Tag Archives: guest room

5.20.2015

The Chamber of Secrets Reveal: Part One

by Katie

Once, a very long time ago (six months, to be exact), I shared the gruesome underbelly of our house with you–the Chamber of Secrets.

Today, I ask you to once again push that door open to see that the Chamber of Secrets has transformed into… well, the Chamber of Secrets (the name has stuck, but now we say it in less sepulchral tones). Go ahead, take a peek inside.

Okay, okay. So it might have a been a little preemptive to call this a reveal post. Because we haven’t finished the cabinet doors. And the top of the shelving still needs trim. And there’s one more trim piece to add to the floors. But it’s hard for me to even feel that bad about misleading you because when we started this project there was this whole crappy carpet/exposed insulation/puny ceiling fan/random plywood squares/unholy mess of boxes situation. Here, let me remind you.

Then scrub your eyeballs with this:

Red House West || Chamber of Secrets Reveal Part One

It’s a trick of perspective making that post on the corner shelves look bent – in real life that thing is straight as an arrow!

I mean sure, it couldn’t really have gotten worse, but it is so, so much better. Today I thought I’d give some details on the main elements we added to the room: the floors, the closet, and the shelving.

Floors

Our house was built in 1930, and the downstairs floors are fir. Our entire upstairs though (excluding the bathroom, thank goodness), is a patchwork of poorly-fitted industrial carpet over subfloor. No gorgeous wood floors just waiting to be exposed here. Our plan is to banish the carpet in the next year or two, so we needed to choose flooring that fit in our budget not just for this room, but for the entirety of the upstairs.

We knew we wanted something period-appropriate – a domestic hardwood that would feel right in our old farmhouse. My initial thought was pine. It would definitely suit our house, and I really love the way it looks. But even though pine is notoriously soft, I was pretty surprised by how soft the sample actually was. I mean, I could make a groove in it with just my fingernail. Here’s a little video:

I don’t mind a little patina (shoot, our whole house is patina’d), but Cameron and I both worried that the rolling trundle bed and rolling office chair, and just general living, would leave the floor with deep grooves and scratches. So we cast our net a little wider and eventually narrowed our choices to hickory and ash.

Samples of ash, hickory, and pine

Tearing out the carpet and removing all the staples was dirty and tedious, but not difficult. Overall the installation of the floor – we chose pre-finished wood with boards the same width as our downstairs floors – was straightforward. Our house is sloped and canted and definitely not square, so there was some alchemy (the alchemy of measurements and swearing) required to get the job done.

Cameron replacing part of the subfloor. He could be wearing those headphones to protect his ears from power tools, or maybe to block out the Scottish strains of hundreds of hours of ‘Outlander’ that played incessantly during this project. Try not to be too jealous of our sound system.

In the end we chose hickory for its durability, price and beauty. The variegation is a little more intense than I pictured when extrapolating out from the four-inch sample, and I admit to some serious second-guessing when the floor was about halfway in. It’s growing on me though, and I think it’s pretty in this simple, all-white room.

The Closet
You may remember that the inspiration for the closet came from this old door (that we think is original) that we found in the storage room of our house.
After a thorough cleaning, painting, and a quick refreshing of the hardware, it was looking sweet. But also short. We didn’t want to hang it so the bottom was flush with the floor, because that would mean ducking down to see inside the closet. Instead we opted to hang it high, so the baseboard forms a little step.

I might be a little proud of my drywall work – those small walls represent so many hours of mudding and sanding!

I’m glad we hung it high, because it led to one of my favorite little details in the room – the door trim cut to fit the slope of the eave.

It’s a decent-sized closet (I’m so glad we didn’t do a cupboard like we originally planned), and inside we just put a simple shelf and a hanging bar.

Shelf design
The biggest and most complicated part of this project by far was designing and building the cabinets and shelves. It took a lot of discussing, negotiating and idea-bouncing between Cameron and me, and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. Here’s where we started (if you missed the first part of this saga and are wondering why there’s no drywall, you can read about it here):

We’re in a much better place now!

We knew (thankfully) ahead of time that if we built the shelves down in the shop they would be too big to fit up our narrow staircase, so we hauled all the tools upstairs and built them in the room.

Then we grunted like the weightlifters we aren’t and lifted that thing into place. The corner shelves were screwed directly into the studs of the closet.

Not the prettiest stage of the renovation.

A major consideration in the design of the shelves was how to keep everything from being too visually heavy. This room has really lovely light and a nice view into the treetops that we didn’t want to block, and so Cameron came up with the idea of radiused shelves near the window. We also left the edge of the corner shelves open. I like the idea of placing some books with their spines facing out to break things up a little and keep it interesting.

We’re still finishing up the trim on the top and bottom – those gaps won’t be there when we’re done.

Cameron installed an outlet in the corner, and we wrote lots of secret messages for some future inhabitant to find in the space behind where the two shelves meet.

I was pretty adamant about having just a single support in the front, which meant adding some wedge supports near the curved ends to keep the shelves from bowing under the weight of books.

We built the window seat lower so that the cushion will sit flush with the top of the cabinets. I plan to pretty much live in this spot in the coming months.

Oh man I could go on and on, but this post is getting pretty long so I’ll save some for next time. I’m so excited to finish up the last few little projects so we can start moving furniture in! Can’t wait to show you!

1.14.2015

Chamber of Secrets Part Two: Designing the Shelves

by Katie

The transformation of the Chamber of Secrets into the Chamber of Nice Things (might need a catchier moniker) is underway. Just so your hopes don’t get dashed like waves upon the shore, this is by no means an after post. There’s still exposed insulation, an ugly ceiling fan, and teetering stacks of boxes, but don’t despair! Decisions and progress were made! As a reminder, here is a photo (in all its hideous glory) from a few weeks ago when I introduced you to the Chamber:

As I mentioned in that post, this room needs to function as both a guest room and an office. We’re in dire need of bookshelves, as well as some closed storage for craft supplies. Our initial plan was to do cabinets the whole length of the wall with bookshelves up to the ceiling, but as we discussed it more we decided there might be merit in adding a closet. Of the three bedrooms in our house, the only one with a closet is ours. This wasn’t a deterrent for us when we bought the house, but long term we thought it would be a good addition to this room. Our first thought was to add a narrow closet that was the same depth as the cabinets. There would be some extra space because of the slope of the eave, so we considered putting in a couple of drawers too. Like this:

In this first iteration, it would have been just deep enough to accommodate hangers, but I could already imagine the frustration of a door that wouldn’t close because of a bulky coat. It felt like a token closet and we decided a closet would only be worth it if it were actually functional (we like to shoot for the stars, obviously).

Then we remembered a funny, tiny door that had been tucked into the corner of the garage when we moved in, and with the recollection of that door came a plan.

In our new plan we still had the closet tucked under the eaves, but bumped it out so it was deeper than the cabinets. We didn’t want a huge box of wood in the corner so we opted for drywall instead.

The door is solid and heavy and probably original to the house. Because it’s little, we’re going to hang it high so it’s easy to see into the closet. It still needs to be painted, but I decided to give the hardware a little makeover right away. After a quick Google search, I found that the best way to remove old paint from hardware is to boil them.

This was my favorite kind of project – fast, simple, and satisfying. I just put the hardware in a pot (it’s a pot we use for making soap and such, not for food) and added a little dish soap. Then I boiled my restoration stew until I could see the paint lifting off. I transferred the pot to the sink and used the scrubby side of a sponge to work the paint loose.

It required very little effort and it looks about a million times better:

So nice! Even though the room is still in chaos and footprints of drywall dust line the hallway, just looking at the cleaned-up hardware makes my heart feel calm and happy.

Here’s what the room (after lots of running up and down the stairs to the shop, so much mudding and sanding of drywall, (and Cameron saying, as he placed another shim, “it’s like this house was built by fu*#ing Dr. Seuss) looks like now:

Isn’t that closet going to be so cute? I love that little door and I think the house is happy to have it back in use. There will also be shelves on the side of the closet that wrap into the corner, like this:

I like to think about how one day, from the vantage of my highly-skilled-with-Photoshop future, I’ll look back on this photo and laugh tenderly at my embarrassingly bad mock-up skills. Thanks for bearing with me until that day comes.

The cupboard doors are almost done and then the window seat, with a hinged top, will go in next.

I also settled on a paint color. My initial plan for this room was to paint the walls Crystal Ball (which I love so much in our living room) and the cabinetry and trim bright white. I started to worry that with the sloped ceiling and all the woodwork it would look choppy, so I decided that a single color -with a matte finish on the ceiling and walls and semi-gloss on the cabinetry and trim – would be better. Once I made that decision I put up swatches of four paints I already had, and very quickly I decided on White Dove by Benjamin Moore.

It’s a really pretty almost-white that reads a little almond. When the whole room is painted it will just look white, but with some warmth. This decision feels great, and the all white background will really allow me to play with the textile patterns on the daybed and window seat.

I’m learning a lot on this project. Cameron grew up building things, and also did it professionally for a while. I did not. When we first moved in together I brought to our shared home a spray-painted particle board bookshelf. I had wanted to run my stereo cords through the back but, because the only tool I owned was a hammer, I’d just hacked my through it – leaving a jagged hole. An inelegant solution, but I guess it showed determination? Point is, I could do a way better job on that bookshelf now!

It feels good to have the foundation of this room figured out, and I’m putting together the plan for furnishings and decor which I’ll share with you soon. Thanks for reading along!

12.3.2014

Katie’s House and the Chamber of Secrets

by Katie

Today we are venturing into a room in our house that few visitors (and certainly no blog readers) have ever seen. Since we moved in two years ago, it has essentially been a large and chaotic storage room (and a source of shame). But no more. Today, readers, begins our journey of redemption. Today we enter the Chamber of Secrets.

Cue music from the Psycho shower scene

Oy, teetering stacks of books and craft supplies, ugly carpet, furniture in need of repair and . . . is that exposed insulation, you ask? Why are there squares of plywood on the floor and ceiling, you query? And well you might. To answer the first of those two very valid questions we must first go back in time, to when this happened.

It started one morning after a monsoon-level rainstorm, when we noticed a large, water-filled bubble on the ceiling of our downstairs bathroom. It proceeded with the removal of a square of ceiling which led to the discovery of water leaking from an ancient and monstrous cast iron pipe. Turns out that said pipe was a venting pipe that exited through the roof, acting as a catchment system for rainwater, which would then come down through the walls and – leaking from the pipe’s rusted out elbow – through our bathroom ceiling.

So we replaced it, a herculean task that required pulling two stories worth of massive pipe up and out through the wall. Resulting in the missing drywall pictured above. And once it was removed? We saw the window had been poorly installed and water was getting in, so Cameron took it out, re-framed it, and put it back in.

So that explains the missing drywall, but how about the plywood squares? And to answer that question dear readers, I must show you one of the worst ‘before’ photos in the history of the World Wide Web. In my defense, it was taken in the olden days before the existence of organization or cameras that focus.

Sharing this has some cathartic value for me. Thank you.

Heavens to Betsy. But! It shows the origin of those plywood pieces, so it’s worth it. Back in the day (pre-1960s), a chimney ran up and through that drywalled column in the center of the room. When we bought the house the chimney was long gone and the previous owners had scabbed some shelving into the remaining structure. It was neither pretty nor functional, so we decided to take it out. Leaving us here:

The room is generously sized and our plan is to turn it into a guest room/office. The wood framing on the floor is the base for built-in bookshelves with cabinets. The replaced windows look out into the treetops and down into a nice part of the yard.

Cupboards will run the length of the wall below window height to provide storage for craft supplies. Bookshelves will go up to the ceiling. There will be a seat with storage underneath the windows.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at shelf and cupboard designs that I think will work in this room. I want the design to be very simple, and I especially want the cupboard doors to be unfussy. If you can, tear your eyes from the awesomeness of the room in the next photo and focus on the cabinet fronts:

source

I love that they are flush with the shelves, and I love the simple hardware and clean lines. The beautiful built-in cabinets in Jenny Komenda’s library have a similar look, but with slightly recessed shelves and a single pull:

I also like these super basic ones dressed up with pretty hardware:

source

For the guest room part of the equation, I’ve started looking at trundle beds and pullout couches. A queen-sized bed will take up a big part of the room, so it would be great to have one that retracted so I could have floor space for crafting. I’ve seen some beautiful ones out there, and I’m picturing that when we don’t have guests it will look something like this:

source

Or this:

source

The desk will sit between the window seat and the door, and I’m still pondering what that area will look like. Ideally it will have an adorable yellow chair and sleek desk like this:

source

Of course, there’s a long way to go before furniture comes into the picture; the to-do list that will transform this into a room my mama could sleep in is a mile long. Our plan is to:

Tear out the carpet
Pull out every single staple (my hands hurt just thinking about it)
Fix the drywall on the ceiling and wall
Replace the ceiling fan and maybe add a second light fixture
Build shelves
Replace the crawlspace door (it may be hard to see in my photos, but this is a necessity)
Trim out the windows and maybe replace the baseboards with taller ones
Paint
Install a wood floor

I’ll be sharing progress on this room as well as some of my ideas for paint, decor and furnishings in future posts. Thanks for reading along and come back for Faraway Friday!

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