Home Gym Mood Board

I kind of want to barf even writing that title, it's so..."bloggy."  When I envisioned what I wanted the new workout space to look like, I didn't even have this mood board.  I actually made it about a week after I'd decided on everything and because some other DIY blogger said I should because it would help me envision things.  I thought she was full of poo but honestly, it did help me for some weird reason.  I suppose it's like when people made vision boards like 10-15 years ago to help them on their weight loss journey or after reading The Secret.  (Funnily enough, when we were cleaning the basement, we ran across old vision boards from like 2005 and we only did one thing on them.  Womp womp.)  With this "mood board" just seeing all of the things in one place really made me feel like it was a cohesive plan.  In my head, I knew what I wanted it to look like but seeing all of the potential pieces, colors and things we're buying confirmed that yes, these will all look good together.  (At least to me.)

The basement is unfinished, had a stud wall up against the under the stairs area, a rough-in for a bathroom and has always felt like Fight Club or a frat house.  It got the job done but wasn't a very inspiring space to be and when our 10 year anniversary of consistent workouts popped up this year, I felt like we deserved to finally have an inspiring space to continue to better our health.

We currently have a 4x6' set of tiles we workout on over a concrete floor which I think initially caused my Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome when I wasn't using them.  We'll be using a thicker bamboo flooring tile across the whole floor in the workout half of the basement.  We'll order some extra so when some tiles need to be replaced, we'll have them on hand.

We ordered some samples of some styrofoam ceiling tiles in three different patterns to see how they'd look for our application.  It really is just like a styrofoam plate which is so crazy but if you order it through the company, they will paint them for you for a fee if you want.  Some of the results we've seen people post from their projects are stunning and they can even be glued to cover up popcorn ceilings so no scraping involved!

I'm redoing a cabinet we already have down there and I relined the shelves with marble contact paper.  It actually looks amazing and I can't wait to paint the rest of it with chalk paint but that won't be until the end since we're still using it to house homeless items right now.

The acacia planks were purchased at a local home flooring store and have frankly, been the scariest part of this whole thing.  It's going to be tricky to get it where we want it because there's a wood backing on these and we don't trust doing a rip cut on them with any accuracy.  Of course, after we bought 2 cases of those, I found basically the same thing but with mesh netting on the back which would be much easier.  If the wood piece doesn't work out, we're taking the unopened cases back and getting the ones with netting and hoping cross cuts are easier.

The lighting down there is sad and while we've thought of canned lighting, it wasn't logistically possible.  Before, we had old C9 strings of Christmas lights up with random ones taken out so as not to blind us when we were doing workouts from the TV.  It gave a definite eau de frat look to the place taped to the joists with masking tape and draped strategically.  We thought we'd at least upgrade the look a little bit with vintage-looking outdoor string lights that we'll actually take the time to properly secure and place in the spots that will give us the best light without being in our way like before.  (How we never shattered a bulb on weights hitting them is beyond me!)

One of the paths to a more zen appeal will involve the color dots and the lotus flower stencil.  You can customize the size and I think it'll look awesome against the white wall giving some art without being in the way when we need to do wall squats or push-ups.

I can't wait to get a horizontal dumbbell rack.  We used to have an A-frame which was fine but we kept pinching our fingers trying to get them out for supersets and ended up using an old weight bench to store them on.  We got rid of the old rack and bench and this will keep things accessible to us in a hurry when Joel's doing his countdown to go into the next set as I'm calling him a "flaming d*ck bag."  (True.)

It helps me to look back at this on the days I feel like I just want to give up on the space.  I can look and see that when all is said and done, it will be a beautiful, relaxing space for us to kick arse well into middle age and beyond!

Do mood boards help you visualize a space, goal or room reno?

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