Family Room - Sliding Barn Doors

It is happening.... We are finally back to working on the family room. This past week the weather here in Northern Michigan was calm which gave Ed some downtime and in turn time to work on basement family room remodel. When we last updated you we had finished up the back wall unit.

Here is a link to phase 1.

The fireplace has been wonderful and really helps to make the space feel warm and inviting but the space was far from finished and we knew we wanted to complete the space and really give our family staying here from out of town a private space to sleep at night. We already have a guest room so this space is more of an over flow space so it will act primarily as a family room but since we are over flowing with children and adult children and now grand children, I anticipate this space getting plenty of overnight guest as well. 

Our current phase of this project is to build a wall enclosing the space off from the rest of the basement. We also wanted to add insulation to the ceiling and new wall for some much needed sound proofing. Of course the major transformation part of this phase of the project is the addition of sliding barn doors. 

The wall wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to build. Ed is so handy and really knows what he is doing so it took all of one day to build. We sat in the space for awhile after the wall went up and really thought through what all we wanted to have in this space. First thing that came to mind was adding some more outlets.  The basement has always lacked in outlets so this was the perfect time to wire some up. I wanted to make sure that we allowed our guest ease of charging phone so we used the same outlets that we used in some other spaces in our home.  

Why not wire up some additional lighting while you are at it. We decided that rather than manually turn on each of the custom wall unit lights one by one.. why not put them all on a switch?! But, I didn't want the wall unit to come on with the overhead lights so why not put them on separate switches? so that is what we did. We wired up some recess canless lights in the ceiling on one dimmer switch and put the whole back wall unit on another. Genius!! 

Now it was time to insulate the ceiling and walls and put up the barn door slider unit. wait.... we can't insult the whole ceiling as we found a couple small projects before we can finish it up.. but that is a story for another day... 

Here is the current view from inside the room. 

View outside room with doors closed. 

View outside with doors open. 

We bought a couple items used to build the barn doors. After looking at all the options we decided to by premade doors. Lowes carries 36-84 Zpine Barn Door kits. Each kit was on sale for $89.50, bought 2. The kit came with door, track and hardware. The only thing I don't like about the doors is that they are Z shape and I want X so we bought (4) 3/8-4-36 pine boards for $3.40 each and will make our own X. Stay tune for door update in my next update. Total door cost less stain which we have on hand is $192.60. Of course this does not include the cost to building the wall but for most the wall is already in place. 

We are now able to provide our guest a place to sleep in private.

Fudgy Mint Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

·         1/2 cup butter

·         2 cups granulated sugar

·         1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

·         1/2 cup milk

·         1 teaspoon vanilla

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         3 1/2 cups oats I use quick

·         2 1/2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut

Frosting

·         1/2 cup butter room temperature

·         1 1/2 cups icing sugar

·         1 tbsp milk

·         1/2 tsp mint extract

·         green food coloring

Ganache

·         3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

·         1 tbsp milk

·         1 tbsp butter

Instructions

1.             Line 2 cookie sheets with wax paper.

2.             In a large pot, combine butter, sugar, cocoa and milk. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, and boil 1-2 minutes.

3.             Stir in vanilla and salt. Add oats and coconut and stir to combine.

4.             Drop into 24 spoonful’s onto wax paper. Refrigerate until set.

5.             Meanwhile, make the frosting. To a stand mixer (or use a hand mixer), add butter, icing sugar and milk and beat until creamy and blended. Add in mint extract and food coloring. If necessary, add an extra tbsp sugar or milk to achieve the right consistency — you do not want the icing runny.

6.             Remove cookies from the fridge and spread with frosting. Return to the fridge to let the frosting set.

7.             Make the ganache: In a small pot, combine chocolate, milk and butter over very low heat. Cook and stir constantly until chocolate is smooth. Set aside to cool 5-10 minutes. Spread on cooled cookies, and return to the refrigerator to allow chocolate to set.

8.             Because they are slightly gooey, I like to store them in the fridge or freezer with wax paper between layers so they don’t stick together.