Putting Up Walls

The most important thing about our home is that it's functional for our family. The room that is the office was intended to be a "formal" living room when the place was designed. This makes no sense for us because we have one living room already, and there's no reason for us to have a room full of fancy furniture that no one is allowed to sit on. But, we do need an office and all of the rest of the rooms are taken - i refuse to move my office drumset. Now, the project below was 100% Chris' idea. I wasn't all the way on board, but then again...i don't have to be. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "I don't think we should close it off...it'll interrupt the flow of the house."

Chris: "I'm closing it off. You'll get used to it."

And then he pushed me into the kitchen.

But really, it boiled down to a "who wants it more?" type of decision: it was more important to Chris to close off the office than it was to me to keep it open. So i should mention here that i wasn't railroaded into this project. We have an "ultimate veto" rule whereas if one of us completely opposes a project or idea, then we move on. And i've had my fair share of project ideas that Chris is only so-so about...like the naming of our son. His first name was 100% my idea and Chris took some convincing. So, friends and family, if you don't like his name (we've gotten mixed feedback...which...really??) then it's my fault and i'm ok with it.

Moving on. Here's our office area. Not unpacked, the enormous desk just kind of propped against the wall. An overall mess.

Here's what it looked like as you walk through the front door:

Here's a shot of the office taken from the living room:

A shot from inside the office, looking at our dining room and various ride-on toys:

It begins with removing the baseboards. I should mention that this will be a floating wall...no removal of the wood flooring or adjustments made to the structural integrity of the house, so there were no permit$ needed.

Within a few hours, the frame was up:

 ...and the doors were put in. I helped carry the doors in the house and the wood floors were promptly scratched. We chose french doors so it would help make it look more open and we would still kind of benefit from the light of the office windows.

My daughter and i decorated the frame. This is Chris' favorite of all the drawings i did:

And of course i put our names on it along with some other very heartfelt things that i'm not including on here. (We have to save some things for ourselves.) And maybe by "heartfelt things" i mean drawings of wieners and this is a family blog.

Soon enough, the drywall was up and we had a functional wall:

Sadie makes an appearance. Isn't she looking slim?

Here are your Before & Progress pics.

There you have it; a wall was put up in our nice open floor plan to make the office a more functional place. If it means that Chris will be able to work from home more often and not deal with this horrible commute, then it's worth it. And really, it's not as cramped as i thought it would be. It's actually kind of nice. It'll be even nicer after we mud and sand it and put some paint on it, and maybe a couple of doorknobs. Stay tuned for that mess...