Workout room progress

This is how the workout room originally started out:

There was a door to the lower bathroom, and that bathroom was a passthrough bathroom. From the earlier blog posts, the doorway to the bathroom in the workout room has been walled up. We removed the original bi-fold door on the closet and removed all of the old shelving. The closet was re-textured in hawk & trowel and painted Behr Lilac Tan. Zac then built custom shelving to maximize storage space in this closet.

The shelving was caulked where it meets the wall, and the shelves were painted Behr Bison Brown. The door trim was also painted the same color brown.

A short clothes hanger bar was fitted and spray painted brown to match before final install. (Shown in white here before painting).

Here is the completed closet. Bike helmets on the top row, and 2 rows of hooks from Target organize the Camelbak bladders and packs.

On the top left is a cloth laundry bin that I found at Target that matches the brown of the shelving perfectly. All of the mountain bike body armor fits in there. On the hanger bar are all of the biking jackets, vests, rain gear, and my triathlon wetsuits.

A view of the body armor bin:

Below the hanging clothes are our bike panniers for commuting. The Joe Blow pump is in the middle for easy access. On the floor are 2 samples of the carpet tile we will be installing. The tile is Carpet-Tile from Allied Products. It's a polypropylene fiber tile that is anti-microbial, which will work good for a fitness room. We purchased Lichen green in the diagonal pattern. The tiles are not installed yet because we need to install the tiles in the room first. And the room needs to have drywall re-texturing and paint done first. I took a sample of the carpet tile to Home Depot and scanned it to find Behr Bison Brown matches the brown in between the green stripes on the tiles. So this is why the shelves and trim work are brown.

Below the bottom shelf is a brown wood shoe organizer for all of our bike shoes. On the shelf above that are 2 bins that contain bike tools, spare parts, tires, and tubes. A small open bin next to the middle purple bin holds all of the spare bike seats.

The next shelf has 2 more lidded bins with spare bike parts, tools, tires, and tubes. It makes it easy to just grab these bins and throw them in the car for race weekends. The open bin on this shelf stores all of our cycling gloves.

Three more open bins on the next shelf contain all headlamps and rear blinkie lights, swim gear (caps, shower kits, booties), and sunscreen. Top shelf for helmets.

We have to finish the drywall work to the room before the closet door can be completed. The workout room is sitting at an intermediate phase right now where it is organized and functional, yet not finished. Right now we have to turn our attention to remodeling an upstairs bathroom that started to leak. I may begin drywall work on this room while Zac works the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom, since 2 people can't work in a tight bathroom at the same time.

This is how the room will be organized when done, just with finished and painted walls. A small hook shelf organizes all bike locks and running hats. Two bike racks hold one of my bikes and Zac's cyclocross bike on the wall. The bike trainer sits below the bike storage with the oscillating fan for additional circulation (there is a ceiling fan in this room, which is not shown). Behind the bikes you can see the patched wall where the door to the bathroom was.

Another view of the room. The front door to the house can be seen from the workout room, to put into perspective where this room is located. I have a towel rack near the door that is used for drying all wet swim gear. The color spot by the doorway was a test spot of the Behr Lilac Tan.

This is the window in this room, with the weight set below it. Eventually Zac will build a weight tree that will fit behind the closet door. Our plan is to tear out this window and put in a french door with a small porch outside. This will make it easier to get the bikes in and out of this room. There is a wall directly across from the front entry door, which makes it too tight to maneuver bikes in and out, and it ends up scuffing the wall. With a door in the workout room, the bikes can easily roll in and out. We have views of the Catalina mountains outside this window, so my plan is to landscape a nice porch with desert plants outside so that there is a nice view while one is slogging away on the bike trainer inside (usually in the winter time).

I have another hook system by the door which is where my heavily-used bags reside. These are the swim, run, bike, and gear bags that are used several times a week. Eventually the TV will be replaced with a flat screen mounted to the wall, and we are planning on getting a TV with the DVD player built in. This will add some more space in the room. The spot on the wall to the right is another paint test spot.

Zac and I share the bike trainer, which is why we have 2 wall mounted bike racks. We have enough room to put the 3rd bike on the floor under one of the bike racks for when the trainer isn't in use. The mat gets rolled up and there's a lot more floorspace in case it's needed for workouts. I'm planning on leaving the original carpet in place as a drop cloth while I do all the drywall and paint work, and then will rip that out last and replace with the carpet tile.

Only the commuter and tri bikes live in the workout room. The mountain bikes live in the garage for now. Our plan is to build an east wing onto the garage which will be a bike storage area for the mountain bikes.

Project workroom completed

This project was completed back in January of this year. We had 2 weeks off from work, so I went into sweatshop labor mode to get this room completed. We had been calling it the "craft room" but crafts sounds like little old ladies knitting and scrapbooking. I'm going to be sewing upholstery for cars and motorcycles in here, along with other sewing and other projects. So we changed it to the "project workroom."

Unfortunately, I don't have any "before" pictures because we had to tear out the cabinets back when the kitchen was textured so that this room could be textured at the same time. But it had the same cabinets as the kitchen and laundry rooms. The tile was also done by the crew back when the kitchen and the rest of the lower level were tiled.

I painted this room Behr Chocolate Froth, which is the same color as the laundry room and the main hallway. I had to pick a color that would go well with the Slate Pebble of the kitchen, since both rooms can be viewed at the same time.

The start of the Chocolate Froth:
Better view of the new color:

Cabinet Installation

I had been using this room for all of my cabinet re-finishing. But once the walls were painted, I had to move the re-finishing process up into the master bathroom so that I wouldn't get stain on the freshly painted walls. The master bath will be torn out and redone in the future, so it doesn't matter what gets spilled on the tile in there.

What, you don't re-finish cabinets in your bathroom?

After the cabinets had finished drying for about a week it was time to put the base cabinets in. The left cabinet was spaced to allow enough room for my sewing machine's table to fold out, without having too much gap to the countertop.

Base cabinet installation:

I also stained the shelving and shelving supports the same to match the cabinets:

Counter Top Installation

Wood braces were screwed into the walls to help support the counter top:

The old counter top was used as a template, since it fit pretty well against the wall:

No, the drip stain on the old countertop was not ours. It was like that when we bought the house. Hence ripping out the old countertop (plus it was damaged in spots).

Here's the stand setup for cutting the new countertop. Originally I wanted the same countertop as in the laundry room, but that was discontinued by Home Depot. I found another one that went well with the cabinets with a damaged backsplash. The damage didn't matter because the backsplash was going to be cut off anyways.

Tape line marking where to cut with the table saw:

The countertop was long enough that it was a 2 person job to cut it. My job was to shove the countertop against the rip fence of the table saw and make sure it got onto the rollers, while Zac fed it across.

The countertop was then glued in place, with weighted buckets to help hold it down while curing:

A close-up view of the countertop surface:
I also stained a trim piece to match the cabinets, which was glued between the wall and the countertop. Each time I thought I was done staining, there was another piece of something to stain!

Lighting

After the upper cabinets were installed, Zac installed under-mount task lights. The switch for these lights is in the wall and below the cabinets for easy access.

The knobs also match those that are on the laundry room cabinets.

View of the light mounts and the wire routing:

The cord in this picture is for the task lights that are under the adjacent shelves. At the time the pic was taken, the shelves weren't installed yet.

Shelves installed and task lights completed. These lights shine down on the sewing machine.

The room is lit by a small ceiling fan. We had to choose a small fan that would fit and not interfere with the upper cabinets.

Misc - Baseboards & Door Filling

Wood baseboards painted black were installed, which matches the rest of the baseboards downstairs.

Zac had picked out the doors for the lower level, and I told him they looked "country" with the picket fence pattern. He attempted to fill the door grooves, but filling and painting over them almost makes it more obvious. So we have country doors downstairs. He is no longer allowed to make design decisions on his own.

Room Finishing

Here is the completed room! I have a dry erase whiteboard and a cork board for projects, and my dress form for sewing projects.

Cabinets and countertop:

Lighting and shelving:

The task chair is on wheels so that it is easy to roll between the sewing machine and the main workspace depending on where one is working.

View from inside the room with the door closed:

Artwork, outlet, and switch for task lighting:

More artwork, and my Kit Cobra Build School certificate:

Cabinet re-finishing process

I decided to document my cabinet re-finishing process so that if I forget and even think about doing it again in the future, this will remind me and put that thought out of my mind. So far, between the laundry room and the project workroom, I've done 3 base cabinets, 5 upper cabinets, 13 cabinet doors, 5 drawer plates, 2 shelves and their mounting pieces, 2 block-off plates, and some trim moulding. I think that's enough. I am NOT joining the cabinetry business after this.

The process starts with sanding the old finish off. I used a Black & Decker power mouse sander with 80 grit sandpaper to get down to bare wood. A door of this size would usually take about 1 hour and 15 minutes to sand both sides completely.


After sanding, I vacuum the surface with a curtain attachment (the little brush). The bristles get in the wood grain and crevices well and remove a large amount of the sanding dust.

Next, the surface to be stained gets wiped down with a tack cloth to remove the remaining debris.

Wood conditioner is applied with a foam brush. This has to sit and penetrate the wood for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, the excess conditioner is wiped off with a rag.

Now it is time for the first tint base coat. This has to be applied within 2 hours of applying the wood conditioner. This was also applied with a foam brush.

The tint coat penetrates for about 20 minutes. After that, the excess is removed with a rag. For some cabinets, this part makes you work up a sweat. The tint goes on runny, but after 20 minutes it turns sticky and is tougher to wipe off of the surface. And you have to rub hard to wipe up the majority of the tint. I applied 2 coats of tint, and had to wait 5 hours in between each coating per the instructions.

After a minimum of 8 hours of tint curing, the first layer of protective finish can be applied. I used Polycrylic by Minwax. This was applied with a bristle brush.

After 2 hours, the surface is sanded with 220 grit sandpaper to roughen the surface for the next layer of finish to be applied. After sanding, I wiped the surface down with the tack cloth.

The next layer of finish is applied, then 2 hours later it is sanded, then the final layer is applied. Overall, 3 layers of protective finish were applied. For cabinets the process wasn't too bad, but for doors and shelves, both the front and back had to be done. The surfaces have to be flat during the process, so this required doing one side and flipping them over.

The Polycrylic protective finish is ready for light handling after 3 hours, and regular use after a 24 hour air cure. I would usually install the cabinets and doors the next day to be on the safe side.

A before & after comparison:


So that's it! Like I said, I won't be doing this again if I can avoid it. I've had enough sanding and staining for awhile.