Fitness Room: Before & After

Want to create a workout space in your house to create a home gym or fitness room?  In this post, I am sharing how I transformed an unused bedroom into a bright and spacious fitness room or home gym.

If you are reading about the room for the first time, I transformed one of my grown daughters’ unused bedrooms into a fitness room/home gym.  After working out in my basement for years, I yearned for a bright and airy place where I could work out daily.

The unused bedroom was the perfect place.  With lots of paint and DIY effort, the room turned out just as I planned and within a very small budget of $300.

I started by creating a vision of a bright and uncluttered space…

Post:  Dream Vision of a Fitness Room

…and stayed pretty true to sticking with the plan.

Here is how the room looked:  BEFORE

This photo is from a house tour post I wrote when I first started blogging.  I didn’t include my daughters’ rooms in the tour since they were just museums of their childhood. I tried to make fun of the fact that they were “slightly cluttered”.

Once we removed the contents of the room, I did a check to see what condition the subfloor was in.  It was solid, so I knew I could simply paint it instead of laying new flooring over it. This kept the makeover very budget friendly. The paint for the floor cost $60 versus hundreds if I used hardwood or vinyl.

 Priming and Painting the Walls and Trim

I had to use color blocking primer to hide the neon green walls, but once that was on, the power of paint made for an amazing transformation.

Wall and Trim Color:  Valspar Bistro White.  Eggshell on the walls and semi-gloss on the trim and doors.

Next up was removing the carpet and thousands of staples.

Post:  Removing Carpet

Pulling the rug up was not hard. I used a sharp knife to cut it into smaller sizes that I could roll up to take to the trash. I pulled the staples out with pliers.

Post:  How to Paint Subfloor

Once the staples were history and I vacuumed up the dust, I primed the floor with a multi- purpose primer.

and then painted it with Gloss Enamel Porch & Patio Floor.  Paint color:  Pools of Blue.  I needed two coats which amounted to one gallon of paint. 

The room was starting to look like my “Dream Vision” board.

 Post: How to Mount Wheels on a Basket

With the painting done, I added the decorative items. The first was this basket to hold towels and my yoga mat.

I found the basket at the thrift store.  The pink yoga mat is from Target.

Post: Fitness Room Artwork

For wall art, I created 5 canvases, each with a word from a quote to keep me motivated.

There are free printables of each word in the post I wrote about them. Tiny Prints sponsored the post and sent me the canvases so that helped me save on my budget.  To save money since these can be a little costly, the word images can be simply printed at home framed to save money.

I chose the colors for each word from the stripes on the ceiling fan. My original plan was to paint the blades white, but after the floor color was on, I liked how the colorful stripes looked.  You can read about: how to stripe a ceiling fan

I wanted something for the windows that was affordable and that would not block the light.

I found these outdoor PVC roll up shades at True Value for under $15. You can find them in my post:  Very Affordable Window Treatments

Post: Fitness Room Mirrors

Adding mirrors along the wall opposite the windows really made the room come together. Suddenly, it felt like a real gym for which I would pay a monthly membership.  The mirrors were under $5 each at Walmart. I hung them with large Command Brand picture hanging strips.

Post: How to hide cords on a wall mounted TV

So I could work out with fitness tapes from time to time, we added a wall mounted TV.  I posted on how we hid the cords.

The table under the TV used to be in my family room. I made it over with DIY chalk paint and added wheels to it.  It holds the DVD player, fitness DVD’s, arm weights, and an essential oil diffuser.

A few weeks ago I found the  large diamond block black mat to place under my Pilates Reformer at Walmart.  I bought the Pilates Reformer 15 years ago on QVC. One of the best purchases I ever made.

I am so happy that I decided to create the room instead of keeping the room as an unused bedroom. The best way to decorate a house is to make it customized to the way you live. I can check this project off my list now and reap the rewards of my efforts.

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