Cozy Condo

The first morning in our new Arizona house in July of 2019, I sat, feeding my 2-month-old, amide the scattered boxes dreading finding a place for everything. From my seat on the couch I could see the staircase to the upstairs. My eyes followed the wall to the half-bathroom door, and back to the stair’s newel post. Our one-year-old puppy, Cozy, was sniffing around the house, her pathway crossed my eyes as I continued to calculate the distance of how deep I knew the bathroom was, and how much more space must have been closed off under the stairs. There had to be extra space.

I finished feeding my 2-month-old and moved on to other things, like feeding the older kids, unpacking the kitchen and pantry, but each time I had to sit and feed my baby my eyes wondered to that area under the stairs.

I thought it had been days, but in reality it had been hours, while my youngest was napping, I pulled out the multitool and cut open a hold in the drywall. The plan: a room for the dog.

While at the time, I had no aspirations of sharing much of this to public, but on some basal level I wanted to see my progress over time. See, in our previous house I’d done work to dress up a fireplace, painted the kitchen cabinets, and changed out the shower surround, a good half of it was with my husband. This dog room… this was ALL me.

So I used it as my playground. Electrical, drywall, WALLPAPER, BASEBOARDS, even CROWN MOLDING, BUILDING DOORS (I’m not yelling, just trying to denote things I’d never done, or never done solo, before this room.) In reality it took me several months. I built during naptimes, hauled three kids to improvement stores for supply runs (the oldest was in school), and was generally extremely novice.

Besides the wallpaper, the dog is the only other girl (my boys would add “besides the chickens), so I love that wallpaper…but besides the wallpaper, my favorite feature is a shelf on drawer slides so all of her things can be stashed away in her room, but she can’t get into them. When I need something I can slide the drawer/shelf out into the doorway, get the things I need and slide it back out of the way. Now, four years later, I’m still impressed with my ingenuity with that one.