What's going on upstairs?

The upstairs of the house has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bedroom is huge and has a boarded-up fireplace (which we later discovered is entirely fake: there’s no fireplace and no flue!)

The bathrooms are small and dated. And their windows are set oddly low, almost at floor level.

Four bedrooms sounds spacious, but the way everything was configured was weird and made it feel pokey. On our second visit to the house we realized we needed to clean things up and reconfigure. And so began phase 2…

It doesn’t look that complicated – but this is just the demolition plan

A local architect helped us work out a new and better plan for upstairs. There were a few things we knew we had to work around – chimneys, plumbing etc. We decided we would not move the existing bathrooms but we would add a third: 4 bedrooms to 3 bathrooms is a better ratio. To do so, we would make the old master suite smaller and rechristen it a guest bedroom, turning the back bedroom into the master with an en-suite bath and walk-in closet. It took a few rounds of revision to get the plan where we wanted it. And then the work began.

Demolition is never pretty

We’re keeping the original bathtub. It will need to be refinished!

Apparently this is quite normal :-)

Framing in new walls for the master suite closet. Also a look at the custard-colored paint from 1985.

Looking into what will be the master bathroom