Winter has officially hit central Texas, so my work on the workshop has come to a grinding halt over the last few days. I’m bummed about it because I was really on a roll with those projects, and I was feeling incredibly motivated to continue. But my motivation couldn’t push me to work outside in the 30-degree temps, especially when it’s windy. I tried, and I just couldn’t do it. But it’s supposed to warm up starting tomorrow, so I hope to get back outside and get a few more projects done on the workshop before I officially turn my attention to our master bedroom suite.
But speaking of our bedroom suite, I wanted to fully document what it looks like right now, at the beginning of 2025, before I start any work on it. So I thought I’d share this documentation with you so that we can all see the official 2025 starting point on this project.
I’m pretty sure the entrance to the bedroom suite looks exactly as it did at the end of last year. I starting installing the new French doors in December, but I still haven’t finished those. That will be the first thing I do so that I can actually close the doors and keep Cooper and Felicity out of this area of the house as the work begins. Right now, they can both easily push the doors open and get into this area.
To the right is the entrance to the guest bathroom, which will have to stay here for the near future. When all is said and done, the entrance into this bathroom will be moved out of the bedroom suite and this bathroom will be accessible via a hallway on the other side of the bathroom.
To the left, just inside the bedroom suite, is the doorway to what will be the big walk-in closet and laundry room combo. I had the door completely removed, and I had the doorway centered on the wall of that room and opened up as high as it could go without having to remove the top plates of the load bearing wall. I have a vision for this, but it’s too hard to explain without illustrations, so y’all will probably just have to wait and see it as it comes to reality.
Because that room will be a closet, and I didn’t want to have to adjust the cabinets to make room for a light switch, I had them move the light switch to the outside of the room. Check out this drywall mud situation. 🙁 This is one of the things I’ll have to correct (or completely redo) myself. (If you missed yesterday’s post about my contractor saga, you can see it here: The Contractor Saga – The Rest of The Story)
I absolutely hate doing anything related to drywall, and over the years, I figured I’ve done my share and I’ve paid my dues. So these days, I hire out anything having to do with installing or mudding drywall. So it’s pretty ironic that this is one of the messes that I have to clean up or completely redo. 😀
And here’s the state in which the contractor left this room. The good news is that the big stuff actually did get done. The room has a new vapor barrier under the floor, new insulation under the floor, and a new subfloor.
I did make a minor change to my original plans. Instead of having the washer and dryer together on the right side, I had the hookup for the washer placed in the back right corner…
And the hookup for the dryer placed in the back left corner…
I did this to keep as much room as possible available for the actual closet portion of the room. The washer and dryer will be facing each other, and the doors to both will open towards the wall. At first, I was concerned that there would be too much space between them and it would be quite a trek to get the clothes from the washer to the dryer. But once I marked out the dimensions on the wall, I realized that they’d actually be close enough to each other with only the width of the window plus a few inches separating the two. You can see my marks on the wall showing where the front of each one will land on the wall.
But after I made that change, I realized that I also need a water hookup for my dryer because it has a steam function. The dryer came with a diversion hookup that is supposed to divert water from the washer hookup. But that diverter only works when the two appliances are side-by-side. With the two appliances in completely separate corners, that meant that I needed a completely separate hookup for the dryer. That’s an addition to the list that I added later, and it actually got done!
There are two things for the dryer that didn’t get done, though. First, I’ll need to install the outlet for the dryer. Thankfully, the wiring is already there, so I just need to attach an outlet. And second, the vent for the dryer still needs to be installed. I’ve been watching videos on YouTube showing how to install dryer vents, and it looks pretty easy and straightforward, so I’m positive I can do that on my own.
Here’s the current view looking back towards the door of the walk-in closet. It’s a mess right now.
And the rest of this really hasn’t changed since I showed you last. Nothing has been done, and nothing has changed in the bedroom portion of the suite. Here’s the entrance into the bedroom where I had them remove the door completely and open up the doorway to the ceiling.
And then I’ll give you a quick look around the room, even though I’m pretty sure you’ve seen all of this already at the end of last year. As I said, I don’t think anything has changed in here over the last three weeks.
I did decide to keep the breaker box in this room. I don’t love the idea of having the breaker box in our bedroom, but I do like that this gives me quick and easy access to the breaker box in case of emergency. And I also like that keeping it here saves me about $3000 that I can use towards other projects. I’m 100% confident that I can disguise or cover the box in a way that it won’t show while still giving me easy access to it. But I will definitely be moving the attic access out of this room and into the hallway. (By the way, some of you had the idea of calling that area the “vestibule” now, and I really like that idea. That sounds better than “hallway”.)
And finally, here’s the look back towards the entrance to the bedroom suite (i.e., the vestibule 😀 )…
So the first order of business in here will be to clean up all the mess that was left behind not only by the contractor, but also by my projects since I used this room to make the shutters for the workshop. Second order of business will be to finish the French doors so that they will actually close and stay closed to keep our animals out of this portion of the house while the work begins. And then after that, I can get started installing the flooring.
It’s going to be a huge project, and I wanted to be sure to have all of these pictures documented so that in a few months, when it’s all finished, we can look back at where it started at the beginning of 2025.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
