Master Bedroom Reveal: The Steps

Oh hey, no big deal but we have a bedroom now.

Well, we mostly have a bedroom. We had to build up a wall this weekend, and it's not painted yet, BUT, we'll be slowly moving in little by little over this coming week, which is surreal, exciting and crazy. This is one space I never thought would get done, to be honest. It was in such rough shape when we moved in, and even though we both had a vision for it, it was hard to see it ever getting brought to fruition because it needed so much work.

Let's start with some good 'ole befores and afters, mmmkay?

This room is hard to photograph because of it's shape. It's a pretty long rectangle so hopefully you can get the idea. We also still have to put our baseboard heaters back in (which explains the big, unpainted strips near the floor).

The room is not completely done because a few things will be changing over the years. For one, the patio window will go away, and we'll be putting in two new windows along the back wall (that'll go behind each bedside table). But, we decided to hold off on that and put those funds toward our bathroom installation. In the next two years or so, that'll happen. But for now, we have an ugly patio door with unfixable, foggy condensation between the glass panels that I decided to cover with sheers for the time being. I hate how that window offsets the whole room, but whatever. That whole area is temporary. Dramatic sigh.

Starting from the beginning, here's what we had to do to get to this point:

1. Remove all the vinyl paneling from the walls.
2. Remove the old carpeting.
3. Fix and joint the drywall.
4. Move the ceiling light opening and electrical wires to the center of the ceiling.
5. Knock down the wall that leads into the bathroom.
6. Prime and paint the walls.
7. Prime and paint the windows.
8. Spray paint the window hardware.
9. Install the plank ceiling.
10. Install the floors.
11. Frame, drywall and joint the bathroom doorway wall to close it in.
12. Hang the sliding door for the bathroom entrance.
13. Install the ceiling fan/light.
14. Cut, prime and paint all the trim in the room (eh, this like, isn't done, but whatever).

Aaaaand, I think that's everything, except some detail work to enhance the space.

A while back I posted about our bedroom goals in this post, and we both worked really hard to get exactly what we wanted. Josh did an amazing job at all the installations, and I had so much fun designing the details of the space and helping when I could. Next week, I'll post photos of everything moved in, but this week, we're focusing on the steps we took to get here.

Let's break it down, starting from the beginning.

Just like our closet and hallway, this room originally had vinyl wood paneling and institutional-style tile ceilings. One difference, though, was that this space had a plywood subfloor, kind of (and kind of not) covered by a really bad carpet. Here's a blurry video screen grab of the awesome carpet, which was missing chunks:

Seriously, what's that about?

Before we got to work on the drywall, we had a contractor come over to move the electrical wire in the ceiling so they were centered in the room. I'm not sure why, but the wiring was off-centered on the ceiling, which would drive this Type A girl crazy.

Why, WHY are you not centered?!

Once that was done, Josh started to remove all the paneling, spackled, sanded and jointed the drywall underneath, and removed the carpeting.

I did not envy Josh, having to fill in all those holes.

Goodbye, carpet! It was rather convenient, just pushing it out the patio door.

Then I stepped in to prime and paint the room, using the same color as our closet and hallway - Bunny Gray by Benjamin Moore.

Next, Josh began putting up the new ceiling. After a lot of debating, we decided to go with planks by Armstrong. The beadboard ceilings we used in the hallway and closet were perfect a small space, but in a larger one, we wanted something that fit the scale of the room better. We'd probably recommend these planks with hesitation. Overall, we're really happy with them, but they were incredibly flimsy and felt more like cardstock paper than wood planks. If you keep that in mind, you'll be fine, but it was a surprise we were only kind of prepared for. We still have to go around and spackle the nail holes and put up molding to cover the seams, but overall, we're really happy with how it looks. When I first saw this room during our first visit here, I immediately loved the way the ceiling was shaped like a barn, so seeing the country-inspired wood planks up on the ceiling after visualizing them up there for so long is just awesome.

Then it was time to knock down the little closet in our room, which would create an entrance into the master bath. Since we had our new walk-in closet off the bedroom, there was no need for this anymore, and by taking it out, we were able to make the bathroom larger, and create the entrance we wanted. Before, you could only enter the master bath from the little hallway in our bedroom suite, but when it's all said and done, we both felt pretty strongly about only having once entrance to the bathroom from our bedroom for privacy reasons. I think the best surprise was the fact that the previous owners had only stained one half of the closet door.

I came home from work one day, went in here to pee, and the wall was down. Surprise!

Then we moved on to our floors, continuing the same rustic/distressed ones from our hallway and closet into this room. Once the floors were in, just like with the other rooms we'd done, everything finally fell into place. It felt like a room we could actually live in!

As much as we really wanted a lovely chandelier-ish fixture as a focal point in the room, we were in desperate need of a ceiling fan. We don't have central air, so during the warmer months, we like, need the air circulation at night. So we hunted down the least ugly ceiling fan we could find that fit with the style we were going for, and ended up loving this cottage-inspired ceiling fan from Hunter. I usually despise the look of ceiling fans, but I kind of love this one.

This past weekend, Josh framed out and drywalled the bathroom entrance. Because we really had our hearts set on a sliding door for this wall, the opening couldn't be super wide - the slanted ceilings really limited us on what we could do over here. So once we knocked out the closet, we had to close in the opening a bit. That's the only part we're waiting on before moving in. Sanding down the joint compound is like, ridiculously messy, so once that's done, I can paint that wall, and move everything in.

View from the bathroom: Josh finishing the new framing.

New framing done! Hello :)

Drywall up and taped. Almost ready for paint!

Over this weekend, I also painted the door we'll be using for the bathroom entrance. My friend Maggie from Honestly Maggie gave me a great shopping tip for doors, so we headed to Grossman's Bargain Outlet and picked this paneled door that kind of has a barn-like look to it. I actually think it's the same door Maggie used in her bedroom, area, too! At first, we had planned on staining and distressing it to look similar to the floors, but after really thinking about the design of our space, we preferred just painting it white, and giving it a really nice rustic handle. I seriously can't wait to get this bad boy up.

Finally, we added a little detail to our small side windows. Because these windows are so petite, there wasn't much we could do in the way of drapes or shades. But we wanted something to add some visual interest. We decided to paint them white, get new white trim to go around them, and build some little barnwood-inspired shutters. I just used inexpensive wood planks from Home Depot, stained the edges, painted them with white chalk paint, distressed them and nail-gunned them together. They were super easy to make, and I'm kind of obsessed with the way they add character and charm to the room without eating up a lot of space on the walls. I also spray painted the old hardware bronze, which helped a ton with the overall look.

Spray painting the hardware.

Phew! That's everything. We're so close! By next weekend, we'll be moved out of the guest room we've been sleeping in since moving into the house, and actually be in our master bedroom. You can't see it, but I just did my happy dance. See you next week!