Spaces in our homes serve different needs at different times in our lives and this family decided that instead of a traditional car garage, they needed a playroom. See how they made that happen:
Tracy, her husband and their son Harrison live in Seattle and she told us about this terrific project:
We live in a small townhouse with a rather small shared driveway making it almost impossible to park in our driveway. Rather than letting that valuable garage space go to waste, I turned it into both a storage and playroom for our son and the occasional friend or neighbor coming over to play.
I wanted the space to bright and colorful without having those normal primary colors for the playroom toys, furniture, and walls. It is designed to be a daycare like space with a daily activity calendar, cubbies for friend's things, and a diaper changing station to avoid having to trek up to the third floor for diaper changes.
In terms of renovations, we added a sink with cabinets, created a half wall to separate our storage space and water heater, and installed a wall heater.
Paint (all Benjamin Moore):
• Stripes: Olive Moss 2147-20, Gray Shower 2125-30 and True Blue 2066-50
• Below chair rail: Twilight 2058-10
Products:
• Toy shelves: Ikea
• Cabinets and Sink: Ikea
• Wall heater: Home Depot
• Kids table and chairs: Home Depot
• Cubby/lockers: DIY
• Play kitchen: DIY (re-purposed bedside table from Goodwill)
• Dollhouse: Craigslist (wallpapered walls with scrapbooking paper and did floors with contact paper)
• Reading nook canopy: Ikea
• Book baskets: Fred Meyer kitchen storage department
• Carpet Tiles: Free samples from interior design company
Fantastic job - thanks Tracy!
(Images Tracy H.)
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This is awesome!
Love it! My husband is currently working on making our garage a play area as well and I needed help on how to arrange the large space. This post gave me some great ideas, especially the changing area- genius!
Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife
Now there's a man who loves his family!
Great idea. Just remember when turning garages and closets into usable rooms, they don't usually have air vents, unless you have them added.
I'm a friend of Tracy's and have seen the space first hand...before and after. It was a truly amazing transformation! My 4-year-old loves it, it's a great space to hang out and there is enough room that the mommy's can sit and chat while the kiddos safely play!
What a great transformation! A psychologically positive play space for a young child - exactly what our world needs. congrats on the successful outcome.
Fredrick Getzschman, Editor
www.garagetips-101.com
Just a word of warning, we have something similar and something to keep in mind is that garages are sometimes lower and can flood from outside rain. Our floor is carpet tile too but underneath it we installed some cheap IKEA click together flooring made of plastic and with airflow built in. I'm glad we have it because a week after the carpet tiles went in the water heater started leaking and everything would have been ruined.