As promised, we had a REALLY big week here. It is crunch time now that we have only ten weeks until our new baby is due to arrive. The pressure is very much on and we are ALL feeling it.

The Bedroom Before

As we explained in this post, we have decided to turn the room that was going to be a guest bedroom into our son’s new bedroom, so that we can turn his current room into a nursery for the new baby. To make this happen we needed to remove everything from the room we are renovating, pile it all into our son’s current room, and move him temporarily into our bedroom. We did this last Sunday and then it was time to begin the demo process. We knew this process would include removing lots of wallpaper and wood paneling, as well as taking down an entire wall and the ceiling. We were unsure of the conditions of the walls and ceiling underneath what we were able to see, so we knew we could be in for a surprise or two, but we were not at all prepared for the surprise that we found…

In order to really grasp how extreme the transformation has been, we need to show you what it looked like before. It was super small and there wasn’t a ton to love about it, so we used it primarily as a messy storage area as we worked on other rooms of the house. Whenever we had people coming to stay with us, we would tidy it up a bit for them and then it would inevitably turn back into a messy storage closet.

 

Here are a few pictures to show you what we were working with.

 

This might be a confusing angle, but to put it into perspective, it was taken just a few steps from the top of our stairs in the hallway. The drywall on the far left is separating the new guest bathroom from the hallway and the skinny opening right next to that looks into a space that used to be included in the bedroom that we demoed in this post. This space is shown in the pictures below and will be absorbed by the new bedroom once the wall is taken down between them. The room with a maroon floor and pink walls is the mini-bedroom/catch-all-room that is being demoed and turned into our son’s room. The door frame on the right side of the picture leads to a little hallway that brings you into our old bathroom if you go straight and into the bedroom that is going to be turned into a nursery if you go right.

This angle is looking straight through the little opening into an area that Ronan had been using for tool storage for longer than we would like to admit.

Looking into the little bedroom due to be demoed from the hall.

This picture was taken standing just inside the bedroom door, so that is pretty much the whole room that you are seeing.

In my opinion, this window was the best part of the little room. You the real star, pretty window.

This was taken standing in front of the pretty window looking back towards the door to the hallway. Notice the torn wallpaper in the corner? When we leveled the floors, many of the walls shifted and all of the corners in our house that had wallpaper looked just like that.

So that is the whole room. I think that if anyone was questioning why we would take a house with four bedrooms and turn it into a house with only three, these photos should clear it up for them. The room wasn’t really working for us as anything more than a pretty little storage space and that doesn’t seem fair to the room or that lovely window. She deserved a chance to shine…

Then Things Got Real

Monday had every reason to be a reallllllly good demo day. Ronan is never able to take “off” a whole weekday to work on the house and he knew he was going to have that opportunity on Monday. On top of that, his brother and two of their friends were going to come over to demo alongside him. We knew four people working in that little room would result in some big changes, but we didn’t know how big at that point.

I left to go grocery shopping at about 10 am and I took this picture right before I left:

Notice how Ronan’s brother looks like he is 15 feet tall and hitting his head on the ceiling? No, he isn’t actually a giant. Yes, the room was just that small.

I was hoping that by the time I got back to the house, the room would be pretty much demoed and the wall that used to separate the two rooms would be down so that we could see how wide the room was going to be. I was prepared for that level of excitement. Ready for the room I returned to just an hour and a half after leaving?

Wait for it……

This was taken from the same place that I took the picture before leaving for the grocery store. I’m not sure if any of these photos can actually show how dramatically the room has changed, but trust me that it is a HUGE change in person!

Look at this! The pretty window that had been separated from her twin by a wall for god only knows how long was reunited with her! Don’t they look so happy together?!

So, in the matter of less than two hours, the room grew CONSIDERABLY. It already seemed so much bigger with the additional width, but the surprise of having the ceiling removed was amazing.

Ronan always lets me feel like I really am one of the big shots in a home renovation show and he asked me what I thought we should do about the ceiling. I probably have Pinterest or Instagram or HGTV or Trading Spaces Kids Edition to blame for this one, but the images of raised reading nooks and lofted play areas that started running through my brain were no joke. I knew that ceiling needed to stay nice and high; luckily, Ronan couldn’t agree more.

 

Frame It Up, Up, Up

The guys worked on the room for the rest of the afternoon on Monday and again on Tuesday morning. They completed the demo and framed everything so that it was ready for drywall.

The new boards show exactly where the new ceiling will be. We think the added height is going to be awesome. It should make the room feel so much more open and airy.

That space up top full of insulation is an attic space. As you can see, we left an opening in the framing that we will put a little door over and use as an access door to the attic (since the old entrance to the attic was in the ceiling of the space that is now the guest bathroom.)

On Friday, drywall went up! I keep walking into the room and staring at it in disbelief. It’s going to be an amazing space and I can’t stop thinking about it!

We decided to leave that beam in the corner exposed and were thinking about adding shaker pegs to it. The problem is that Ronan already installed the materials for the radiator right under it, so we are trying to come up with ideas of what to use the beam for. Maybe something like a shelf? Ideas are soooo welcome!

 

If you have been thinking that the other smaller window is pretty cool too and you are wondering why I am ignoring her, I just want to point out that I agree with you. She is kind of like the subtle, cool, little sister to the big and beautiful twins. I see you, little sis.

 

In case it is confusing, the skinny opening in the corner is the same opening that used to go into the long hallway where Ro was storing his tools. Now it will be the entrance into our linen closet which still needs to be framed.

The opening to the left of the linen closet is new and that will serve as the entrance into the room. Directly across the mini-hall from the door is the entrance into our son’s old room which will soon be the new nursery. Awwww!

The opening into the attic looks super small right now, but it will actually be larger. One of those pieces of drywall still needs to be cut.

The New View from the Hall

Since we started this post with a view from the hall, it seems appropriate to end it the same way. It’s probably hard to tell from a photograph, but things look so different from this angle now. It’s hard to believe (since it has only been a few days since the room was changed) but I am already having trouble picturing exactly what it used to look like without looking at the photographs. I am also having trouble picturing exactly what it is going to look like when it is done, but I will say that we have some big ideas and we are thinking about it A LOT!

We can’t wait to share our “lofty” goals with you in the next post! I hope you are all as excited about the space as we are. As always, thanks so much for following along!