I spent about a month completely renovating our computer room, so that it could fit Karla's sewing desk. This would allow us to free up an upstairs bedroom. In the process, I decided to add a drywall section, repaint the entire room, and completely restore all the of the wood work.
One thing I always hated about the computer room, was how the previous owner used ceiling tile to create a box around the beam. The picture to the left shows what was there.
Once I realized that I didn't have to take down the entire suspended ceiling grid, I just removed the row of tiles closest to the wall. This gave me enough room to create a small wood frame, and screw some drywall board to it. The picture to the right shows what it looked like after the first layer of mud.
From drywalling my garage, I learned that it's a lot easier to paint later on if you really pile on the mud. In my garage I mudded to sparingly and now the seams are starting to show.
The next step was to paint. I previously had a southwestern theme with both art and decorations. I wanted to pick out a color that would bring this out. I also wanted to emphasize the two brick walls in the room with a contrasting color. I chose to paint the brick walls white, and the drywall walls "baked clay".
The result really brought out the paintings that I already had. It also seems to compliment the woodwork nicely. At first I was a little worried that it would look to "orange", but in the end it looked fine. Notice the finished, boxed-in beam in the upper right corner.
Painting the brick walls white turned out to be a ton of work. One coat of paint on the brick walls took me seven hours to finish. I had to get into every little crack, and I tried to make sure to get it on thick enough to fill in all of the small holes.
In the end, I think the white walls are what saved the room from being too "orange". The picture to the right shows the brick walls, with Karla's sewing desk.
The final task was to put up new trim, and re-stain the closet doors. I used pre-finished fake oak trim to save some time. It turned out great and is supposed to be water proof. I thought that would help reduce the chance of the wood becoming moldy in the damp basement.
