Home Gym Addition

 In a couple of weeks I'll hit my year mark of being exclusively work-from-home. I absolutely see how lucky I am to be able to have that ability while so many others have struggled to keep employment and been so impacted. One of the bigger adjustments for me has just been trying to keep some level of physical activity now that my commute is literally 20 feet to the home office. At the beginning of last summer it felt like I needed a project. 

We had this outdoor storage space on the other side of our basement wall. It's under part of our dining room and the mudroom so it was already protected from the elements. It looked to me like a perfect place to close in and add a few square feet to our basement, and especially with the pandemic raging, I had a perfect space to build a home gym. 

Before and after. These photos were both taken in January almost exactly a year apart. This may have been my most fun project. It was kind of a culmination of all these years of improvements. I had to plan the space, pour concrete, put in new load-bearing support posts, put in a new exterior door, in addition to all the standard electrical, lighting, drywall, and finishing work. We also fancied it up using legit rubber gym flooring, the mirrored wall, a bench/locker, and the extra trim/moldings. 

 

It turned out great, and we're putting it to good use. Beau brings his buddies over to lift and I can get some better exercise than the 100 or so steps per day I was taking at the beginning of the pandemic. 

I wouldn't have guessed it beforehand, but it's been the girls who use this room the most. They love spending time in here with the TRX band "swing".