Master Bedroom Weirdness

My wife and I thought we might work on the bedroom of our house. I hesitate to call it the master bedroom because we are not sure if it is going to stay that way. We are working (slowly) on an inlaw apartment too, and so we might take that as a master bedroom when we are done...I am not sure.

But right now we have a 16 x 16 bedroom that is kind of goofy. It used to be a 16 x 12 bedroom when we had a hallway that went by it, then out a back door. But it looked like a hotel room walking down the hall. So we truncated the hallway where the doors led to the bedrooms on the left and right. Then we put in a 4 x 4 closet for stuff like board games, crafts, and that sort of thing. Then we took out a wall in our bedroom and made it a bit bigger by 4 x 8. But for a bedroom it looked goofy; we had an exterior door, and the room was U-shaped.

So my wife decided she wanted a shoe closet there instead. That will get rid of the exterior door, then take out another window so we can put a bed against that wall. Then take out the window that is left, and put in a big patio door instead.

This will give us two closets in that bedroom. The master closet that is 8 x 12 feet will be for my wife and I, then the new walk-in shoe closet that will be 4 x 8. We affectionaly call it the "Shoe Barn" :-)

Down the road we might turn the bigger walk-in closet into another bathroom, or maybe not...we are not sure. That would make it a master bedroom suite, but with a tiny 4x8 walk-in closet. So anyway, today I framed up the new shoe closet just for something to do. So I will put the cogeneration set on hold, and work on this for awhile. A Trophy-Husband has to prioritize, heat and electricity for his humble abode, or a place for the Mrs. to put all her shoes!

 

Kind of a follow-up to that post above...

My wife was married before, and yet her husband was on the shorter side, so he did not allow my wife to wear high heels because she would then be even taller than him. He was also kind of controlling, and told her how to dress, and bought her clothing for her to wear.

But my wife LOVES shoes. So when she met me, who is taller than her anyway, I did not care, so she has kind of gone overboard on her shoes. At one time she belonged to (3) shoe-of-the-month clubs, so her collection is kind of substantial.

I am the only male in this house, as even the dog, bunny, cat, goldfish, and duck are even girls, so with the exception of the goldfish...all have plenty of shoes! (joking). At the last great shoe-census of 2019, I think there was 92 pairs of shoes in this house. So my wife does need a "shoe barn"! (LOL)

 

I'm not sure what your question is but I hear you on the shoes. We have a small walk in closet and I built a shoe rack/shelf to hold 16 pairs ..... and she's doubled up on them and still has shoes on the floor!

 

Yeah, sorry about the lack of a question. I am not sure there is one as we got a pretty good handle on what we need to do. It is all pretty straightforward stuff:

Frame walls
Install drywall
Install an interior door
Remove an exterior door
Frame/Insulate/sheath and side old exterior door opening
Frame/Insulate/sheath and side old window opening
Cut opening for patio door
Rewire outlets along that wall
Wire new outside light
Install patio door

I was able to get to the hardware store today, and get some wiring supplies. Again, nothing overly complicated, but I was able to get the walls wired for some outlets and a light and switch for the closet.

As for the shoes: all I can say is Beware of Shoe-Dazzle! (LOL)

 

I guess if I have a question, it would be regarding how resale works. I ever thought I would sell this home, as I have been building this since 1994, but I find myself with too many homes, and selling this one only makes sense. We own it outright, so no mortgage, and it only has a few acres with it.

We typically just build a house to suit our needs and assume if it works well for us, it would work well for other families, and thus be sellable.

But in terms of resale, what would be the better option:

Focus on the Inlaw Apartment which would be a 14 x 22 open room with kitchenette, living space and a adjoining 9 x 13 bathroom with full laundry and bath?

Or focus on turning the walk-in closet into a Master Suite? If we use the 8 x 12 walk-in closet for a full bathroom, the new 4 x 8 Shoe Closet will have to be the master bedroom walk in closet...so pretty TINY!

A future homeowner could use the Inlaw Apartment as a master suite, and the current master bedroom as an additional bedroom for the kids...or would a master bedroom with two closets be a better return on investment?

 

I had some time yesterday to do a little more on the bedroom. I talked with my wife, and she said she really wanted the middle window removed even though it would be quite a bit of extra work to do it. I was not doing anything anyway, so I ripped off the trim, removed the window, and then reframed the hole with some lumber I had kicking around. I even had some insulation and drywall, so I managed to fill the gap and get the first coat of drywall compound on it.

My house has wooden shingles for siding, and I did not have enough cedar shingles kicking around to do that, so I did not get that done granted, but it was some work accomplished on this project anyway. We do actually have a cedar shingle mill here, but we always buy our shingles just because operating the shingle mill is so dangerous to fingers.

 

I did pretty good again today.

I removed the old door that looked kind of odd in our bedroom, and managed to put in some framing, and get the sheathing buttoned up. That was pretty good since it was raining when I did it. I did not have any OSB kicking around in the size I needed, but I got a sawmill, so I just used boards off the sawmill.

That was okay, but today it is blowing 50 mph winds, so it was whipping through the cracks in the boards. I put some insulation in, but the wind was blowing it out as fast as I could tap it back in. I finally got it secured in place, but I had my wife buy some spray cans of insulation on her way home from work, and I stopped those wind-filled drafts that way.

The window is all but done. I got (4) coats of drywall compound on the drywall where the window was, and even managed to get it painted.

You can definitely feel the difference in the bedroom now heat-wise. We had bought Marvin Windows when we built that section of the house, and I hated those crap-windows the day we put them in, and loved ripping those crap-windows out. Normally I am nice pulling doors and windows out because you never know where you might need them, but with these...I do not know. They are such crap, I think putting them in an old barn would be doing an old barn a disservice. I am pretty sure you would get less drafts if you left the hole where the window would go!

 

Our bedroom is so bland right now, that I did not want to take any pictures of it, but if a person has seen one master bedroom, I guess they have seen plenty more. But, people on here like photos I know, so I thought I might post these.

I keep saying on here that I try to live the Do It Yourself Creed in that I try to do as much for myself as I can, so here is an example of that.

This is an example of good forestry. This old White Pine was pretty big, but it had a woodpecker hole in it, so I knew it was not long for the world. So I felled it, hauled it up to the sawmill, and sawed it into lumber. I used three boards out of this tree to use for sheathing lumber for plugging that old door up. My general stance is: if I am using wood off my own land for my own home, it is wood well used.

Just for people's information, about 90% of my home is made from materials right off the farm. From trees sawn up to make boards, to slate dug up from the back pasture to making slate flooring, to concrete mixed from the gravel pit, I try and do as much as I can for myself! You can be the judge though.





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I'd love to have that band saw along with enough flat land to utilize it.

 

It is handy having sawmills, although I will say that I am not a huge fan of this one. It is a Norwood, and so it is very frustrating to work with. But to be able to saw your own lumber, saves a lot of money for sure. Or, in the case of one house I have, it was built in the 1930's, so it has odd-ball lumber sizes...like 2x5's, and 2x3-1/2's, and really odd sized boards, so to be able to custom match them works out well with a sawmill.

The other good thing is being able to take trees blown down by the wind, or trees that are dying like the one pictured, and convert what would be waste, into something usable.

As for flat ground...I don't have that either. That would be nice to have though! (LOL)

 

You have more flat [or relatively so] in that pic than all my flat areas combined on my 16 acres of mountain land. When I was younger I cut quite a few trees, drug them to an area I could load them on my trailer and take them to the sawmill. Now I have trouble keeping up with harvesting the down trees for firewood. Most days my mind is still young but my body is not

 

Yeah my land varies: from 3% grade to nearly vertical.

I used to cut a lot of wood, but those days are over. I am 45 years old, so not too old, but I got cancer a few years ago, and it is really slowing me down. I still got a cable skidder, but it has been three weeks since I pulled any wood with it, and sold my grapple skidder last year.

As a trade I was a welder, building battleships for the US Navy until I retired a few years ago. I figured I would spend the rest of my days farming, but I never expected to get cancer.

I am working with the USDA in a program to get disabled farmers back into the private sector, so I should have my High Pressure Steam Boilers License pretty soon. Physically, I can do that. Farming and logging is pretty demanding...

 

We managed to move a little bit ahead on this project yesterday. As my wife painted the inside of the bedroom, I worked on the outside. We have cedar shingles for siding, so I bought two bundles of those; at wayyyyyyyyyyyy more expense then they should have been for what they are. I swear what they now sell as #2 Clear is #3's from just a few years ago! But I managed to get the old window and door shingled over.

That is good to have done.

And my wife managed to paint the inside walls, so we could move the bed around to its new spot.

She wants a couple of new things for the new bedroom. Nothing major; just a barnboard headboard, two new bedside tables, and then a bench at the foot of the bed. I should have some time today after church to build something, probably the bench at the foot of the bed. The headboard is a little more involved because she wants it wired with lights so when we read at night there can be a his and her light and switch.

This is deeply gratifying as it means she intends to keep me for the foreseeable future, but then I have been working hard this week to put in a walk-in closet for her shoe collection. (LOL)

 

I did better than I thought yesterday. I went up after church and looked around ye olde sawmill to see what I had for lumber, and ended up finding some Western Red Cedar. Obviously this was bought lumber at one time as I live in Maine and we only have Eastern White Cedar here. So I grabbed some of that, and managed to make a barn-wood headboard. I did not have the lights granted so they are not installed, but it only took an hour to put together.

I painted it with some Weather Paint that we bought. To me it just looks like gray paint, and does not really look like real barn-wood, but it works as good as can be expected I guess.

Having some time still since the headboard only took an hour to make, I set about using some more lumber off the tree I posted pictures of earlier in this topic, and made a bench for the foot of the bed. My wife wanted this as footboards can make the bed harder to make, and yet a footboard makes a bed look so much better. With a bench, it gives the bed some class, yet can be moved out of the way for bed-making, and yet also offer some storage, not to mention a place to sit in the bedroom to put on shoes and whatnot.

The bench was covered in ice when I dug it out of the barn, so while I made the bench using frozen wood, I figured I had better let it dry out before painting it with that barn-wood paint that I have. So I brought the completed bench into the house, so that it could thaw out in front of the stove. After that I will get a picture of our bedroom so far, so that people can see some progress with the window removed and filled in, the new headboard, and the footboard bench.

 

As promised I got some pictures of the work that has been done.

Just to orient yourself, where the headboard now is, was once a 3 x 4 foot window, now removed and filled in. The new closet (unfinished) is just out of sight on the left, and the window on the left is going to be taken out, and a patio door installed instead.

Ahead you will see the new headboard, and for those that care about such things, it is built out of western red cedar, and spruce. As I said, the paint is supposed to make the headboard look like weathered wood, but I do not see it, but it is, what it is.

The footboard bench is made out of white pine; grown, felled, limbed, bucked, hauled, sawn into lumber, dried, and made into the bench all right here on this farm. It is kind of neat to take a tree from stump to bedroom furniture I think, but you can be the judge.

But the tables seen will not stay. I have to build new matching bedside end tables, but my wife has yet to decide what she wants. I got plenty of lumber out of the tree to build them, but it is best to wait until my Domestic Supervisor (wife) decides what she wants first!

 

I managed to get out in the barn today and get something done on this project.

After deciding what my wife wanted for two matching bedside tables, we went to the store yesterday and picked up some hardware. Then today I grabbed some lumber I had, and started to build the cabinets.

They are nothing super-fancy, just bedside tables 30 inches high, 32 inches long, and 18 inches wide. Underneath there is a cubby half-hidden by a barn door that slides on custom tracks and wheels.

But determined not to have SSS...which is Second Sock Syndrome; this is the name knitters give the issue of making a sock in two days, then taking two months to make the second sock. So to eliminate that, I built both bedside tables at the same time so I would be assured to have two matching pairs in a timely manner.

Except I am a complete idiot.

When I was at the hardware store picking up rollers, I picked up two, never thinking I needed (2) per barn door, and thus I needed FOUR in all. So I got one completely done, and have to put the door on the second one tomorrow. Then I just got to prep them for paint, and throw on a coat of that barn-wood gray, and see how they look.

So...more progress.

 

I picked out some interesting wood for this project: wormy wood. I did not plane the lumber down, but rather I put it all together in rough-lumber form, then took a sander and sanded the front and sides to 60 grit. So it is pretty rough, but not raw-wood rough. I kind of like the look, and think with the gray weathered paint, it might actually look like barn-wood.

I am not sure how my wife will feel. If she wants a more refined look, I can fill the holes, sand it down to a finer grit, then apply the paint. We shall see.

As for real barn-wood. I have made some projects out of it, but it is really hard to work with. It is VERY brittle and can break and flake off. My wife did not want that because she did not want the old wood getting on the bedding.

Pictures will be coming as soon as I am done with the two bedside tables.

 

Well as promised, I got some pictures...finally. But I think it was successful, the bedroom does not look so weird now, and is more inviting.

It took a couple of days to get the door in, the drywall placed and mudded in, then paint and all the trim. That included an outside light over the new patio door. But it is done, with the exception of some new flooring for the "His Closet", and this is the results.

As for details, at the moment anyway, it is a Master Bedroom with his and her walk-in closets, his being 4x9 and hers being 8 x 12. The bedroom itself is 16 x 12 not including any closet space.

Since the last update, I built (2) matching barn-wood bedside tables, my wife bought matching lamps, and then we installed two lights over the headboard for reading. I then installed the patio door to give the room some light.

Total cost was:
Custom Made Door: $900
Framing Lumber: $327
Lamps: $60
Hardware: 250
Total: $1537

(This is a photo looking over the bedroom from His Closet door, to the door of Her Closet).



(This is the same view as before, but with the new patio door installed).



(This is the Her Closet).



(This is the His Closet)