This large bonus room was SUCH a huge sell for us when we first looked at this house. We definitely weren’t expecting to find a two-part bonus room!

When you walk down the upstairs hallway, the first room on your right is the first part of the bonus room. Here’s a “before” picture of that room.

Through a doorway in that room you enter the BONUS, bonus room.Here’s an initial picture of that room, fully equipped with a pool table and a mini-fridge!  We knew it could be the PERFECT teenage hangout one day!  Once everything was out of the room, it was obvious that the room needed a little TLC.  The perimeter of the room had wall paper almost the entire way up the wall and then a shallow shelf the whole way around.  Our kids soon began doing pull-ups and hanging on the shelves, so we decided those should come down. Quickly. Haha.

There was also a huge New York City skyline on one wall. The kids LOVED IT! While I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the space, I thought it would be fun to tape a long piece of white paper to the wall and let them draw, write, and color.  It wasn’t long before they had the room plastered with artwork.It was all fun and games until I tried to take the tape down and the wallpaper came down with it. Oops.  Although I knew the skyline wouldn’t stay forever, it did become more of a priority once the walls looked terrible.

Honestly, I was really dreading getting started because taking down the wallpaper in the master bathroom was pretty terrible.  And this room had 4 giant walls covered in wallpaper floor to ceiling.  But I knew I had to do it. I actually wound up having to go about this differently than the bathroom project because the wallpaper wasn’t coming down nearly as easily.  This room required WAY too much scraping and sanding to get everything off. I’m so glad this house only had two rooms with wallpaper! Look at the improvement though, even with just the wallpaper gone and the room primed.Now for the New York skyline.  What in the world was I going to do here?!

I had used some faux brick paneling in the butler’s pantry and thought that it might be a good thing to add here. This time, I wanted to try whitewashing the brick, so I started looking around at some others who had done this before. I read tons of tutorials, but my favorite (easiest and lots of details) was from a blog I follow called Bower Power.

I did some measuring, ran to Home Depot to gather everything I needed, and got to work. I had my littlest helper, of course.The panels I used came sized at 4ft x 8ft, so I only needed 3. Each panel was about $25, so it cost me right at $75 total. The great part about this is that I was able to panel  RIGHT OVER New York City! Any future owners of this house will thank me one day.  The panels fit right up to the baseboard, so there was no need for those to come off. (I did have to cut around an outlet and a light switch.) I used my nail gun and fired into the studs to make sure this wouldn’t come down.Once I got the panels up, I caulked the seams and the nail holes and then got to work on the mixture to use to whitewash the brick.I brushed the mixture on heavy in small sections, then just took old washcloths and wiped it off!  The only advice I have is that you have to be careful around the seams.  You don’t want to draw any extra attention to that break in the pattern. (Side bar: This is a playroom.  So I am not largely concerned with the seam. But if I was doing this in a main living area of the home, I’d probably be even more careful than I was.)  Here’s what it looked like as I started.It needed two coats to get it to where I wanted, but I’m really happy with how it turned out!To finish up the room (for now!), I made a plywood frame for the kids to hang things on on one wall. Hung a few ikea shelves for some books on another. And framed some of the kids’ artwork on another. Did a little toy organizing. Bought some comfy chairs for the kids to sit in and that was about it.  Here’s what it looks like today. As you can see, for now, it’s really still just a big empty room. It’s the place where I can send the kids to “be crazy” when it’s raining outside. Lots of wrestling, karaoke (to the current favorite, The Greatest Showman soundtrack), indoor basketball, and Wii playing happens in here. Or princess-tenting when the boys are at school.

One of the fun ways we’ve loved to use this empty room is for movie night.  I have a big sheet I hang on the wall.  Then we project a movie and we all snuggle up in chairs and bean bags.  It is a family favorite for Saturday nights or when the kids have friends over.

The kids also LOVE to have sleepovers in here.  They bring their sleeping bags and pillows and camp-out on the floor together!

Here are a few good before and after shots in the playroom. (and click here to see some before and afters of the whole house!)

Sooooo, what do you think about the faux-brick? Do you have anywhere you could try this? And any thoughts or vision for what in the world to do with this room one day?