Happy New Year!
There's still a good deal more to do, but we're already enjoying our "COVID Clubhouse." It's been great to have such a big project to keep us entertained during these stay-at-home times. Once we paint the doors, the exterior will be finished. Inside, the insulation, electrical, walls and ceiling and flooring kept us busy for the past few months.
A few details:
- We used rigid foam insulation in the ceiling (like the main house) and fiberglass roll insulation in the walls.
- For the ceiling, we went with bead-board panels. We struggled getting some of them up, and I'm not happy about seams that never disappeared—but happy with the look overall.
- If in doubt, we put in more outlets than we think we'll need, because electrical work is so simple when you don't have walls up. We have one outlet that we have to move (ugh!), because it's blocked by the desk design we decided on.
- We used drywall for the four walls. Still to build: one, short interior wall for the bathroom. We'll build this one from some old barn boards we've scavenged. (Like a wall in the main house.)
- Happy with the floors in our main house and screen house, we stuck with unfinished pine tongue-and groove flooring.
- There's no plumbing in the clubhouse. For water, we're re-purposing the Berkey water filter and improvised sink that used to be in the screen house. It's easy enough to haul a couple jugs of water from the main house every week or so.
- Eventually, we'll have a DIY composting toilet in a tiny, corner bathroom. Right now, that space is occupied by our new freezer—which we love, but have decided will move to a shed. (Once we build it!)
We have just about all our furnishings in place. Some pieces we already had, some were second-hand purchases or gifts, some are brand new. We scored a great sleep sofa off FB Marketplace for just $100; so, now we'll be able to host overnight guests. (It was quite tricky getting the bulky sofa down our path and into the clubhouse.)
We're working on assembling shelves and a desk, and I'm looking forward to having dedicated office space. For now, I use the kitchen table or—in good weather—the screen house, but it's not a great setup in terms of convenience. Pens and paper are in one place, the printer in another—and everything has to get put back away every time I finish work. Soon enough, we'll have the desk set up and the corner shelves constructed.