Playroom Renovations Post 1

With the arrival of our new housemate,  it is time to re-finish off the room above the garage.  This space will eventually add over 500sqft of usable space to the house.  Currently the space is mostly unusable for the following reasons:

1. Poor ventilation makes the room hot in the summer with stagnant air.  
2. Poor use of the existing space with an over sized stoarge closet dominating the center of the room.
3. No heating,  making the room virtually unusable during Seattle's long and below room temperature winters.  
4. Cheap flooring that provided little padding and squeaky steps.  
5. The room is primarily an attic space with sloped ceilings.   The sloped ceiling make the navigation in the room difficult.  With the aforementioned storage closet that dominates the middle of the room,  entry to the room is made where the ceiling is lower.   The door jam at the entry is even lower,  almost guaranteeing that Shannon or I will hit our heads on entering or exiting the room.     

The renovations will accomplish the following

1. Storage space will be moved from center of the room to the lower ceiling edges.  The actual floor space used for the storage will not be reduced significantly and due to a better configuration of the storage space, the areas will be more efficiently used.  This should increase the usable storage space.  Using the edges of the room for the storage space,  will also limit the usable areas of the room to those places where Shannon and I can operate safely without damaging our heads (+1).  
2. Increased ventilation.  By addressing the poor ventilation the room will be more comfortable on hot days.  The ventilation will also be designed to allow the electronic equipment to operate at a lower temperature.  Existing windows will be replaced to increase airflow when required.  
3. Heating will be added as necessary to make the room more usable during the colder months; At this point, baseboard heaters in the main area should be sufficient to keep the room adequately heated.  
4. When removing the existing carpet,  sub floor will be re-secured to existing floor joists.  This should damper movement along the existing floor brads and reduce "squeaking"