Adventures in Cord Cutting – Part Deux – The Room Reshuffle
For a while Beth and I were thinking about creating some sort of “playroom”. The kids each have a room of their own and Beth had her office, which she could retire to. I, on the other hand, just sort of floated with macbook or iPad or book in tow.
The kids had completely come to dominate the “tv room” downstairs. Once Zoe figured out how to operate the Roku remote, all bets were off. Until they would go to sleep, that room was basically off limits to me unless I wanted to party down with Word Girl, travel to Word World or experience the surreal adventures that are The Magic School Bus.
A friend of ours redid their attic for a pittance ($10000 or so), adding value to their house and creating just that hideaway/game room/tv room that I would’ve loved. So, we asked his contractor to come and give us an estimate. We weren’t looking to spend 10 grand or so, but, if it would add resale to the house…….
“About $36,000.” The contractor said. turns out that our attic is larger and u-shaped and, well, I dunno. It was about $26,000 bigger. And we weren’t about to spend that kind of dough.
I thought about converting the garage. it’s pretty barebones and downtrodden, but a couple pieces of drywall, some carpeting, we could actually make something happen out there.
Of course, that would be consigning anyone who wanted to use it to Siberia, but, hey, it’s an idea.
Until I started building furniture. And hanging tools. And storing wood.
Suddenly the playroom didn’t seem practical when the workshop was acting as the shop it was supposed to be.
Then, Beth and I talked about just making the tv room more comfortable. She’d always wanted a sectional, after all. I thought mayyyyybe we could squeeze one into the tv room and make it more pleasurable. It’s a small space, though….
And one day, it hit me:
Beth’s office! This was an entire bedroom being used for that purpose. The purpose of running the house. Now, this is a big job and I appreciate what she does, cuz, lord knows, I don’t wanna do it. But, it’s not like we are running a company. Maybe we could…just move….her office…..lemme check.
Wow. Her desk, filing cabinet and all the acoutrements from printer to router to storage, would all fit in the sun room. This is a little 8 x 5 room where would always put guests on a single bed. It was cute, but small.
But, her stuff fit there PERFECTLY.
Let’s move the office in there and make the office the media room!
She agreed to think about it but there was always the concern that, since it’s next to Zoe’s room and across the hall from Zack’s, noise would be a problem.
And she would be right about that. it’s an old house. The walls are made of paper.
We live in the hood so it’s actually made of rolling papers, but, that’s even thinner.
So, we treaded off to Living Spaces. Some of you might recall my outreach for furniture store ideas on facebook.
We listed about 5 places to go to and the first one was LS. Well, that place has certainly changed!
We didn’t need to go anywhere else. Because what we were looking for was right there.
And so was Paul’s TV.
As Beth was picking out styles and colors I ventured into Paul’s. This was on Zack’s first day of day care. We felt free. We’d already had breakfast together for the first time, alone, in months.
Now, we could shop for furniture with ease and time.
Beth came in to the TV room and I showed her the 3D televisions. I’m a sucker for tech. And these guys are smart. They know how to hook ya. Beth isn’t as much of an easy mark for stuff like new TVs, so they tossed on the 3D Blu-Ray of Tangled and her eyes widened. Glorious.
Still, we didn’t need a new tv. That wasn’t what we were doing. We were just replacing a sofa with a sectional.
A small sectional.
Somehow we got on the conversation about noise. Surround sound, etc.
“Well, you can plug in to these tvs.” The salesman said. Something I’d never thought about.
“And run a wire?” I asked, cuz I’m, you know, dumb.”
“Nah. Get some wireless headphones.”
Wait. What?
“Well,” Beth said, “If we did that, then we could really turn that room into the media room and make the downstairs room the guest room when people come to visit. That bed is a sleeper, anyway.”
Boom.
No $36,000 retrofit of an attic. No exiled garage conversion.
This might work after all.
Next time – The Santa Claus Incursion (or, How I learned to stop complaining and love my tenants)
