poplar road

If you've read previous "Playing House" posts, you've seen what the old master bedroom looked like back in October, and that awful adjoining closet with the cramped bathroom behind it. (To the left at the end of the hall in this "before" shot.) Last month we gutted both those rooms. We also removed the venting from an old wood-burning furnace, which allows us to remove the wall of closets dividing the existing master bedroom from the guest room. (The wall with the mirror on it.)

This weekend, right after our latest guest left on Friday morning, we emptied out the main bathroom and the guest bedroom (last door on the right and 2 pics above), and began to strip the remaining walls at that end of the house down to studs, or to nothing at all….Which leaves us with no guest room. And no bathroom. Oh, joy.

In the picture above left, Richard is standing where the wall at the end of our hallway used to be. The large square hole in the floor was for the furnace vent. You can see by the gaps in the ceiling where the framing of the closets was. Richard drywalled over the gaps this morning, replacing some of the insulation from the attic. He decided not to take the ceiling down, it's just too messy, time-consuming and expensive. Thanks for the expert advice, Rick!

For those of you who haven't heard about or seen our reno plans first hand, here's a quick explanation of the changes. The main bathroom off the hallway, which you can see below is now missing walls, is staying the same size, but the tub is being relocated to be opposite the cabinets and toilet, bumping out the wall of the bedroom by three feet. The space it occupied will belong to the new master bath, with a toilet going in over the old bathtub drain, and our washer and dryer beside it. A new shower is going in the small niche where the old ensuite bathroom used to be, and the vanity will go on the outside wall, next to a tall narrow window squeezed between the studs. Natural light in my bathroom, hooray! We're also going to put glass in the wall between the two bathrooms to extend the daylight into the main bathroom.

The plan was to tile both bathrooms, but the Pergo came up so easily off the guest room floor that we've decided to save time and money by using it in the main bathroom rather than tile. We'll just have to seal it really well. That'll be the least used bathroom anyway so laminate should be fine. Using the laminate in the main bath means we can afford to put underfloor heating in the tiled ensuite, very nice on chilly winter mornings! Neither bathroom will be very large, but they'll be bright and comfortable. And not having to trudge up and down those steep stairs with a laundry hamper will be nice, too.

It's all one big space! But it's not staying that way. In the photo below, you can see the edge of the new tub enclosure, in its new spot. Tomorrow we hope to have the new bathroom walls in place around it - especially urgent since we could both really use a shower!

The original plan was to install the ensuite shower first, and focus on finishing the master bath. But when we unwrapped the new shower this afternoon, we found a crack in it, so it has to go back. Despite the problems caused by having to wait another six weeks for the replacement, we're kind of glad this happened, because Richard figured out that he can bump out the wall above the stairwell a few inches to accommodate a 5 foot wide shower instead of the four foot one. In the meantime we can get the main bath workable, and get all the electrical and plumbing ready to hook up in the ensuite for the end of September.

One of the last things we did tonight was frame in the French doors, which replace the sliding doors with a smaller opening to allow for deeper closets along most of the east wall, and the extra three feet that both bathrooms gain on the other side. We haven't got our doors yet, and there's still the shower and its replacement to move out and in, but Richard framed the opening and then boarded it up. A storm was blowing in while we were cleaning up for the night.

I hope it rains. The garden needs it desperately, and I'd sure like some cooler weather for the rest of the week. The exterior framing is done, but we've got several interior walls to do, plus plumbing and electrical. If I'm still able to move by the end of the day on Wednesday, I'll post a few more pictures then. Oh, and we look forward to more visitors mid-week! More on that next time. Cheers.