The Game Room - Part I

This is the ONLY room in the whole house that we did not scrap the texture down from.  For one it is in much better shape than the rest of ceilings on the house (being that it was not so thick and heavy).  Another reason being, when we were working on all the Sheetrock work of the living room, kitchen, and hallways, this was the one room we sealed off from the rest of the house in order to try to keep the dust out; we lived in this room alone for nearly two months with all of our furniture and unpacked boxes while we worked on the rest of the house - so we definitely didn't want to scrap down the texture.  This room was fully paneled with that lovely dark paneling we yanked out of the living room.  This paneling was in better shape though - it wasn't bowing out in places nor did it have gaps between the panel seems (this was the case in the living room).  So to save ourselves from another extended project of Sheetrock work if we were to remove the paneling, we decided to leave the paneling and just paint it to lighten it up.  (Unfortunately I could not find any of the "before" photos we took, so I resorted to some photos Dustin took when he was moving out to move to Houston, so it is kind of a disaster.)

Before

 Before

Before

After

(please excuse the tile backer board leaning against the couch)

After

(please excuse the tile backer board leaning against the couch)

 One of the challenges of this room, was the two side by side 8ft sliding glass doors (this huge because at one time this room actually was a garage).  All I knew is that the teal vertical blinds (see first "before" photo above) had to go.  I was stumped for awhile on what to do, because they do not make standard curtain rods that can span a distance of 16ft.  After many trips do different stores walking up and down the curtain aisles an idea came to me.  What I did was I bought two curtain rods that could span 8ft and removed the finial from one end on each rod so I could butt the rods together so it appears that it is one continuous curtain rod.  I bought the rods for $10 each, so it was MUCH less than what it would have cost to get a custom rod.  To achieve the look below I also purchased the following: 2 packs of 14 curtain clips ($5 each), 4 twin solid color flat sheets ($4 each), and 2 yards of printed fabric ($2/yard).  I measured the height I needed so the curtains would just barely touch the ground, the remainder of the sheet length I folded over and creased the seam by ironing it.  Then I cut the fabric into strips that measured the same height and sewed them to the part of the sheet I had folded over - giving a more custom look to the finished product. 

The curtains for the 16ft worth of window

I also made a curtain to go across the nook that contained the storage shelves, so we could hide all of our junk (especially because that is one of the first things you see when you walk into the game room from the entry hall). I used the same technique to sew this curtain as I did the curtains across the sliding doors to create uniformity within the room.  If you look in the second down "after" photo you can kind of see the window with the vertical blinds, using the same printed fabric I hemmed up the edges of a strip of fabric I measured to fit across the blinds.  Then using double-sided foam tape I tacked the fabric to the rail across the top of the mini-blinds - giving the appearance of a valence (without the need to drill holes in the wall or purchase another curtain rod).

Curtain covering the storage shelving