GUEST ROOM DREAMS

This week we're tackling the upstairs guest room. In plan not much has changed, but a couple minor changes have resulted in a completely transformed space. We started with a room covered in thin fake wood paneling, acoustical tile ceilings, green shag carpet, and had a door-sized hole in one corner. Let me visually remind you where we started:

When we removed the wood paneling we fell in love with the ship lap walls...so much that we've decided to leave one wall and the ceiling exposed. What seemed like a simple decision  - like most things in the house - has turned into a pretty involved project. The wood had years of glue stains and thousands (thousands) of tiny tacks that were holding the ancient wall paper (oh yeah there was wall paper under the wood paneling) in place. Before we could sand the wood, we needed to remove as many of the tacks as possible (I would say we only managed about 50%). My extremely tenacious mother has spent the last two weeks sanding the wall and the ceiling with one of those little vibrating sander mouses - a belt sander, while faster in theory, would get torn up on the tacks and was useless. After sanding, the tacks were no longer subtle, rusty specks; the rust sanded off and there were now hundreds of tiny points of shiny silver all over the room. Attention to detail is a blessing and a curse y'all. We took a paint brush and painted "rust" back onto every little remaining tack. Even better, we left exposed shiplap in the stairwell, the hall way, and the ceiling in the office so we have a few more opportunities to perfect the process. While super labor intensive the exposed wood has an incredible affect on the room and I've never seen anything quite like it. 

I would love for this guest room to be super simple, warm and layered with textural neutrals. A simple platform bed, a place to sit, and a dresser so guests don't have to live out of a suitcase. Two walls are full of windows letting the morning sun in in all it's glory, so I have a feeling blackout shades will be nessecary as well. I'm looking for a creative solution to side lamps - I'm liking the idea of a pendant hanging from the ceiling or maybe something with an arm - windows will be behind the headboard, limiting what we can do with sconces. Aside from the dream of constantly refreshed bouquets of flowers, thats about it. 

If everything goes according to plan over the next two days, you will be able to tune in Wednesday and see the guest room in all it's renovated glory. No furniture yet, but refinished floors, painted walls, and that painstakingly (& lovingly) restored exposed ship lap. I feel like I've said it before about other rooms but I think this will be the first, officially, finished room at Wrightwood! I'll start accepting applications now for the honor of "first guest". ;)

THE OVERHAULED HISTORIC: UPSTAIRS TOUR

Here we go, the upstairs! I know ya'll are dying to see what this place looks like from the outside and I PROMISE I'm getting there but first I wanted to complete the tour (a mere week late…I blame Santa!)! From the plans on the tour of the downstairs you can see the entrance for the upstairs duplex on the east side of the house that you would access from the driveway. Again, here are some mostly-accurate-and-not-to-scale floor plans. We have a deceptively large amount of work upstairs:

Once you reach the top of the stairs and turn left you encounter the two existing bedrooms:

Bedroom 1:

This room is known as the "Burlap Room" - we pride ourselves on being really, really good at creative names. A couple of interesting moments in this room: the "wall paper" is actually huge sheets of burlap,

and

 when the furniture was moved out and the burlap was removed, we found a door into the living room! From the living room the door was totally drywalled over - in here it was just covered by a thin sheet of burlap. We'll be removing the door and reusing it somewhere else in the house. That light fixture is also a little bit awesome. Were pretty sure it's a converted oil lamp - electric now. We were debating yesterday about how it could possibly be reused. I think it would be amazing in an all white powder bath…but maybe in the next house. Both the upstairs bedrooms have a small closet and a door out onto the upstairs balcony. In my personal opinion this room gets the best light in the house - I would probably use it as a studio or study. I could also see it as a beautiful nursery!

Bedroom 2:

A little bigger than Bedroom one, Bedroom two is known as the "Shag Room". A groovy drum set in the corner, bright lime-green shag carpeting, and the yummiest wood paneling. My wonderful, patient, boyfriend spent an afternoon helping remove that wood paneling. Behind all the paneling is the same beautiful shiplap sheathing that is found everywhere in the house. Other than demo and clean up, not too much will be happening in here either. We're really debating whether to close off the access to the sunroom or not in order to get a little more privacy for the bedroom. Check out that floral wall paper, and in the closet no less, I'm actually a little in love with it.

Back into the hall and past the stairs you'll come into what was the upstairs duplex's living room, kitchen, and only bathroom.

Living Room:

This room is HUGE. Tons of light, existing wood floors, and looked SO gross when we began. We'll be converting this into an upstairs master bedroom when the house is returned to single-family status. My mom likes to call it the "winter master". The plans show that the entrance will be reworked, the doorway between that and Bedroom One will need to be patched and closed up as well as the pass through into the existing kitchen. We'll also be taking a chunk of this room for running ductwork for the new HVAC. Have I mentioned yet that this house currently has no central air? In Texas?

Upstairs Bathroom:

Even smaller than the downstairs bathroom, poorly laid out, and needs a total overhaul. Despite that this is the most decent looking of the two bathrooms even with the carpet BECAUSE: claw foot tub.

 The tub has already been shipped off to be refinished and will be reused in the downstairs master bath. By absorbing the in-between space and stealing some square footage from the kitchen for a toilet room, this quickly becomes the most graciously sized bathroom in the house. A perfect en suite for the living-room-turned-master-bedroom. The entrance to the attic will be reworked into a linen closet and the current linen closet (pantry?) will be turned into an entrance to the attic-turned-master-closet. This is going to be a gem y'all.

Kitchen:

 This is really where the upstairs reno gets exciting. If you look at the plans we have broken up the existing kitchen space into a brand new bathroom that serves the other upstairs bedrooms, a toilet room for the master bath, and a storage closet (can never have enough extra storage). A hallway will be created to make a more public access to the Sun Room. The door in the lower left picture was discovered after removing the old, stinky fridge. From the stairway all you could see was a threshold floating about 1' above the stair case, the door was covered up, but from the kitchen there was the door. Going exactly nowhere. Another mystery of this old house. The old sink and cabinet that we're salvaging will go into the new laundry room downstairs. So. freaking. fun.

Sun Room:

 Just a little room over the driveway that has windows on three sides!

Out the front windows you have views of the downtown Houston skyline, out the back you look out over the beautiful park the property backs up to. I could see this space with some comfy chairs, or kept open for a yoga room or meditation space (a personal favorite of this yoga fanatic), or maybe even a really sweet hanging bed, because why not. 

That pretty much concludes this short-but-sweet tour of upstairs! You now have a clear idea of the mess we have on our hands AND how totally amazing this house is going to be in the end. Keep an eye out for a new post about mid-week (I promise!!) I'm preparing to reveal the - almost completed - exterior. Trust me, she's gorgeous - the wait will be worth it!