From Before To After: The Sunroom

Do you have a room that you have no idea how to bring it to the 21st century?  We have ours and it includes blue astroturf.  Ultimately, we plan to demo this room and the kitchen and replace it with an addition, so you can see why DH was hesitant to put a bandaid on a temporary living space. After a pro and con debate and a sale at Lumber Liquidators,  I was able to convince DH that we should spend a little bit of money in the sunroom, especially if it's going to take FOREVER to save for the addition!

With a budget of $200 we took the sunroom from:

Before: Vintage blue carpet charm

After: Warming breakfast nook

A flexible budget isn't the only tool I have in my tool box to convince DH to get on board with one of my many "great" project ideas.  I usually have to sell him on how "easy" the project will be too.  Unfortunately, I'm sometimes over budget and batting .200 on assessing project difficulty. 

We started with the painting.  This is the only room we didn't tape or cover the floors because under the carpet was exposed red concrete which we knew we'd replace.  We painted three of the brick walls a custom green color.  Why custom?  The initial green that I selected was way off mark, and DH called it "neon."  The remaining wall was painted with the semi-gloss paint we had left over from painting our trim (I always over estimate paint quantity needed for a project).  

We then moved on to the floors and spent three painful days trying to figure out how to make them work.   DH and I didn't kill each other, but I'm sure he thought about it.  The locking mechanism of the laminate floors were not as easy as on HGTV!  They wouldn't lock on the first attempt, so we had to use a lot of force to get them to click (please note-despite the excessive profanity and laminate flooring abuse we had zero floor board waste during this project).  

  

    First row took all of day one 

Our cat assisting with the angles

On day two we promised not to get upset, added a kiss for every successfully locked plank, and took a few more breaks--which extended the project to three days. 

Day 2 we got smart and used knee pads

DH spent most of day three with his new toy making the cuts for the round brick benches. 

DH still has all 10 fingers :)

What a difference a little bit of paint and updated flooring can make!  Our previously unused sunroom is now our informal dining area!

After: It's done!!!

Dollars & Cents: 

• Laminate flooring: $150
• DIY Installation: 24 hours,  Handyman estimate $1.50sqf or $180 
• Paint: $33 Behr (I always over estimate with paint!  A gallon was way too much for this space.)

Was saving $180 dollars worth the 24 hours DH and I spent bickering and hugging it out once we finally mastered the locking mechanism?  I think DH would agree that it was. Heck, the kitchen might be next!