Gearing up

*general note: Since I'm already behind on my posts, I'm going to date them for when they should have been posted. This will likely result in my writing in present and past tense within the same post. Please pretend like you don't notice, while I try to get caught up!


The master bath plan is multi-faceted. I will use pictures to help explain. The area that will become the master bath is an old addition to the house. It has a sloping floor, which we presumed was because the addition was built over a concrete patio which was sloped for rain run-off. The previous owner walled it up, creating a half bath on the left side and a closet on right. The middle section is just a tile walkway with french doors out to a rickety old deck.



He didn't bother to level the floor, which is annoying.



I guess this was intended to be the master suite. We made it the guest room.



So part of the plan requires creating a doorway from our bedroom (which is next door) into the new master bath. Our bedroom has a measly little closet, which shares a wall with the guest room. We decided while we were at it, we might as well widen the closet to extend to the bathroom door, to create a proper master bedroom situation.



This will shave some square footage off of the guest room, but it's a decent sized room, so it's not that big of a deal. We're going to add about 2 feet to the top of the new closet as well, for badly needed extra storage. The plan is to install a sliding library ladder to access the top storage.



We priced them and they're pretty expensive, so we may have to make our own. We also will need to custom build sliding doors to pretty much cover that whole wall. I'm sure that will be pretty cheap!

We've been poring over magazines and books, trying to determine the "look" of the new master bath. The house sort of commands retro, which is very *IN* right now, but we already did that in our other bathroom renovation, so we both agreed we'd like to try to steer clear of white floors and wainscoting.

We're both big fans of the frameless shower doors ($$$), which kind of commands a more modern look. We even discussed going full-on Asian Spa, with lots of wood and glass. Chuck made the good point, though, that technically we should be creating a cohesive "master suite", which includes our bedroom. Asian doesn't really work in there. Our furniture falls under the antique category, and crown molding isn't exactly modern. So we're struggling to come up with a more eclectic look, which a friend of mine termed "Retro Asian Fusion" Love it! But we have no idea what it looks like yet.

As usual, the plan is to do as much work as we can ourselves. But there are a few things out of our comfort zone (namely plumbing, electricity and framing), so Chuck met with "T"(not his real name), a handyman/carpenter on Wednesday to go over the plan. He's reasonably priced and seems to have a passion for fixing up old houses, so we hired him. He sent us this:



We start demo tomorrow!!