Rainy Day Project: Sewing Room Walls

Last time, I showed you my cleared out space in the sunroom and told you what I want to do with it. Even though we’re in the middle of spring planting and the greenhouse build, there’s been time to make a start on the sewing room because everything outside is so wet and soggy from April’s parting gift of extensive rain. The goal here is not major renovation, but simply cosmetic. The first step was covering the exposed insulation, starting with the old door. 

We discussed tearing out the closet, but my preference was to leave it because it’s useful for storage. It was added after the room was built, we think because the family had three children, two girls and a boy. The house was built with two bedrooms, so adding a closet in this room gave them three bedrooms. 

The foundation and roof give no clues, as they seem to have been built the same time as the rest of the house. Our best guess is that this room was originally part of a wraparound porch. If an additional room was needed, it seems logical to convert part of the porch. The floor was probably replaced when central heating was installed. The house’s original heat source was coal stoves in each room, so the ductwork would have been part of an upgrade. There are only inches of clearance under the floor in this room, making it impossible to crawl around under there. So it seems logical that they tore up the old porch floor, put in the ductwork, then installed the floor we have now. 

We priced wall options and chose the least expensive – more plywood. 

Then the front wall. It was a little more challenging because the last of the original plywood wall had to be removed. We couldn’t match its thickness, and the other option would have been a bunch of shims to try to build it up.

It was probably just as well, because the old blown-in insulation in that covered corner had settled a lot over the years. Dan managed to not disturb it.

We didn’t want to buy an entire new roll of insulation just to cut off a small narrow strip, so Dan filled the gap with a scrap piece of 2-inch form board. 

I’ll wait to do the painting until after Dan’s done with his part. Baseboards and electrical wiring are next.