Bedroom makeover!

Ever since we moved to this house (and for several months before!) we've been dreaming up ways to make it feel more like our HOME. The master bedroom is just one of the places ... Okay, really, all the places in the house need some TLC! So the bedroom has been needing a face lift.

From the beginning, the biggest frustration for me in this room was that the closet went all the way to the left edge of the window, and the only wall wide enough to put a bed and side tables was the window wall, but the window was not centred because of the closet.

I've had the idea for a while that we should remove the closet and switch the bed to where the closet was. I was pretty sure I had told Paul about my brilliant plan, but when I brought the subject up recently, he seemed to think I hadn't mentioned it.  But he agreed it was a great idea! 

We've been wanting to get a king size bed for a while. We still have little boys joining us in our bed at any given time of the night. Sometimes all three of them fight for space with us in the early morning.  We've been looking at bed frames at Ikea and have had a few on our wish list, but haven't had the extra cash to actually make the change. I'm glad we didn't hadn't gone with our initial favorite, as we've found another design that we like more. 

A few weeks ago, some new friends we know from camp mentioned on Facebook that after 4 years of living in a 5th wheel trailer, they were moving into a suite to accommodate their growing family. They put the word out that they were looking for a queen size bed and dressers, and some dining room furniture. Their search for essential things for their new home spurred our thinking, and we decided this would be a good time to start the process of our bedroom reno! We had tried selling our bedroom set before moving to the Island, but no bites. Sure we could have lowered our asking price, but we were excited to help meet a need we had become aware of.  We sent pictures of what we had and they were thrilled with our offer.  

Paul got right to work on building a base closet cabinet for our new built-in storage. We've always had trouble with the dead-space under clothes that are hanging in our closet. It always ends up a a catch all that quickly deteriorates into chaos. Knowing our issues with that, we decided to make the hanging rod as low as low to the floor as we could. We don't have many things that been a talk hanging space, donors working nicely. The plan is to put an Expedit cabinet from Ikea on top of the closet to store all the things that can be folded and don't need to or can't be hung.

Next on the list was the removal of the closet. It came down fairly quickly and we confirmed our suspicion that the closet was put in at a later time than the original building construction. The solid wood panel ceiling foes right through to the next room, and it's clear to see that the bedroom wall and closet was done later.

Here are the "before" pictures! The paint on the walls looks minty green, but it was actually a very pale blue. And it was peach inside the closet, both on the wall and the ceiling! What a treat!

My #1 pet peeve about this room as it used to be set up - that when the door was left open (if not closed completely it would open fully), anyone lying in the bed was subject to a dining room light blaring in their eyes, and any visitor who may be in the line of vision would likely see more than they wanted to see. This became acutely obvious to me this past summer when Paul had one or two or three young men from the summer staff over for early morning visits over coffee ... every day! I often had to yell at a boy to close the door!

See?! See the people visiting at the table?
See the useless space behind the door, beside the closet?

Closet, built right up to the edge of the window.
The closet doors were gone before we moved in.

The "after" results are incomplete as we wait for the time and money we need to put together the rest of our project. It's sparse, but simple and we are really quite content! Most of the drawers in my old dresser and side table had become a place to stash stuff that I didn't want to deal with, so now we have to be more intentional with how much stuff we have and where it belongs. I do miss one thing, and that is having a top closet shelf or out-of-a-child's-reach drawer to hide Christmas presents!

Imagine this bed and shelf against the wall where the closet was and the mattress is now ... (I realize this is the first of my "after" photos, but as I'm sure you can surmise, it is an Ikea catalogue clipping!)

We love the drawers underneath, and the shelves built in to the headboard.
No more side-tables!

Industrial shelving at left and in the last photo is temporary!

Imagine this shelf on top of the closet, and a curtain in front of the closet.

We haven't finalized how this corner will function,
perhaps it will stay as the laundry corner only.

So there you have it! I'll be sure to post more pictures as the final details come together. Other items on the to-do list include laminate flooring and pot lights.

(Again, composed mostly on my phone, so there may be some random typos that I don't feel like checking for right now!)