The Bonus Room Chronicles: Step 5: Part 1: Window Seat & Built-In Bookcase

Welcome back to the world of Chronicles. Can you believe it- it has been over a month since any of The Chronicles have hit the front page of Never Listless. It is about time showed back up again.

Today, we get to take a look at the funky, retro bonus room again. And, we get to see one of my favorite changes that Scott and I have made to this house... the built-in bookcases and window seat!

I had just shown you the new furniture arrangement when we left off in November.

I also showed you the wire display

 and the wall of frames.

Now, let's take a look at the process of building our new edition to the bonus room! 

Here is the wall that was soon to become beautiful!

First step: move everything out of the way.

Second: Curtains and blinds come down. Take down the chair rail and baseboard where the built-goes. Build the shelves. Scott's dad was a HUGE help in building this (Read: he basically built it for us).

Next: Build the frames for the window seats and the cabinets.

You can see the cabinet frame in the background. Most of this was built in the bonus room since it was too big to move.

I considered painting underneath the chair rail blue and tested it out on an area that was soon to become hidden.

Scott cut a hole in the cabinet so you could still access the electical outlet.

The long piece in the photo below is the start of the window seat. The peak-a-boo head in the background belongs to my lovely husband. No Cora peak-a-boo shots in this post. That little lady was livin' it up in my tummy still back then. As you can also see below, Scott painted the background of the shelves blue!

The next thing to do was to get everything in position.

It was a looooooooong process- I think it took almost a year and a half total. Because of that, I am going to break it down into two parts.

There you have it, folks- part 1 of 2 of seven steps. Let's drag this bonus room reveal on as long as possible.

Here are the 4 steps that got us to the point we are at and the 2 and a half steps left to go!

The Bonus Room Chronicles Introduction Post

Step 1: Move in. Paint the walls. Put up curtains. Put up art. Paint orange design. Paint polka dots.

Step 2: Put up wire display.

Step 3: Put up wall of frames.

Step 4: Move furniture around. Get rid of TV. Add bed.

Step 5: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3: Build window seat and built in bookcases.

Step 6: Change out the bifold doors

Step 7: Part 1.  Part 2. Part 3. Finishing touches