#37 - Master Bedroom & Laundry Room 99% Complete

We've lived in our bedroom now for over a year and it's a retreat.  And who knew that it would double as my home office from March-June! I started school again last week, and I still have my desk/table in our room just in case I'll need it again.  I'm cautiously optimistic though and hoping we can haul that puppy upstairs in a month or two once school is in full swing and all is well. I'm praying so hard that we will not have to teach remotely.  But, God is good; and we'll take whatever comes when it comes.

Matt continues to work from home; and our new spaces have definitely come in handy.  He's using the upstairs guest room as an office until ... well ... forever.

Our bedroom is 99% finished.  I still need to buy curtains, and I need to hang some pictures on the wall.  I haven't been out shopping much for anything frivolous; and I like to wait until something really grabs my attention anyway before committing to it.  So art and curtains will have to wait.  For curtains, I'm 100% more into texture than color, so I'm looking for something neutral with a distinct texture; and art work (or printed photos in frames)- I just have to wait to see what strikes me.

Let's go through some history first though.  Let me paint a visual picture.

The photo below, with our brown walls (don't laugh), is circa 2008.

• The paneled doors with the fabric coverings are the doors to the master bathroom.  I've already expounded in past blogs about the weirdness that is having closet doors as bathroom doors.
• The picture of green leaves above the lamp is where you should focus your attention.  Today, at this very minute, that area of the wall is now the doorway to our new bedroom.  That side of the room has become a hallway, and those closet doors have been replaced with a regular door  and that bathroom is now a hall bathroom.

 

Here's our old master in 2017 where we went a little more bright and airy, but had to cram in more furniture because I didn't have anywhere to store linens.  We moved the bed into the corner so that we could use the little triangle behind the bed for storage.  Really.  We had a chair, some shelves and some artwork back there.  In spite of purging and purging, we really were busting at the seams

• For reference, the armoire (that used to be our linen closet because we didn't have one) is on the same wall where the green leaf picture is in the photo above.

 

See that closet space in the bathroom (the other set of louvered doors on the right)?, at one time I stored linens in there and arts and crafts in the armoire.  But that didn't work well because of poor closet design.  So, the armoire became the linen closet and the bathroom closet became storage for arts and crafts and miscellaneous toiletries and toilet paper.  Nothin' like a side of fabric scraps with your shampoo!

I can't wait to share the makeover of this bathroom--and its REAL, REGULAR door!  The goal was to have it finished in time for the kids to start school again so all three would not have to share our teeny tiny hall bathroom in the mornings.  Matt completed it last week...we just need a doorknob!

 

 

 

 

• Once construction started, this window was removed.  This portion of our old master bedroom is now Eliana's room.  Beyond the window is where our new master bedroom closet is.
  

• See! Matt is standing in the new bedroom in the space that became a closet.  Behind his right shoulder, across the room, is the entrance to our new bathroom.
• The armoire is on the wall that became a doorway to our new bedroom.
• Matt installed a wall between where the armoire and window are in this picture below.
  

• Below is before he installed the wall.  We used this room as a pass-thru, catch-all kind of room for a good long while.
  
  
  
  
  • This photo below is during installation of the wall.  You can see the louvered bathroom doors on the left. Matt is working in the portion that became Eliana's bedroom.  (You can see that this happened much farther along in the process, because there's a sneak peek into our new master bedroom area!)
    
  
  
  
  So, that's the old house portion of our new master bedroom.  You can see above where the new bedroom is in relation to the old house.  It really worked out beautifully to create a hallway, thus creating a hall bathroom and a bedroom. 

  
  

  We even had a nice walk-in closet already in place in the opposite corner of our old bedroom.  Eliana is living the dream with a closet to organize, and reorganize, and organize again. On the right of the picture, you can see the pink bedroom which is the room the girls shared.
  
  

  

  
  
  And now - the new portion:
  

  
  The Slider Closet Wall
  That window inside the closet framing is the window that was later removed.  It looks into our old bedroom.
  

  • 

  Drywall, with the doorway into the old house in brown
  

  

  
  Paint (Autumn Fog by Valspar - it's my favorite!)
  

  

  Trim and doors!
  

  

  

  Flooring!
  

   

   Finished - (including my temporary teacher desk!)
  

   

   

  The Window Wall
  Before:
  
  

  
  
  
  After:
  

  By the way, if you're in the market for a very affordable but great duvet cover, this is the one we have.  It's called beige, but it is NOT beige.  It's grey.  I found mine on clearance at Wal-Mart for $13 and did a happy dance because I am a knucklehead and a I bleached our 2 year old, perfectly fine comforter.  So, I needed a duvet to cover it up so that I could stop strategically placing my throw blankets over the enormous bleach stains.  This one washes really nicely and has the perfect blend of nice, but broken-in.  It's a good weight too, and doesn't require ironing even though it's linen (or linen like).
  

  
  

  
  The Laundry Room:
  I wouldn't say it's typical to have a laundry room right off of the master.  I have seen it before, just not often, but when we decided to add on, we wanted to the bedrooms to be in the same general area, but we didn't want our bedroom to be so disconnected from the non-bedroom areas of the house, so we opted to make the laundry room the connector.  It works out wonderfully because there's quick access to all of the bedrooms from the laundry room, and there's quick access to the family room and kitchen as well.  In hindsight, this is one area where I think we could have switched things up a little (Had the laundry enter a hallway instead of our bedroom), but more complex means more dollar signs, so I'm not even sure we would have been able to do it even if we would have thought to.

   

  The laundry room is the purple area.
  

   

  
  

   

   

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  
  There's the family room through the other doorway.
  
  

  
  
  

  

   
  
  
  Have you ever seen The Big Bang Theory?  I haven't seen more than 5 partial episodes.  BUT I KNOW ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT Sheldon has A Spot.  Let's just say Ezra also has a spot, and it's right there on the end of the couch.  So, imagine you are Ezra, and you're watching TV and the laundry room door is open like so.  Lucky for you, you're close enough to the couch to reach out and swish that door shut without even having to take your eyes off of Survivorman. It's a dream life.  (Occasionally, I sit in His Spot just to see how he'll react.  He reacts as expected.  Don't tell him I told you this.  Seriously.)
  

  

  (Family room update coming soon someday!)
  
  

  Other Views:
  

  
  

  The door to the left is a walk in closet, the door to the right is the bathroom.
  
   
   
   

  

  
  
   
   
  
  
  
  

  
  
• And that's that!  That chair is my all time favorite clothes storage chair.  I've had it since college when family friends gave it to my mom (they might be reading this ;-)), and it's perfect for curling up in.  It doesn't necessarily "match" but that doesn't matter whatsoever because I love the fabric and the chair.  In the big scheme, I don't care that it's green and red and my other things are pink and blue.
  
  
• Also, please spot my salt lamp.  I bought that recently from our church rummage sale and it's one of my new FAVORITE things!  It feels warm like the sun.  And it has a dimmer.  And the glow doesn't bother me, even at night when I like things to be pitch black!   But, we have this thing that happens in our house -- I often go to bed before Matt does, and when he comes to bed in the dark, he has frequently tripped over things (MY CLOTHING or LAUNDRY BASKETS or SHOES) Do not be fooled, our room doesn't actually always look like this. Only on cleaning day, whenever that is. I am a reformed slob and I we have what I call "a laundry situation"on the regular.  I hate putting away clothes. But, I'm not going to ever show my laundry situation on the internet unless there's prize money involved. So, he trips and I wake up and feel badly because I'm the one who left a sweatshirt or 12 and a pile of pillows in the walkway.  He could flip on a quick light to spot obstacles on his way to bed...but he doesn't in order to prevent waking me up.
   
  I could clean up before bed...but...um.  Nope.
  
  Enter the amazing salt lamp.  I flip that thing on, and the glow is so subtle that it doesn't bother me at all and it lights his pathway.  Win-win.
  
  It also does some good health things that I don't remember but I filed salt lamp away in my brain under the "healthy. get one someday" category once, so when I saw a deal, I went for it - I actually bought two!
  
  
  Still waiting for pictures, still waiting for curtains, still trying to figure out exactly how I want to arrange that chair wall...but those are small details. Meanwhile, speaking of small details, embroidered pillowcases are my favorite.