Primary Bedroom Remodel: The Ugly Before Edition
It’s no coincidence that I have never shared a photo of any of the bedrooms in this house. Nothing about the upstairs has ever been worth sharing, other than the primary bathroom renovation which we completed early on. Like many old houses, it was built long before average people owned enough clothes to worry about closet space or could even dream of the comfort and convenience of an en suite bathroom.
Here are a few pictures of the space as it has been up to now. I forgot to photograph it before we started moving furniture out, or maybe subconsciously I just didn’t want to because I hated how it looked.
The only changes I’ve made in the ten years I’ve been here are to add the crystal light fixture (which I love, but which is honestly too good for the current room) and to paint the walls a very pale shade of lavender, which predates a man living in the space and which I’ve also outgrown.
It looks bigger without the furniture. Trust me when I say a queen size bed, two night stands, and a dressing table pack it to the brim. The dresser has always had to reside in another room.
Beyond the modest size that is typical of an old house bedroom, it has a number of other issues. The L-shaped closet, despite taking up a ton of wall space, holds very little in the way of actual clothing. It was clearly slapped together without any thought for design. It doesn’t even have doors! The curtains are always getting knocked askew to reveal the peeling wallpaper within, a harvest gold stripe which was always on the verge of falling off thanks to the weight of three additional layers underneath it that long ago stopped adhering properly to the plaster wall behind. It’s so utterly lacking in function that we’ve never used it as our primary closet. Several years ago, we turned the smallest bedroom into a walk-in closet, which is more functional, but a chilly trek down the hall in a bathrobe on winter mornings, not to mention that it limits the available space to house overnight guests.
Then there’s the bedroom floor. I’ve never been a big fan of wall to wall carpet anyway, but this one is particularly egregious. First, it doesn’t match the carpet in the rest of the upstairs. Like everything else about this room, it feels like an afterthought. There aren’t even any baseboards! In one corner of the room, there is a hole in the subfloor where a heating vent used to be that wasn’t covered with wood before the carpet was laid down over top of it, and one day when I was vacuuming, my foot nearly went right through! The threshold to the bathroom was never finished either. The carpet ended at the bathroom door in a jagged slash, presenting a view of the carpet pad underneath and a late night tripping hazard. And none of the carpet was exactly fresh and new when we moved in; ten years and two dogs did nothing to improve that condition.
And finally, why — in the name of all that is good on this earth — are there two different shades of wood stain?! I’m personally more of a fan of painted trim anyway, but for Pete’s sake if you’re going to stain the trim, pick one color and stick with it throughout the entire room, amirite?
It is well past time for a change.
