SPARE ROOM

The third bedroom as I first saw it.  It's not a very large room, and the single window was high up and the glass cloudy.  Not the most inspiring space to work in.  

The same room after replacing the window with a sliding glass door.  Suddenly the room was opened to the backyard (with bare trees in this winter pic, but very lush and secluded in spring and summer.)  Now this is our workout room, a great place for a little morning tai chi, a bounce on the trampoline or for riding the recumbent bike at night, or when it's too rainy to venture outside.

One step further: we've now added a small deck beyond the workout room, with a trellis I hope to run wisteria on.  It will give us flowers in the early spring, then foliage to shelter the deck during the summer.  In winter, it's deciduous and the lack of leaves will let in needed light.  (Note: the room's paint is not this deep a yellow; it's just a quirk of the lighting in this shot.)

The deck in summer.  I stapled shade cloth over the top this time to add a little shelter.

Deck viewed from the yard, a nice place to relax and enjoy the outdoors.