This is something we’ve never ever done before and something we didn’t even plan to do! But as we were talking through our hopes and dreams for the bunk room, Chris brought up removing the staircase entirely, and suddenly everything clicked!

Pendants

The entrance into the bunk room/play room is through a breezeway from the bonus room, and as you can see, that staircase was front and center. I mentioned in this post that not only does removing the staircase give us extra square footage, but it also solves a couple of safety concerns! Having our kids do sleepovers in a room with a staircase that leads down to gym equipment (and an exterior entrance) isn’t ideal at all. Also, the gym itself has an outside entrance, and I don’t think I could sleep very soundly knowing that since it’s a very separate part of the house (even with door sensors and alarms)!

Before

After

Our contractors are going to lay the wood flooring, but not until the new flooring has “acclimated.” The wood planks are here in the room, adjusting to the climate since wood shrinks and expands with the weather. Once it’s acclimated, they can lay the planks and stain them to match. (Here’s the post about the color we stained our floors!)

Home Gym Before

Ceiling Fan | Yoga Mats | Weight Bench | Ergatta Rower | Dumbell Set | Peel & Stick Tile

The gym also increased in square footage! We just ordered more of our FloorPop tiles so we can fill in the gap.

Home Gym now

The electrical has all been moved, and now the drywall just needs to be patched and painted. Now the only way to access the home gym is through the exterior entrance. At first, I thought that would be a deterrent, but now I’m actually so excited to get in there and have some uninterrupted time to myself. We generally access the gym from the exterior anyway!

Here’s a photo of the exterior for reference.

Within that archway straight ahead is an entrance to the guest house (on the left) and an entrance to the home gym (on the right). Make sense? That arched window up above is in the bunk room/playroom!

How much does it cost to remove a staircase?

This number can fluctuate depending on where you live and who you hire. We live in Raleigh, NC, and hired our contractor (Kennon Construction) to sub this job out. The cost for demo, prep/plastic, framing/material, and dump fee is…

$2954

Patching the drywall, painting, adding trim, patching the hardwood flooring in the bunk room and staining, AND electrical in the gym is an additional…

$3360

We decided to have them do all of it! So our total when the project is done will be

$6314!!

The playroom/bunk room is definitely on our project list for 2023, but I think the gym will be operational again before this year is over!!