down to business

We bought a house with four bedrooms and had enough furniture for....well, none of them.  Between the two of us we owned two beds, a full that was too small and a king that wouldn't fit up the stairs (and probably not in any of the rooms either). We went out and bought a queen and designated the full for a guest room. This still left us with two extra rooms so we each got an office and what a waste that turned out to be. We later ended up with more beds and now have one office and two guest rooms. This room was originally Bryce's office and is now the office.

It's a tiny room, not good for much else than a desk and a few shelves and in addition to having no heating ducts, it sits directly over the unheated (and very cold in the winter) sunroom. Luckily we don't have much use for an office because it's uninhabitable in the winter, at least without a space heater which we haven't bothered with.

This photo is very dark but it gives a good impression of how dingy and dark the house was. Each bedroom upstairs had a different carpet and whitewashed walls, likely a suggestion of the realtor, thru which you could see the previous color (except for the master bedroom, it's a real treat I'm saving for later). I believe this room had been the same orange as the kitchen. The rooms upstairs are tiny and therefore very hard to photograph so I hope this all makes sense. This before photo is taken from standing at the doorway and looking left. In the bottom of the photo you can see where the baseboard ends; that's where a closet was later added.


This photo is a pan to the right, showing the front of the closet and window


This photo was taken after the first layer of carpet and padding had been removed. You can see where the original trim ended at the closet from the first photo.


I wanted to tear this closet out since day 1; it wasn't original to the house, was poorly built and would have needed new doors at a minimum. Bryce hesitated a bit since taking them out would obviously leave us with a closet-less room but the fact that it was built on top of the carpeting really sealed the deal!


This is after the closet had been removed. You can see exactly where it had been installed...and the hole we put in the plaster removing it. It obviously opened the room up a bit and turned it into a more manageable shape; it was a very skinny 'L' before.


And here is the after photo, blinds down, freshly painted Behr 'Laurel Leaf' with 'Decorator White' trim, refinished hardwoods and a new light fixture.