Pre-renovation Tour: 2nd floor guest areas

This is part two of a four-part, pre-renovation tour of the house.

1st floor hallway

Now that's you've seen the first floor, ready to head upstairs?

Just to re-orient you: the dining room is on your immediate left, the kitchen is through that door on the far left, the living room is on the other side of the wall on the right (with the doorway to it on your immediate right), and the front entryway is just behind you on the right.

Heading up the stairs to the second floor, you see the guest bathroom through the door on the left, and the hall closet on the right.

At the top of the landing, we're going to make a hard left into the first guest bedroom.

1st Bedroom

I'm calling this the American Doll room. I think you'll see what I mean. The built-in shelves and cutesy trim will soon be gone, ahem.  

Other than a trim redo, this bedroom won't see any major changes. The wall just out of the picture on the right splits the two guest bedrooms and contains shallow closet spaces for each. The plan is to make these closets deeper by stealing space from the neighboring bedroom.

Speaking of which, let's do a 180, head back out the door, and swing around the left into the next bedroom.

2nd Bedroom

OK, this has got to be one of my favorite rooms in the house because, well, get a load of that wall paper. In its half-peeled off state, it looks like something out of the caves of Lascaux or the wall of an Olive Garden. 

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Chai and I have lived in such a small space for so long that I'm dying for a place to put stuff that has either been in storage or constantly has to be put away in order to make room for daily life. Also, my tastes vary just enough from hers that my psyche could use a room in which to flexibly express its personality with colors and mementos outside of the Preferred Architect Palette. 

I do believe I have found that room. So, remember: There's no accounting for taste. And mitts off my wall paper.

Turning around to face out the door here. Both walls in this photo will likely move deeper into this room--the wallpapered one in order to make deeper closets for both guest bedrooms, and the painted one to expand the bathroom on the other side to have space enough for an upstairs laundry area. Although this will squeeze this room quite a bit, it'll still be left with an ~11'x11' foot print.

Let's head out of this bedroom and back into the hallway. If you recall from the view at the top of the stairs, there's a bathroom out there. So, walk through this door and make a sharp left for a pit stop.

The previous tenant wasn't much of a housekeeper, but at least she didn't leave the lid up. ;) Also, you can't see it in this picture, but the ceiling here is a dropped ceiling with missing ceiling tiles. Srzly.

The walls on both the left and right will be moved to make the bathroom wider. On the left, we'll be stealing from the 2nd bedroom and on the right we'll be stealing from the hall closet.


We're still trying to figure out the most economical arrangement of fixtures here, but the idea is to add front-loading washer and dryer (and thus counter space) in here.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.

Here's a view with the toilet and sink removed.

Neither Chai or I are fans of soaking in a tub (even a clean one). And foregoing a tub for a shower in the guest bath would surely make the rest of the bathroom more spacious (in terms of counter space and elbow room).

What do you think? Does a house need a tub? How about a guest bathroom?

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Heading back into the hallway (with the guest bath on your left and the 2nd bedroom behind you), you can see now into the blue blue blue master bedroom and the sunroom behind it.

I'll post again in a few days with a tour of the master "suite".