• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Recent
  • Food
    • Weight Watchers
    • Keto
    • cost per recipe
  • Fun & Travel
  • DIY & Crafts
  • Family Life
  • Holidays
  • Gift Guide
  • Shop

Our WabiSabi Life

Living a Perfectly Imperfect Life

menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recent
  • Food
  • Fun & Travel
  • DIY & Crafts
  • Family Life
  • Holidays
  • Shop
×

Home » Let's Have Fun » DIY & Crafts

Building a Spare (or play) “Room” Inexpensively

By Debi 12 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This site also accepts sponsored content

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something from them, I earn a small percentage that helps keep The Spring Mount 6 Pack running.

How to make a DIY room on a really small budget DIY, Home improvement

I have this amazing Grandmom. She is really something else. She lives with my mom and 2 of my brothers because she is 95 and just can’t live alone anymore. She has been living with them for the past few years. She has “spells” and she falls sometimes, and the past year or 2 her health has taken a pretty drastic turn. Well, last year, in the middle of the night, she had gotten up in the middle of the night, started to make her way to the bathroom, and being the stubborn woman that she is, did not take her walker with her. Her room was right next to the bathroom, but the bathroom is at the very top of the steps. She took a mis-step and she tumbled down the very steep stairs. At 94 years old, all that she suffered was a cracked vertebra, some bruises and they lost her teeth. She was most upset about her teeth!

She had to spend a week in a rehab center, and when it was time to for her to come home, there was no way she could be going up and down those stairs. It was no longer safe for her to be going up and down those stairs at all. So my Grandmom needed a room on the first floor.

My Mom is her caretaker and is on a very limited budget herself. She didn’t have a lot of money to put into building a room. The room that was being made for Grandmom was being built in the sitting room, the room between the living room and kitchen, where everyone enters the house. My Mom needed a inexpensive way to create a safe, private room for my Grandmom.

Now, my Mom has 4 boys who are all in the handy man, maintenence men, construction worker field. Then there is me. It turns out my Grandmom was coming home from the rehab center the net day, and no one was around to build this room. No one had any ideas to help my mom get it done on almost no money.

The room was framed using some extra 2*4s that were laying around. if you were to do this on your own, and did not have any laying around, consider a 2*4*8 for each “wall on the floor, one for each ceiling unless tying directly into the real ceiling, which we did not, and a stud half way through each wall. Nail or screw them into the floor, walls and/or ceiling to secure them. This will create a basic structure.

 

How to make a DIY room on a really small budget DIY, Home improvement

Now for the wall. We really needed it extremely cheap. We decided to buy felt to line the walls. Felt was on sale for $2.50 a yard, and using a Jo-Ann’s coupon for 50% off a single item the felt was $1.25 per yard. Even when felt is not on sale, it is only , at max, $3.00 per yard at my Jo-Ann’s, check in your fabric stores and online. Measure how much you need.

 

How to make a DIY room on a really small budget DIY, Home improvement

To make the job quick and easy, I used a staple gun. I stretched the felt around the boards and stapled. putting a staple every few inches, it will hold the felt tautly in place. do this across the ceiling boards and the floor boards. Then do the same down the sides and the studs. If you want it to look like a solid wall, you can skip the studs and only use the studs for support in the walls.

After all of the walls are covered the room looks like this. We choose not to cover the inside. My Grandmother uses the inside pieces of boards as shelves. If you wanted to cove the inside, it is the same process.

How to make a DIY room on a really small budget DIY, Home improvement
My Grandmother, using her walker, had trouble with doors, so we did not add a door, but since she needed some kind of privacy and door, we added a curtain. We had a very pretty shower curtain, that we cut in half and hemmed. We needed the curtain up higher off the ground so that it did not catch under her feet and cause her to fall. The top was just folded over and sewed straight across.

 

How to make a DIY room on a really small budget DIY, Home improvement

So, I don’t know how many people could use a project like this. Maybe as a special playroom for kids in a basement where you want a playroom but do not want something permanent.

« Bacon Bark Recipe
Teaching Children How to Manage Money »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Angela

    May 21, 2013 at 10:44 am

    Your grandmom looks so sweet! I am glad that you were able to find away to give her some private space.

    Reply
  2. Kim Bergeron

    May 21, 2013 at 10:59 am

    Well, when there’s a will there’s a way!

    Reply
  3. Emily

    May 21, 2013 at 11:59 am

    It’s neat that you were able to create our own little room to suit your needs. I can see how an elderly person could feel more “at home” when tehy have their own space instead of feeling like they are invading someone elses home. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Danielle

    May 21, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    This is totally something my husband would do. Kudos to your mom for MacGuivering the perfect solution.

    Reply
  5. Chelsea Day

    May 21, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this idea. What a wonderful way to create a special space for your grandma or your kids if need be. I am so impressed. I can think of quite a few places this would be fantastic for. Thank you so much for sharing

    Reply
  6. Elizabeth Towns

    May 21, 2013 at 2:37 pm

    You know what, you have just given me such an amazing idea for an enlarged changing room and play area for my basement. We’re not doing much of anything down there right now, except laundry. It would work out really well when I’m down there actually doing the laundry. Great idea!

    Reply
  7. Krystle Kouture (Baking Beauty)

    May 21, 2013 at 10:29 pm

    So glad to hear your grandma is okay. I’d love to do something like this to store things without having them out in the open

    Reply
  8. Mary

    May 21, 2013 at 11:00 pm

    This is a great small spaces project! I’m always trying to figure out how to make space for a playroom, or where am I going to have an office for my at home business. This gives me some ideas. Great job!!

    Reply
  9. Ronni Keller

    May 21, 2013 at 11:23 pm

    AAAww…. your poor grandma!! All I can see now is that sweet lady tumbling down all those stairs!!
    I’m glad she OK and has such an awesome family to make this private, safe place for her! 🙂

    Reply
  10. Amber Edwards

    May 22, 2013 at 11:09 am

    What a brilliant idea! It makes it a easy for her to have privacy, but still be safe! What a smartie you are! I love this!

    Reply
  11. Diane N - Philzendia

    May 22, 2013 at 10:21 pm

    Very creative. I’ve seen similar set-ups in NYC where I’m form because rents are high and people share apartments.

    Reply
  12. stephy

    May 24, 2013 at 9:58 am

    your grandmother is adorable!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Welcome to Our Wabi Sabi Life

Hi and Welcome to Our Wabi Sabi Life, where we are loving our Perfectly Imperfect Life. Things around here are not perfect but it is perfect for us!

Life is crazy but we are living our best lives. We love to share the most DELICIOUS RECIPES and FUN CRAFTS to help you eat well and have fun.

Read our About page to learn more about us, learn more about working with me, or email me at
[email protected]
.

Useful Sites

Buy fashion girls boots from DHgate.com

  • Recent
  • Food
    • Weight Watchers
    • Keto
    • cost per recipe
  • Fun & Travel
  • DIY & Crafts
  • Family Life
  • Holidays
  • Gift Guide
  • Shop

Footer

[instagram-feed]

Our WabiSabi Life is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

MEDIA KIT     CONTACT ME    PRIVACY ACCESSIBILITY

Copyright © 2022 ·Our Wabi Sabi Life· ALL RIGHTS RESERVED