DIY Ranch Design Series: At-Home Gym

Welcome to Part II of my ranch design series where I’ll be showing you how we created our at-home gym. I’m not sure if I explained how this whole design journey began, but allow me to backtrack a second. When we first bought this 1970s ranch-style home, it was a foreclosure. If you know anything about foreclosures, that basically means as is. Initially, we thought we purchased a 3,400-square-foot home. Then we found out that some of the additions to the property weren’t properly accounted for and added to the overall square footage.

I’m sure some people would’ve been excited about the prospect of a bigger home, but it also means they run the risk of things being done incorrectly and not up to code. With that said, there was no point keeping the porch. It was in an odd location, but it would make for the perfect gym. Located on the other side of the house from the bedrooms, it was far enough away that it wouldn’t disturb anyone. Thus, the porch became the gym. Now, see how we did it!

First, we took the old porch down to the studs and updated the plumbing and electrical. Then, we made sure the HVAC reached this room, because nobody wants to work out in a gym that’s too hot or cold.

Though we didn’t want concrete floors, we decided to finish it out in scored concrete flooring like the majority of the rest of the house. We would use it as the sub-flooring, and then add cork flooring on top of it. This way, if we ever decided to convert the gym into something else, the scored concrete would already be there. The cork flooring we chose was purchased on Build.com for $2.50 a square foot.

Once the concrete was poured, we had it scored and stained with Pandomo Stone Oil for a nice neutral gray from Ardex like the rest of the house.

DIY Ranch Design Series: At-Home Gym | Model Behaviors — Photos courtesy of Simon Lopez.

We saved on the cost of this renovation in so many places, but we definitely splurged on some things like the gym equipment, televisions, and mirrors.