Basement Home Gym
It’s 2021, we’re heading towards a full year of working from home, isolating, and for me it’s been 16 months since I went to the gym.
When I closed on the house in October 2019, I intentionally took a few months off of the gym since I was spending every waking moment working on making the house liveable. I planned to resume a normal gym routine in February or March of 2020 once the big ticket items were crossed off. My last major project was the dining room and I posted that reveal on March 15, 2020. You can see where this is going.
This is what the room looked like on the day after we got the keys - you’ll notice that no light comes through the window because of how dirty it is even though these photos were taken in the middle of the afternoon.
We had always talked about wanting a home gym one day, but we kind of thought it wouldn’t make sense until we were in a future house with more space. The basement of the house is unfinished and it doesn’t make sense to finish it. The ceilings are too low, and the rooms too small, for it to make sense to lose the height and square footage by adding studs, drywall, and the drop ceilings needed to still access the plumbing, ductwork, and electrical. But a gym doesn’t need drywall, right? We had a small 100 square-foot room in the basement we’d been using primarily for storage. With some reorganizing we were able to completely empty our things into my workshop (makeover coming soon), the eaves of the house, a donation pile, and the space under the basement stairs.
Honestly, when we got the room empty it looked pretty scary. It’s small, a previous owner used it as a paint shop so the walls are peeling with layers and layers, and the built-in workbench was mold-covered on the inside (that was a fun surprise). But we took a sledgehammer to the whole thing and got it down to nothing. Then we bought a paint sprayer and gave the entire room (walls, ceiling, ductwork, everything) several coats of white paint. Painting the ceiling is without a doubt the most labour-intensive, back-breaking project I’ve ever done, but the difference is incredible and worth every second. Since you’re looking at the ceiling when bench pressing or doing a variety of floor exercises, it was important to me that it looked clean and bright. While this was hard work, and we actually ended up buying a new paint sprayer to do it, I would recommend it whole-heartedly! It’s a really, REALLY, cost-effective way to make a space look clean and cohesive without the expense or space of a drop-ceiling, and while still having all the electrical and plumbing accessible.
To finish the space I painted the door and window in black, changed the light fixture for something bright and minimal, and we added basic rubber puzzle-piece style flooring.
I honestly can’t believe this is the same room.
Here’s the machine with the lat pulldown attachment set up for use, the rack/cage combo is so versatile, we love it!
In terms of equipment, sourcing gym equipment in a pandemic has been a bit of a struggle but we made it work. Our rack/cage which includes upper and lower pulleys is from Costco.ca and is the centrepiece of the space. The dumbbells were a Christmas gift from my parents, the bench and resistance bands are from Amazon, and the plates and other attachments are sourced from a few local stores. In total, we’ve spent a little under $2500 to outfit the room including what I spent on some extra pieces like wall anchors, mounts for the mirrors I found on Facebook Marketplace, etc. We’re at the point now where we can replicate pretty much any exercise we used to do at the gym with the exception of some specialized machines which is incredible. Resistance bands were huge for replacing the adjustable pulley systems you’d normally find at a gym, and they work great as one piece of the puzzle along with our bench, dumbbells, barbell, and high/low pulleys.
This project initially started as a Christmas present for Ryan (what a great Christmas present, I gave him some flooring, a bench and a barbell and then told him we were going to spend a bunch of money and do a bunch of work together, I’m lucky he’s a good sport!). At the time, I was telling people that he loved the gym as a hobby but that I’ve always seen exercise as a chore. I’m happy to report that a home gym is the solution I’ve needed. Much like getting a dishwasher has made keeping my kitchen clean something I enjoy, getting rid of my commute to the gym, other people using the equipment I want, and feeling self conscious, has made working out something I genuinely enjoy.
While the initial cost of this project was not insignificant, it will have paid for itself in only about two years with what we’ll save on gym memberships. Currently, it’s incredible to have the benefit of being about to work out from home, but even when life gets a little bit more back to normal it’s going to make our lives so much easier to not have to commute to and from the gym or schedule our days around gym hours. I feel so grateful that we have been able to put this space together, and I look forward to using it for years to come. I never would have expected an unfinished basement gym to be one of the projects I’m most proud of in the house so far, but it really, really is.
The space is mostly complete now but if you’ve been following on Instagram you may have seen my recent mirror-hanging debacle which resulted in a shattered mirror. I’ve gone back to the drawing board and have a new plan for hanging them so I’ll be doing that shortly. I also need to build a rack for dumbbells, as we have a few more pairs pre-ordered, but I’ve promised myself I won’t take on any more projects until I’ve organized and “made over” my workshop. Keep an eye out for that next!
