Converting An Open Space To An Enclosed Room

This is my experience in enclosing an open space and making a room.

My house had a large living room with an open attached room that was for a formal dining area.  We did not have a regular need for a formal dining area since we would only typically use it for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  We do have a granddaughter who was with us several days a week, and she needed her own space.

For this project, I enclosed one open point with a wall, and on the other open point, I framed a wall and doorway for French doors.

The first step of this project was to prepare the opening for new walls.  I removed the round corner trim and the texturing where the new wall would attach to the existing walls.

Next, I cut away the laminate flooring so the bottom plate could attach to the concrete subfloor.  After that, I framed the walls to fit in between the existing walls and pushed them into place.  Using a roto-hammer, and concrete anchors, I anchored the new walls to the concrete sub-floor and screwed them to the existing framing of the existing walls.

Typically, I could install all drywall before installing the door frame for the French doors.  But I wanted to make sure everything was square, and the new frame would fit correctly, so I installed that prior to installing the drywall.  Though no adjustment was needed, this allowed me to make any adjustments.  Once my framing was installed, I installed the drywall.  I then applied mud to the new drywall to create a flat surface, first backfilling in the gaps that were larger than 1/8" wide.  This took a few days as I had to wait for the mud to dry before applying more.  With each application, the patching became larger and feathered out gradually away from the existing walls.

Once I had flat surfaces, I was able to apply texturing.  This was my first texture job, and I was a little hesitant, as I wanted it to be perfect.  With texturing, it's either done right the first time or scraped off and redone.  This turned out well and matched the existing texturing, so it looks like the walls were part of the original construction, not added on later.

We also wanted to paint our ceiling to match the walls.  So, I took this chance to get everything painted.  I pushed everything to one half of the house and used plastic sheeting from the ceiling to the floor to section off a large portion of the house.  I used my paint sprayer to quickly paint the new walls and the ceiling.  Once that was done, I moved all items to the other side of the house and painted the other side.  Then, I pulled my plastic barrier down and carefully painted the line where the divided was, with a roller.

I then installed the baseboards, and painted them and the French doors.  After that was cleanup.

This job took me about a week and a half, after work and on two weekends from start to finish, and cost my just under $1,000.  I think it turned out great and, even though the living room seems a little smaller, it has added a ton of functionality.  We never used both rooms together anyway, but if we want, we can still open both French doors and have a wide access to the other space.  This allows us to use it as a room for our granddaughter, keeping her things contained, instead of spilling out into the living room and across the house.  Also, with two openings in the original design, we always had those spaces open for traffic.  With an enclosed wall on one side, we can now put a chair or cabinet there, which would not have made sense if it were open.

This room can now be an office, bedroom, still used as a dining room, or whatever we have a need for.  I believe that this $,1000 investment has probably increased the value of my house, since it now has an additional room.  It turned out great and was well worth the small investment and a little labor.