Unfinished Bonus Room Becomes Suite Success Story for Family

My wife and I bought a new house with an unfinished second-story bonus room. Got a great deal. A little enlightened do-it-yourselfing and I knew we could finish it for a fraction of the money the builder wanted.

The plumbing was stubbed to the floor (in its finished state the bonus room would include another bathroom), and a large 4-by-8-foot window was already framed in (although covered with stucco on the outside); insulation, electrical and telephone were in.

Since no house has enough storage, while we were at it, we decided to annex a little space from the attic area next to the bonus room for a walk-in closet. And with the plumbing to the bathroom so close, why not add a little wet bar (Do-it-yourselfers never learn).

I began in the closet so that any initial boo-boos would be hidden in there. Even though summer is really not the best time to be working in the attic, I persevered--hammering, sawing and balancing (never did step into my son’s bedroom below).

About September, I called the building department and asked if they wanted to see what I had done before I covered it with the flooring. “No,” he said, “get all of the framing, plumbing and electrical completed and then I can inspect everything at once.”

I remembered there was a time limit on the building permit but wasn’t sure when the meter started running. I knew we had 18 months to complete the job. The man on the phone didn’t seem concerned, so I wasn’t either.

To begin work on the bathroom, I needed the fiberglass tub-shower enclosure first. On a Saturday afternoon soon thereafter I had the lumberyard deliver the tub-shower enclosure and 51 sheets of drywall (only logical to deal with this at the same time). Delivery ended at the edge of the driveway.

My son and I had to carry all 4,500 pounds of material from the street into the garage. The next day I bashed out the 4-by-8-foot hole in the wall and with the help of a friend, his two sons and my two sons (all young teen-agers) hauled the same 4,500 pounds out of the garage, around the house, up 12 feet and into the bonus room. Monday morning my arms no longer seemed to be a natural part of my body.

Several months later, framing, plumbing, and electrical completed, my wife called the building department for an inspection. “Terribly sorry,” they said, “but your building permit has expired.” It seems they had to make an inspection within the first six months or the whole deal was off.

Fortunately, this was not an insurmountable problem. All that was required was the time to go down to the building department and pay more money.

The inspection followed quickly. Overall the job was good (a few minor electrical changes), but we did not have a mechanical permit (needed, we discovered, for air-conditioning ducts). Of course, we hadn’t asked for such a permit because we never dreamed such a permit was required, but again, this was nothing a little more money couldn’t solve.

At this point I figured the work was mostly finished (you don’t know what you don’t know). When the lady from the tax assessor’s office called (yes, they keep close tabs on these little projects), I confidently predicted, even giving myself extra time, that the rooms would be finished by the end of June.

Next came the insulation, a piece of cake (most of it had already been done by the builder), which was installed and inspected in short order.

Some friends and a lot of lager helped out with the drywalling but it still took much longer than I had figured. The inspector, as he signed off on the drywall, said he had never seen so many nails.

Mudding drywall looks easy, but isn’t. Using a special joint compound (mud), you cover all those thousands of nail dimples (and holes), 150 feet of corner bead, then all the joints and corners which require paper tape as well as mud. And you still have all those too-large openings around the electrical boxes and the broken corners in the closet ceiling.

Once all that is done, you sand. Then you clean all the dust off the ceilings, walls and floors and mud again (this time with a different compound). Then you sand and clean, and mud once more, and sand and clean again.

The texturizing man came with his helper at 8 a.m., masked, sprayed, “knocked-down” (the texture was called high-low knock-down), cleaned up, collected his money, and was on his way by 10 a.m. (how is that possible?).

Painting the walls went quickly; then there were the cabinets (six) which did not. Two coats of stain and three coats of urethane--let dry, sand and clean between each one--and don’t forget the insides must be finished also. After all of that they still need countertops.

Finally, it was time to hang the pre-hung door in the closet. I had purchased it when I first started work on the closet floor believing I would need it early on. Since then I had moved it from place to place as construction progressed, along with 10 boxes of household goods, my old desk, and the pool table my father-in-law gave to the boys one Christmas (“it’ll be just the thing for the bonus room”) which were temporarily stored (and played with) in the unfinished bonus room.

The fellow who sold us the carpet and vinyl (a wholesale decorating place) convinced my wife that we should install the vinyl ourselves (he had done it himself); it was easy and “you could save some money.” Those were the magic words. I knew right where to get the material that you mix with water and trowel over a wood floor to cover joints and other imperfections. The man said this was easier than mudding drywall.

Wrong. About 27 seconds after I started putting this stuff on the floor, it began turning to stone. I spent the following weekend grinding the bathroom floor and the floor in front of the bar down to a rough approximation of smooth.

However, the next weekend we cut, glued, and rolled the vinyl in place in only one day. Then the bathroom door could be wedged, nailed, and casing-ed; the walls could be baseboarded, and more paint could be spread.

The installation of the plumbing fixtures went without major incident, and the various electrical appurtenances went together well also. In fact, everything (or nearly everything) was finished by Christmas.

To celebrate we had a party. Of course, only relatives were invited because they are duty-bound to supply praise in exchange for food. As expected, everyone had something nice to say about the bonus room, and I shamelessly drank it all in and swelled up like a large toad. It was a most agreeable party.

Thus the unfinished bonus room was finally finished. It took a little longer than I figured. What I had seen as a six-month project, in the best do-it-yourself fashion, took a year and a half. We did save a little money, but I can see now what a really good deal the builder had offered.