You don’t have enough bedrooms, and you desperately want an office for yourself and to give each of the kids their own room. You have outgrown your home, but who can afford to move these days? What are you going to do?
That full basement you have is the perfect answer. It can be made into two bedrooms, a bathroom and a family room much cheaper and quicker than trying to sell (or should I say give away) your home and buying another. You can move the kids downstairs and convert that bedroom they’ve been sharing into an office. They will love having their own “apartment.”
What? You say you can’t stand the thought of them living like moles in a basement with no windows but those little half window jobbies in the family room area? No problem! It is really easy to make faux windows in each bedroom that will give them light and a pretty view.
After you have figured out where the furniture will go in each bedroom, you can conveniently decide where to place the window. If there are going to be study desks in their rooms, it is a good idea to place the window over the desk or, if it is in a corner, on either wall by the desk. Got that mapped out? Then you follow these easy steps:
• Buy a prepasted mural of whatever they would like to be looking at. It can be one large one that can be used for both rooms, or smaller individual scenes. Choose from mountains, the seashore, a garden, the woods, or even a grassy plain with a blue sky and puffy clouds. You might choose to pick one that most resembles your own landscape. Make sure it is large enough for the window size you have planned. Do yourself a favor and chose a standard size.
• Having drawn your window size on the wall in pencil, you can now install the mural, just slightly over lapping the lines.
• Next mount your window (with glass )over the mural. It needs to be at least two inches deep, so that glass does not touch the mural.
• Install a fluorescent single tube fixture inside the frame at the top of the window. It should be invisible from the room. You will need a light switch next to the window
• A nice, light mini blind needs to be outside mounted on the window frame. When tilted slightly upward, with the light on, it will appear to be natural outside lighting .
• A windowsill is a nice addition to this, and is a place to store a few small items.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you gave up your bedroom upstairs and snagged this intimate “suite” for yourselves!
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