I know some of you are probably wondering why I haven’t started installing the flooring in the bedroom yet. I promise this isn’t one of those situations where I’m just procrastinating. The problem is that I have to have all my plans in place before I can start working. I have been thinking and contemplating several different ideas and depending on which idea I adopt, it could affect the installation of the floor.
As I shared on Monday, I’ve been toying with the idea of ​​removing the door leading to the bedroom and widening that entryway. The door I’m talking about is the one to the left of the table and the lamp.
Right now, that’s only a 32-inch door. That’s not ideal for a person who uses a wheelchair. So I had the idea to remove the door completely and widen it as much as possible.
If I widen the doorway as much as possible, but keep it as a lined opening, I would gain five inches of width for that door. Here’s a look at that door from the other side so you can see how tight it is. But five inches is a pretty substantial gain. For a wheelchair user, every added centimeter is beneficial.
So if I remove that door, that means I would put French doors in the current opening between the music room and the hallway. Of course, I would use frosted glass for privacy, but this gives us an idea of ​​what it would look like…
At the moment, it might be a little confusing because the guest bathroom would only be accessible from the hallway, which means going through the new French doors to access the bathroom. But we’ve been living with a confusing interim floor plan for four years, so we’re no strangers to confusing floor plans. If I had a quarter for every time someone in the last four years asked me, “Kristi, where is your master bedroom?” When I publish a plan, I would be a very rich woman. Or, you know, I would have at least 20 dollars.
So while it would be a little confusing for now, once we build the new smaller addition, that wall with the bathroom door would close and the bathroom would be accessible from the other side of the bathroom. That means everything beyond those new French doors would be the master suite.
Ok, but I already talked about all that in a previous post. This was all just to review and say that I have decided that I definitely DO want to move forward with this plan. I talked to Matt about it, and he totally agrees and loves the idea too.
So that leads me to the next idea I had. Since everything beyond the French doors will (eventually) be the master suite, and the hallway will be a sort of anteroom to the bedroom, I thought maybe I shouldn’t just remove the door and widen the framed opening into the bedroom. Maybe you should eliminate the opening completely and leave the walls and ceiling smooth and uninterrupted. In other words, there would be nothing left there to indicate that there was a door or lined opening. The roof would be continuous, flat and smooth. The walls would be continuous, flat and smooth. If I did that, we would gain TWELVE inches of width in the room. Now THAT is a significant width for Matt to maneuver around! Twelve whole inches!
Now you can see how this decision will affect the flooring and why I haven’t jumped in with both feet into installing the flooring yet. I have to work out these details before I can start. My contractor is coming tomorrow to look at it and see if that narrow wall is load bearing and if that’s what can be done about it. I don’t think he is, but he seems to think so. But it’s very limited in the whole scope of things, and almost everything is a door anymore, so I think we can find a solution.
However, that idea poses a challenge. If there is no door or opening there, that means there is no definitive end to the bedroom and no beginning to the hallway. And that means there is no good end point for bedroom wall treatment, i.e. wainscoting on the bottom and grass cloth on top. So if I go in that direction, I think I’ll also have to carry the wainscoting and grass cloth into the hallway and treat both areas as one room. It will be a room with a unique shape, but at the end of the day it will be one room.
I have also decided that I am going to 100% remove the hall closet. I’ve been contemplating it for a while, especially since I finalized my plans for the closet and laundry area. Not only will I no longer need this storage cabinet (which has served us well while we’ve had it, so it wasn’t a waste of money or time), but it creates an unnecessary obstacle for Matt. pass through this area.
In addition, it visually closes in the area. When this area was going to be a home gym and guest bedroom, but the cabinet was fine. Matt has been working on it for four years and we always looked forward to the day we had a bedroom that could be accessed through a different hallway. But now that this is going to be the master suite, I think it should go away to make things easier for you.
But that raises another question. Do you know what is NOT under that cabinet? New subfloor and flooring that was installed after our hallway flooded and I replaced the subfloor and flooring. They had to cut down the cabinet to replace everything. You can see the corner of the cabinet in the photo below and how they had to cut it.
So that’s yet another challenge I’ll have to deal with and yet another reason why I haven’t jumped in with both feet to start installing the floor yet. These plans take time and I don’t want to miss any details before I start.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 upper that my husband Matt and I purchased in 2013. Matt has MS and can’t do physical labor, so I do most of the work in the house alone. You can learn more about me here.
