Hello everyone! Well, I’m going off the rails on a crazy train…I am joining the Spring One Room Challenge! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the Ozzy reference, as I have been hearing the “Crazy Train” guitar riff all through the house for the past several days!) When my 14 year-old got an electric guitar for his birthday last week, we decided it was time to turn the unused room in our basement into a bonus room and teen hangout. He and his friends like to play guitar and video games, and the little room in our basement will be perfect. I am a little nervous about redoing a room in six weeks, but my husband is on board, so here we go!

When we bought our 1921 yellow brick home five years ago the room was “finished” but it really needed some updates. Right now it is just a junk and storage room that stays disastrous most of the time. I am a music teacher and I love when kids play music, but electric guitars, amps, and cords just aren’t fitting in with our upstairs family room decor, and of course electric guitars are noisy!

Teen Bonus Room Ideas

Before looking at the before pictures of the room as it is now, here are some ideas I have pinned.

Pottery Barn Teen

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I love the idea of a pallet accent wall for our guitars. We could add some acoustic sound proofing behind the walls.

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We already have added some faux brick at the bottom of the basement stairs and we are going to use more for the faux fireplace.

Week one: “The Before”

Here are some shots of the room as it is right now…a mess! I cringe putting these photos on my blog, but sometimes you gotta keep it real!

Last fall my husband cut a space in the paneling to install a very realistic electric logs fireplace stove for heat and it works really well. We are planning to surround the stove with brick paneling and install a wood beam for a mantel. As you can see there is a weird triangular box thing in the corner and in the next picture you will see the window on the other side. I am going to check with building codes, and if it is okay to cover the window we plan to hide both of the eyesores behind a new wall. There are six other windows in the basement that are easily accessible. By the way, our basement is very clean, dry, and doesn’t smell like a basement!

The fluorescent light will be replaced by track lighting with spot lights.

My husband put in new inexpensive laminate flooring when we first moved in, but we are thinking of updating it with with tile that looks like wood. The flooring in this section of the room is still in good shape, but at the bottom of the stairs when you first come into the room it is starting to warp from a spot that I got too wet when mopping. If we can somehow replace the damaged area easily that will be the easiest and most budget friendly option.

When you first come down the basement stairs there is a faux brick wall that will be painted or faux finished to look like exposed brick. To the left is the 30 ft x  8 ft room. The real decorating and design challenge is the width of the room. We still haven’t found the perfect furniture but I am sure something will turn up before the big reveal at the end of week six.

The walls were already finished with outdated brown paneling when we purchased the house, but   we wanted to update them with paint. We just used a mixture of different gray paints we had in our stash. I am not sure if it will be too dark if we end up covering the window. We might have to go a shade or two lighter. Okay, truth time…there is no “we” to it! The fact is that my husband did all the painting and he will be doing most of the work, but I will do much as I am physically capable of doing.)  He is a pretty awesome handy man if I do say so myself. Check out the beautiful coffered beams he added to our original wood ceiling:

Spring Home Tour 2019

More Teen Bonus Room Decor Inspiration

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I am planning to decorate the room with some really cool industrial and music themed vintage junk and maybe a few mod pieces. I really like the accents in the room above, minus the bar…definitely not for a teen bonus room!

Pottery Barn Teen

If we can’t find a sofa or love seat that doesn’t eat up the entire space, non-traditional chairs may be the way to go.

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I think these are just the coolest! They are too low for guitar playing so if we go with these types of chairs we will need a few stools for guitar playing too. Industrial stools are pretty easy to come by.

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Hayneedle

Urban Outfitters

Well I know that there was not much to see in today’s post, but I think you get the idea! The upcoming week will be spend getting the room completely cleared out and possibly a lighter color of paint on the wall. I have already started going through old toys and junk and purging the basement for a big rummage sale the first weekend of May.

I just can’t end a blog post with such a junky picture!  Here’s a photo from my recent Spring Home Tour. If you are new here I would love for you to come upstairs out of the basement and take a look around our the rest of our home.

Thanks for visiting today! Don’t forget to stop back by next week to see the changes! Update: Read about week 2 HERE.

Amber