Another room to reveal, the gym! My husband has been dreaming up this room since we decided to build our new home. It is not a large space but we were able to design it with a garage door that opens to the outdoors. I think that is my favorite part. His goal was to make it feel like a completely separate space from the house (even though it is connected to the house), because he wanted his workouts to feel separate from home life. Though as a stay at home mom, I find I either have the door to the gym open to watch the girls from the rec room or the garage door open to the cement patio we have with water toys this Summer.

The top 4 things he wanted for the gym:

• ☑️ Smith machine
• ☑️ Cable system
• ☑️ Dumbbells
• ☑️ Blacked Out

Our Picks:

Lighting:

The builders set the gym up with your basic garage lighting. Two spots to screw in a light bulb. We added our own lighting once we moved in. The lighting we chose made this gym SO COOL! It is called Hexagon Garage Lighting. You can make it as big as you would like. For their power we purchased a plug that screws into the old light socket and this allows the light switch on the wall to control the hex lights above.

Mirror:

Mirror was purchased off of Facebook Market Place. It fits perfectly within the width of the squat rack. We hung it to the wall using these clips.

Elbows Deep In This One:

During the build Rob was not sure if he wanted the gym drywalled or with plywood. We decided to have them leave the walls and ceiling bare and just insulate them at that time. This meant that once we moved in we had to finish the walls ourself. We decided on drywall and Rob, who had never drywalled before, took on the task. It was not easy and the walls are a little rough, but somehow it just adds to the atmosphere.

We of course had to paint the place ourselves too and we chose to do the Tricorn Black from Sherwin Williams that has been used throughout our home. We picked it in a flat finish to help hide flaws in the wall but also because we were painting everything in the room black. Just like our powder bathroom, it had been recommended to us that if an entire room is one color flat is the best.

The floors were left cement by the builders just like a typical garage. Rob purchased “horse mats” and cut them to fit the room. These are very heavy, durable, mats that we highly recommend. In fact, the store clerk said that he sells more stall mats for gyms than actual horse stalls. We purchased from Tractor Supply for those that are local.

The garage door that the builders put in is manual lift, but for Christmas my mom gave Rob and I an automatic garage door kit so we are having that installed.

The garage is insulated but is essentially a four seasons room. Whatever the temp outside the room is pretty similar. We are just entering the hot summer so I am not sure how this will go, but for the winter we used this heater. We had to keep the room at 60 degrees to maintain a healthy cable system.

SHOP THE GYM

This squat rack is insane! It has a smith machine, cable system, leg curl and extension attachment, a leg press attachment, and more. We have limited space in the gym so we could not buy a ton of machinery. We made a large investment into this rack so that it could all be one. The bench and the cable attachments were separate purchases from the squat rack. The attachments are great quality and the bench is so good and adjustable. I will say the bench is wide. Meant more for Rob’s stature than mine, so lifts like incline reverse flys are not as comfortable for me.

The dumbbell situation was the same as the squat rack. We wanted weight options but did not have a lot of room. We decided on adjustable dumbbells. At the time of purchase there was a deal on the cart too so we made another large investment for all of it. The weights sit on top and we have some other workout equipment I shared below.