Sunday, January 29, 2017

Master Bedroom Renovation, Stage 2: Demolition Surprises

Last week I shared with you that my husband and I are renovating our master bedroom.  In my very first post HERE I talked about our plans and the look for the room we wanted.  This week is all about the demolition phase and the little surprises we uncovered.

When we first bought our house way back in 1998 the previous owners added a large his & hers closet because the built in closet that came with the house is very small.  Even though it was a great idea to build such a nice spacious closet into the room, it took up a lot of space.  The closet only left two ways to position the bed:  on an angle as seen in the photograph on my first post, or against the wall opposite the closet which leaves you about a foot and a half of walking space between the end of the bed and the closet.  Neither option was ideal, so we always planned to remove the closet once the kids moved out of the house because we would no longer need the closet space.


Other than aesthetic reasons, the closet needed to be torn down because it was simply falling apart.  The doors never stayed closed, the shelf was falling off the wall and needed to be braced up, and my sweet little Jackson discovered how fun shredding wallpaper off the closet was and destroyed it.


So we took the closet down and discovered a huge surprise:  a damaged wall and floor, and water damage in the ceiling.


The odd shaped corner is the chimney.  Nails couldn't go through the cement so the previous owners glued the plywood to the chimney.  The huge hole in the ground is where the old heating vent was.


Because the previous owners weren't the brightest chips off the block, they destroyed the ceiling trying to find a stud to nail the top of the closet into.


The original baseboards were also removed, so now we had to replace those too.


But perhaps the worst thing of all was finding the water damage in the ceiling.  The only way to repair this was to completely tear the entire ceiling apart and re-do it.  We did not want to do that (I should note, that there is not a leak anymore.  This is just damage from a old leak).  The ceiling is so fragile that if you just touch it, it starts to fall down on top of you.  So, change of plans and back to the drawing board!  We decided to come up with a different design for the room.


 Our new plan was to cover the damaged wall and chimney with faux brick paneling and go for a modern industrial look with the forties glam touches I so love.  We picked up three sheets of paneling for about $25.00 a sheet.


 To take care of the part of the ceiling that was caving in, my husband built a book shelf that's wedged into the chimney area to hold the ceiling up.  Crown molding and a little spackling paste and ceiling texture will cover up any mess still showing.


The cubbies in the book shelf were sized to perfectly fit one large basket.  I will store items like socks, scarves, flip flops, etc. in these baskets.


Here's what the ceiling looks like with the bookshelf now in place before all the molding is added.


Once the walls were covered with the faux brick paneling and the bookshelf was complete, the crown and other decorative moldings could be added.  There's only a hint of water damage showing now, which will be covered up by spackle and ceiling texture.



Once the wall was done, it was time to work on the floor.  It had a lot of problems.  The previous owners had cut holes in the floor to access the living room ceiling below.  This created instability in the floor.  Many times I walked on the floor and it felt as if my foot would go right through.  So, we needed a new floor!  We picked out a grey laminate flooring which I will show next week.


In the meantime, my husband laid down some lauan plywood to provide more stability and even out the old floor.


Once the Lauan was laid, it was my turn to get busy.  I textured the ceiling and painted all the walls and trim.  I was covered in paint for three days!  So if you have not seen much of me on social media, that is why.  The ceiling turned out great, and I'm thrilled with the paint color we chose.  I can't wait to show you the miraculous transformation next week!

Till then,  Have a Great Day!  Amy

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12 comments:

  1. What hard work, but what great workarounds Team ACP have come up with. Longing to see the reveal post. And when you're finished, my bedroom needs doing ... :-).

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    1. Thanks so much! My husband was so sore last night after putting in the new floor yesterdays he said "I think this is the last big remodel we ever do. I'm getting too old for this." LOL! I agree! After three days of painting, I felt broken.

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  2. Oh, I am sure you were caught off guard with all the unexpected additional work. I like the solution you came up with and am looking forward to seeing the next steps in the plan!

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  3. Youve been busy!! Its looking good! Love the brick!

    <3 Shannon
    Upbeat Soles

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  4. It's so frustrating when you uncover things like that during remodeling! I love how it's all turning out though!

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    1. Yeah, that was a surprise. After we took the closet apart we realized they probably put the closet there to cover up the water damage in addition to having more storage.

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  5. Sorry you ran into some issues, but what a great idea to add the book shelves to cover it up! Love the faux brick wall and can't wait to see the finished room!

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    1. Thanks Elli! Hopefully I'll be able to post the Big Reveal in a few weeks once all the furniture and decor is up!

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  6. A master job done at covering up! It looks great. I'm enjoying watching the transformation x
    www.vanityandmestyle.com

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