Safe room

When we started talking about building a house, I think we decided that no matter what else we had in the house, we would make room for a safe room.  I am freaking scared to death of storms  have a great respect for storms so I really wanted a safe place to go.  And what I envisioned wasn't a small closet that we would have to scrunch into with maybe one folding chair.  I wanted a place I could just go to sleep in if strong storms were being forecasted overnight.

So our safe room is kind of like an extra bedroom.  We call our house a three bedroom house because the safe room couldn't technically be considered a bedroom since it doesn't have a closet or windows but we really have four useable bedrooms.

This is all of the furniture we had in our guest bedroom in Little Rock.  I don't like the look of the bed, but its comfortable and I couldn't rationalize a reason to buy furniture for a safe room when we already had this.

I wish I could tell you all about the cool doomsday items that are stored in the armoire but its really just a bunch of crap.  I do plan to one day clean it out and put things in there that we would need in case of a disaster.

The door into this room is just a regular door that matches all of the other doors in the house.  But you can see the steel door just outside the room.  You actually have to step through the mechanical room to get to this room.  The mechanical room is also "safe" so we were able to put a more attractive door on this room but still meet the guidelines of a safe room.

One of the other good things about having a room without windows is that Brad works 3-4 nightshifts each month.  So I thought this would be perfect for him to sleep in when he had to sleep in the middle of the day.  But he hasn't slept in here much and I don't really know why.  He sleeps on the sofa in the basement instead, but the drapes don't keep it all that dark in there, so I'm not sure why he prefers it.  But the good news is, I don't have to wash the sheets and make this bed on a regular basis!

On my last visit to the Pottery Barn Outlet, I had a reward certificate to use and decided to get this rug.  I needed something to soften the room and this did exactly what I wanted it to.  The concrete floors seem cold and this warmed it up in there.

I have this photo taken by my friend Dawn hanging above the bed.  It's one of my favorite things in the house and at first I thought it shouldn't be in the safe room.  But I like it in here and this way it won't get destroyed if disaster struck!

I actually like this room a lot.  There is no indication that it's completely concrete and in fact, I have a hard time making some people understand that this isn't just another bedroom.

Thankfully, we haven't had to use it for it's intended purpose.  There were a couple times I gathered some things up to get prepared, but then what was being predicted passed us. But I'm amazed at how much peace of mind this give me.  I say "me" because anytime it's storming, Brad is out on the porch watching it like it's entertainment.

Shutters

We got the shutters finished and hung recently.  I think the builder was going to show us some vinyl ones and those would have been great as far as being weather resistant but it wasn't really the look we wanted.  He never brought them for us to look at so we decided Brad could build them.

We never even thought about having shutters, but the garage windows especially needed something.  I really like the difference they made.

You can see our parking pad here too.  I think once the driveway is finished (should be this week) people will start to use it.  Up to this point, we have had to tell everyone to pull up around back.  It will be nice to have people come through the front door.

Brad and I are both kind of weird when it comes to shutters.  Brad just doesn't really like them and I think they must be functional.  As in, I want to be able to close them if the need arose.  We live in Arkansas so I'm not sure what that need would be but I didn't want to just screw these to the house for decorative purposes.  I was also insistent that they needed to be the correct width.  If they're going to close, there doesn't need to be a gap between them so these are each half the size of the windows.   We ordered the hardware from Signature Hardware and were really pleased with the quality and service.

So, here is a before and after:

The grass and parking pad help a lot too!  They laid the rest of the sod in the front and you can tell where the new grass is, it's just not as green yet.  We are watering it like crazy so it should green up quickly as hot as it's been.

Unfortunately, just as we finish one project, another is waiting on us.  Landscaping is next.