“I’m Not a Normal Step Mom, I’m a Cool Step Mom”…

This blog post title was all Abigail! LOL. She said it’s a movie quote but I don’t watch movies so we will just go with it 😉 I hope I am a “cool” step mom! I love these two sweet boys so so much. More than I ever imagined adoring someone’s else’s kiddos.

Today I am sharing the last and final piece to the boy’s garage apartment project… their “living room”. First things first… let’s chat garage. Although technically it is a garage, it is more of a carriage house style than your typical garage. When we purchased the home, there was one garage slip on the left which is now Austin’s bedroom, a small unfinished room on the right with an unfinished plumbed out space for a bathroom along with stairs up to an unfinished bonus room style apartment space…

We finished out the apartment space fairly early on back five or six years ago now when we renovated the main house. We rented it out on Airbnb for a short time and then Abigail called it home for about a year and a half. Once John and I decided to get married, we went round and round about where to put the boy’s rooms. Although this home is fairly large close to 6000 ft.², it is a very funky layout without much room for extra bedrooms. We have one tiny guest room and a finished basement but it doesn’t have a full bath and it is where we normally enter the home without much room for privacy. The rooms inside the main home are just each so large that there wasn’t really space to carve out additional bedrooms. Given that the boys are both teenagers, our entire property is fenced and gated and that it is a really fun little carriage house space, we decided it would be the perfect fit for our growing family. We let the boys hash it out and Zach chose the upstairs space as his bedroom and Austin chose the downstairs. We got to work earlier this year converting the garage into an acclimated finished space for them to call home. And yes, don’t worry, they are in the main house 90% of the time. They’ve made themselves very much at home here which makes me so dang happy. I actually heard Zach say “home” for the first time a few months back and I teared up. They raid the pantry, hang out with us and watch tv, eat dinner with us as a family and everything in between. It’s just now an awesome private space for them to have space, have room for their things and to feel at home. The entire garage was already foam insulated from when we renovated everything and there was already full heat and air we’d had done years ago since the upstairs was an apartment so that part was easy peasy! We simply added ductwork in the downstairs spaces and John completely sealed everything off including the garage door. So that is that and now here is a peek at the finished living room space inspired by Austin‘s love for purple Air Jordan sneakers…