holes in the door which showed through on the front a little, but I decided to cover the marks with an overlay design. I started by marking 1/2" from the edge.

Then I used some 1/4" poplar craft wood that's 1 1/2" wide. I was originally going to use giant paint sticks, but my store was out of them. I just kept marking, cutting, and using the wood width as a guide till I got a design I liked.

Then I sanded the edges and primed and painted the pieces.

I decided to use some mylar (affiliate link) in the background to create a "mirror" look. I had some leftover from a nightstand that I re-fabed. (You can read about that here.)

At this point I needed one more coat of paint, but since I was nailing the pieces on, I decided I would first attach the pieces to the door, fill the nail holes, and then add another coat.

Nail holes.

I filled the holes with some white spackling, sanded, and painted!

I decided to add these oval mason jar wooden labels (affiliate link) to the baskets. I spray painted them white and added some vinyl words. I used long brads to fasten them to the baskets.

It really cleans up the look of the room. 

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DIY Faux Beams and Planking on Bonus Room Ceiling

For the past four months, I have been working on the ceiling in my Bonus Room. It's slanted on the sides like a vaulted ceiling, but it's flat in the middle. I've been trying to figure out the technical name for this type of ceiling, but after much googling, it looks like it actually is called "Bonus Room Ceiling." How literal. My goal was to cover the unappealing texture of the ceiling that was close to eye level and, if possible, make it look wider and higher. 

Here's a picture of the room last year.

When I started the built-ins by the window, I tried to leave a gap where my planking would go. Then I realized I needed to actually start the planking before I could put the face frame on the front, so the shelves would be flush with the new ceiling.

First, I had to figure out where the joists were in the ceiling. Using a stud finder, I was able to mark every 24 inches and draw lines, so I would know where to nail the planks.

Then I needed to decide where my faux beams would go. I wanted the seams where the planks met to go under the nailer board. I also couldn't have the beams be too close to the fans on either side, but didn't want them too close to my bookcases or tv on either end. I decided to only have three beams. I put one in the middle and then tried to space the other two evenly on either side.

I used these EverTrue Pine tongue and groove planks from Lowes.


My planks were 8' long, so it helped to have them go from beam to beam in the middle and then cut them shorter on the outsides. I used Liquid Nails on the back and then used 1 1/4" finish nails in my nail gun (affiliate link).

 
Thus began my "Season of Plank Painting." I started out strong with these shorter ones, but eventually discovered I really only had space and time to paint 6 long planks a day (two coats of primer, two coats of paint, sanding in between each coat). The next day I would nail in place the planks I had painted the previous day.

Here are some longer planks next to the shorter one.

I started planking up the other side of the ceiling to the top of the slant.

Once I got to the top of the slant, I needed to go straight across the flat part of the ceiling. This was tricky because the line of the ceiling was not even at all! I had to rip and put some filler pieces in some places. I started left to right and met up with the other side of planking.

I also decided to trade out the fans for some more flushmount fans (affiliate link) to help make the ceiling appear higher. The blades are smaller, but it doesn't seem to impact the efficiency of the fans in doing their job.

It turns out the base of the fan was a lot wider than the previous one, so I didn't need to be too exact with the cuts.

Using a scrap 1x4 and a level, I marked where to put my nailer piece for the beam to fit on top.

Then I screwed my 1x4s into the ceiling joists using long deck screws.

Next, I needed to figure out those tricky angles and make some beams. I measured it to be 41 degrees where the slope begins, but I knew it would fit better if I just traced it by hand. I held a scrap piece of paper up to the wall and traced a piece of wood that was flush with the slope of the ceiling.

Then I used a straight edge to extend the line to where it would meet the wall.

 

Match the bottom line up to the bottom of the wood.

I cut this angle on two 1x4s with a jigsaw. Then I cut the end of a third piece on the table saw with the blade turned to a 41 degree. I chose to use 1x4s for all sides (rather than 1x6s on the sides that would make it more square) to keep them smaller and not add to the low ceiling problem.

I nailed the two outside pieces to the middle one using my finishing nail gun.

I sanded and painted the beam in the garage before attaching it to the nailer piece on the ceiling. I put a screw into both sides to hold it in place temporarily, so I could figure out the angle to cut for the ends on the middle beam.

I made another beam for the other side and screwed it in temporarily too.

Then, I held up a piece of wood the length of the flat part of the ceiling. I drew a line where the two beams would meet.

I carried this line around the beam.

Repeated on the other side.

I removed the beams from both sides and trimmed these angles off with the help of a jig saw. Then I put them back up. Because of the way the angle is on the middle beam, you can't fully assemble the beam and attach it altogether (I learned this the hard way). So, I attached the front and bottom, screwed that into the ceiling piece, and then attached the back piece to the top and bottom.

Once it was all in place, I added finishing nails to the top of the beam going into the nailer piece all along.

The corners didn't meet up too bad. Some filler and caulking could fix them up. But once I got all my beams up, I decided some faux brackets might be a better solution.

I found this thin metal at Lowes that I could bend with a rubber mallet.

I cut it with my multi-tool (affiliate link) since my hacksaw is missing.

They fit pretty snuggly without using any adhesive.


I took them down and painted them white too. 

Then I had to address the problem of the uneven ceiling line. This made some interesting pile up in certain area.




It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't make it impossible for the top beam to be flush against the ceiling all the way across. See the gap in the middle.



My dad recommended using some cove molding to cover the gap. I used a piece I cut off from the beam to trace the angle on the cove molding.

I just cut it by hand with a coping saw (affiliate link), making sure to angle it back for it to fit with the wall (it's similar to crown molding when cutting it).

I taped the two outside pieces so I could figure out where to cut the inside cut.

I nailed them in place with short finishing nails and then started taping it off for caulking.

Looks pretty good! I've been filling the nail holes with drywall filler (since it's already white) and been filling some irregularities with caulking. Once that's all finished, I'll probably go over the whole thing one more time with paint. But, for now, I'm happy.

 

 

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