Home Gym: First Home Improvement Project
Welcome to the Perfors Home Gym. Come in to the bright, energetic space to get a gym-quality at home workout. Pop down the fold-up treadmill, turn on the connected smart music that goes straight to a pre-made power workout playlist, and get started. Don’t worry about noise, because an extra layer of recording studio quality sound-deadening vinyl keeps things quiet around you. Jump high for split squats
The home gym is our first completed project of our first attempt at purchasing a home that “needs work”, and damn we are proud of it. We did it together, and we rocked it.
Here’s what we started with, and what we did to get to the finished home gym in our beautiful old Victorian. We love the history of our home, and don’t want to kill it. Through every step, we maintained the feel of what gives our home it’s Queen Anne style charm.
Originally we planned to rip out the carpet, stick in a foam rubbery gym floor, and call it good. Oh, how it all begins! It would be smart, we decided, to paint the walls over carpet we’re going to rip out. Then the project became 2 steps: 1. Paint. 2. Put in gym floor.
That was 3 months ago.
The Walls Come Crashing Down
First, we tried to remove the wallpaper. Armed with all materials from 8 Google’d “best approaches to removing wallpaper!” articles, we dove into scraping. Three hours and less than 10% done later, covered with sweat, we discovered that removing 4 layers (yes, really, 4) of wallpaper dating back up to 120 years is NOT doable with anything on Google. A smooth surface to paint was not within reach.
We soon found it far more gratifying to attack the wall with a crowbar and hammer’s back edge. Down to the studs we go! This is where I learned what “lath and plaster” means, as we got to it. I must admit, ripping at that flowery adorned wall to old-school angry Limp Bizkit jams was hella fun. So much for a coat of paint and a floor.
Now our project has grown to include drywall, a moderately more painful but manageable process. Oh, did we mention that we demoed the CEILING?
By the time the room was completely gutted, we were standing on over a foot of wall. Every time we opened the door, a lovely coat dust and dirt floated through the house.
With a 5-gallon bucket and a few wheel barrel trips, we hauled every piece of torn down old wall out of the room. Did I mention this room is on our 2nd STORY? Skipped the stair-stepper workouts that week.
We were happy with our impromptu decision to rip out the walls when we discovered what was behind them. Let me rephrase. What was MISSING behind them. There was NO insulation to be found. Anywhere. This room is 40% exterior wall, in the state of Colorado, with no insulation.
Wait, I must give credit where it is owed: one small (and random) section was stuffed chock full of dead grass. No, no animal nest. Just. Dead. Grass. In what point in history was grass the way to insulate?
Since the grass discovery, we both have wandered the house wondering where else our walls are stuffed with uber-flammable dead plants. Please don’t tell our insurance company. In case our insurance company “finds us out”, worry not, we ripped out the grass. No need to keep fire enabling materials nestled in the walls alongside our retrofitted who-knows-how-old electric wires.
Next, we blew in insulation. Did you know that there are a bazillion different ways to insulate walls solely to confuse and ? Traditional insulation, blown in, spray foam. Your decision continues — what R rating do you want? Sheesh.
Our home is nestled on a corner lot in northwest Denver. The view is phenomenal for a place in the city, but (you knew there was a “but”) we are also located just south of I-70. The highway is JUST close enough to hear the background whir of passing cars. As we improve, we are sound-proofing. We ordered high-grade sound-deadening vinyl, and nailed it everywhere but the ceiling.
Finally, it’s drywall time. Another step with enough options to lose all your hair in the drywall aisle of Home Depot. I spun 3 times with my eyes closed, stuck my arm out and pointed, and bought some drywall (slightly more thought really went into it, but that’s no fun to detail).
Steve and Lauren: Dynamic Drywalling Extraordinaires.
Have you ever drywalled a ceiling? Oh. My. Gosh. That shit sucks. There is no more polite phrasing that accurately describes the nightmare that is drywall. My arms shaking, Steve’s juggling a drill in one hand and drywall in the other, both swearing profusely, on separate ladders, we drywalled the ceiling.
After the fun-filled ceiling, I summoned assistance of someone bigger and stronger (slightly :-)) via desperate Facebook post and promises of beer and food to finish the drywall with Steve.
Yep, I pulled the girl card. Remember it, I won’t admit to it often.
Date Night in the Paint Department
After drywalling, caulking, sanding, and chipping away the loose trim paint, we spent date night at Home Depot selecting paint colors. I arrived to the Great Paint Debate with a Pinterest board of successful wildly bright colors. I won. Boom.
Teal and white trim, here we come!
Painting dragged out longer than drywall. First, primer. Next, primer again. Next, paint a coat on the wall. Edge a coat on the wall. Paint a 2nd coat. Edge a 2nd coat. Paint trim. Paint 2nd coat of trim. Fix your mistakes. Paint another coat where you missed. Figure out how to paint the trim of a 120 year old chipping, painted-too-many-times window box. Recognize said window box will continue to look like crap until you’re ready to pull out the entire box. Not happening on a DIY timeline in December in Colorado. Take off the door. Paint behind the door. Put back on the door. Realize you forgot the 2nd coat. Remove door again.
Remember when we started this project, and wanted to put in a gym floor? Guess what? 3 months later, we got to it! This is my area of expertise: so much immediate gratification. Rip, pull, tear, growl. Success. We spent a week ripping out tack strips and 500 million staples from the beautiful, now exposed original wood floor.
These moments make this process awesome: ripping out smelly 40 year old carpet to find beautiful, large planks of dark wood floor in excellent condition. Someday when this room is converted to a bedroom, we’ll refinish those floors.
Until then, we covered them with the puzzle piece style foam gym floor. We loved this choice because: 1. We got it for $100 on Craig’s List. 2. It does no damage to the floor. 3. Super easy to put in — lay it down, piece it together, cut edges to fit.
I laid the entire floor in a day, surprising Steve.
We sweated more getting the treadmill in (and up to the 2nd story) than we have in the gym working out since. There is no workout harder than bringing a treadmill up a flight of 120 year old stairs.
Lucky us, finally, we have a gym!
