Master Suite & Office

The master suite was quite large (around 800 square feet) and on three levels, including a fireplace hearth level along two walls, before the remodel.  According to papers we found with the house, it included a "liberated bathroom."  Don't worry, we had to Google that too. There were few walls between the bed and bathroom and no doors.  The main feature: a 300 gallon tiled soaking tub made of solid poured concrete abutting the carpeted bedroom framed by two walls covered in six foot tall mirrors.  A small shower was behind one of the mirrored walls and open to the floor to ceiling windows facing east.  Near the large windows was a raised seating area with tile-covered 4 inch thick poured concrete and chicken wire floor. The bathroom's single sink and make-up counter were in the corner of the third level of the room with even more large mirrors, the toilet, and some of the closet space.  Looking at this huge amount of space, we could see the opportunity to use it more efficiently to build an office and a master suite with a large shower and sweet master closet.

Weeks of measuring, drawing, and discussing led to our final plans of adding a wall halfway into the room to make an office between the bedroom and atrium area of the house.  We hoped that in demolition we would be able to get all of the office and bedroom on the same level and add steps up to the door to the deck and bathroom with entry into the closet from the bathroom.  With ideas in mind, we were ready to start demolition!  

This bigger space necessitated a bigger crew: my dad, Ted, Ari and I demolished everything we could handle.  It took us a little over a week, two dump trailers totaling over 11,000 pounds (500 pounds in mirrors alone), and tools ranging from small sledgehammers and crowbars to a 60 pound electric jackhammer to bring this space down to the studs.

We were able to create a new office space between the atrium and master bedroom by taking out the old wood fireplace and eliminating the stepped up tile hearth than ran the length of the room to the tub. Taking out the old wood-burning fireplace also created space for some awesome built-in shelving. We were able to brighten up the new office by adding a high window on the south-facing wall of the room. Looking forward to moving desks in and using this new office for working from home!

Our new bathroom is absolutely stunning: a big shower with "mermaid" tile accent, a carbonized bamboo vanity with double sinks, a fantastic closet space with custom built-in storage, and best of all: a door!  While our bedroom is smaller than the original, gigantic old one, having a new office is totally worth it! One thing we didn't change were the great views off the bluff to the east.



Comments

A Williams said…
Oh. My. Word! This is an amazing transformation!!!!!
December 8, 2020 at 10:17 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tackling the Solarium

Image
The listing for our house described this unique room as the solarium, and the name has stuck!  It was a room with a lot of issues: leaking windows in both the ceiling and walls, harsh and cold '80s tile floor, built in benches taking up a lot of space along the windows, and even a water spigot in one wall.  The room was drafty with lots of gross old curtains to try to keep the heat in (or out in the summer), and felt like it was closer to an outdoor space than an indoor one.  The room is two stories tall and visible from the great room, so we needed to make the right choices to make it fit.  After a lot of thinking about the possibilities, it was demo time!  This entailed removing the roof and walls, really opening up the house in the hottest part of the summer - but it was totally worth it! Once we got the new windows in and new walls with good insulation, plus fully opening skylights with remote operation, the room really became part of our indoor usable space...
Read more

Ari's Bathroom Update

Image
 We all got involved in the demo of this small and strangely shaped space, ripping out all of the old brown tile, the brown tub, and mismatched vanity.  The biggest trick was getting the tub down the stairs and out to the trailer. We wanted to brighten up the space while working with its interesting footprint.     Ari chose a very cool cobalt blue floating vanity that we planned the room around.  With lots of white tile, brighter paint, and more light, this bathroom has become a beauty.
Read more

Emme's Room

Image
Emme's room is a large room on the first floor with a sliding door out onto the deck.  Unfortunately for Emme, the large size of her room and closet made it the perfect place to put some of my clothes and Ted's clothes, along with our dressers while we worked on the master bedroom.  Before moving all of these things into her room, she chose a new paint color (Snowfall by Sherwin-Williams) to brighten up her room and make a clean background for the bright accents we had planned.   We chose lots of bright colors and accents to contrast with the pale gray on the walls.  The main accent wall is seen when you enter the room and the smaller accent wall is around the corner.  These walls were fun to create.  Ted laid out a pattern for each wall that I projected and used to guide my tape placement.  To prevent the bright colors from bleeding under the paint, I first painted along all of the paint lines with the gray paint.  Then it was time to bring ...
Read more