Parents Visit Again, Demo Ensues

I have to watch what home improvement projects I idly speculate about when my parents are around. I mentioned that at some point I wanted to tear up the stairs that were taking up so much space in the bonus room and replace them with something more efficient. Well...

Unfortunately for the demolition crew, the stairs turned out to be incredibly well built (aka over-engineered). No one piece of lumber needs this many nails (and this was not an isolated occurrence):

Well, while we're at it, may as well tear up the nasty carpet...

And chip away the leveler that makes the floor un-level...

My way is faster:

A brief note on the aforementioned floor un-levelness. One edge of the concrete pad beneath the bonus room (along the back wall in the pictures above) sticks up higher than the rest of it. Not entirely sure why, but someone had decided to gracefully slope the floor from this high point using leveling compound. I thought this was incredibly silly. Better to have a tiny chunk sticking up than have the entire floor slope. So we simply built a small trim box over that section (visible in pictures later in this post).

Laying down new floating stick-together vinyl floor (awesome product, went down easy and looks great):

Painting in progress:

Yes, I picked that color. Yes, it looks like macaroni & cheese. I love it, and I stick by it. That is all I have to say on the subject.

Front panel in place for the box to cover aforementioned foundation issue:

Steve attacking the dust around the finished product:

New stairs:

Steve's exercise equipment in place (with five bunnies temporarily keeping it company so we can do work in other rooms of the house):

I am absolutely thrilled with the room. It's warm and welcoming. I never thought I would actually like that horrid teal monstrosity of a space. It's going to be a fabulous workout space/bunny playroom. Thanks go out to my parents for giving us a kick in the rear to get this project going, my mom for the painting and gardening help, my dad for his incredibly hard work throughout, Steve for his consistent quality craftsmanship, and my brother for coming by to help consult on and construct the new stairs. Job well done, all!