My New House: Home Gym Reveal & Sources

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my home gym on IG and so I finally thought it was time for a post seeing as it’s actually DONE now! I worked with Brookes + Hill Builders again on this project, and am really happy with the result. In fact, it’s been pretty life changing- Andrew and I both are working out way more, and way harder, than before. With COVID seemingly not going anywhere, I don’t see us returning to a gym anytime soon (nor do a lot of people, we’re seeing a big uptick in home gyms). And since our house has ample basement space, giving up this half of the basement for a gym was a no brainer. For a refresh, here was the before:

Our house was build in 1865 so we have a fieldstone foundation. It’s been repointed over time and actually, believe it or not, our basement is very dry. And while I do like the look of fieldstone, in order for the room to be truly waterproof and insulated, we had to blow in insulation and add drywall.  And as you can see, I was working out under a canopy of fiberglass insulation that I would constantly touch when doing my Intervals and Arms classes on the bike. ;) Probably not the healthiest thing.

So first off, the ceiling height. We had about 7′ 6″ from the unfinished floor to the beams down here. While not bad, it wasn’t great either. I’m 5′ 9″ and Andrew is 6′ 4″ and the clearance needed for a treadmill is 8 feet for us.  I was trying not to spend a fortune on this project so digging out the whole basement was something I ideally did not want to pay for.  And raising the ceiling was not an option, so my PM from Brookes + Hill came up with our “treadmill grotto” idea…. digging out just the area for the treadmill kept costs down (in the end I kind of wish I had dug out for the bike too, and maybe just done the work out area as a whole, as we ended up spending a decent chunk of change anyways). Regardless, it’s awesome and a great option.  I bought the Tread for the space and guys, it’s SO good. Better than any other treadmill I’ve ever used and now I use it way more than the bike.  I borrowed this amazing Holly Addi piece from Libby Silvia (still available) and now am 1,000% going to do a huge abstract here.  Why not? Just because it’s a gym doesn’t mean you can’t dress it up.

You can see the plans for the space at the end of this post, but we divided this unfinished side into two parts and on the wall in between did a row of mirrors and a wallpaper accent wall (because it’s me after all, and I wanted to play around with some paper from my new collection).  The flooring is 1/2″ thick rubber tiles (sources below) and are so cushiony.  We did tiles instead of rolls because this way if one gets damaged it’s easy to replace.

This is the entrance to the gym and we created a closet under the stairs and a little nook perfect for keeping our workout ball from rolling around (also the kids have decided this room is the best playroom and use this nook as a little hideout).

This area “before”:

Instead of boxing out just the columns down here we brought the wall out to conceal them, giving us another wall for the TV and weight rack.

We had to have an access panel to some systems on this wall and so we made the call to put a little shelving nook below it to use the empty space below it and it’s turned out to be a great use of space.

This was the basement before (our playroom isn’t shown here which is on the other side of the bathroom/ end of the hallway.)

And here is the layout now. We added a full shower to the bathroom and redid that too, but It’s not ready to shoot quite yet (shower doors take a LONG time to get these days!)

Here are the sources for choices for the gym:

wallpaper // art (print– canvas originals via HERE) // doors // door hardware // flooring // TB12 band system // Wall Color: BM Balboa Mist // Trim Color: BM Simply White // mirrors // Peloton Tread // weight rack & free weights // Fight Camp

Happy to answer any other questions in comments!