Pre-renovation Tour: 2nd Floor Master Suite

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

Upstairs Hallway

Last we left off, you were standing in the 2nd floor hallway, looking into the blue master bedroom and the sun room beyond it. Let's step over the toilet on the floor and go there now.

Master Bedroom

As you come through the door, on your immediate left are two closets, again pretty small by modern standards. The left closet will get walled off and become part of the guest bathroom behind it. The right closet becomes a private toilet area in what will eventually be the master bathroom. So, the open area you are looking at will soon be a long, narrow master bath which extends to the opposite wall on the right.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Here are the same two windows again. That far right window will be the short end of a long shower, extending along the partially unpapered wall.

Where you are standing is basically where the closet, separating the master bathroom and bedroom, will be.

Moving along the "shower" wall to the right, there's an opening into another room. Originally, this "shower" wall is where the house ended. But many years ago, someone added a two-story sun room extension that is not attached to the house so well anymore.

This sun room is the source of a lot of our pain.Where that board is propped up is a door that once walked out onto a "balcony" (aka the roof of the back porch). But plaster has fallen off the exterior of the house and, as a result, that wall also contains a lot of water damage, rot, and mold.

The Outside View

Where it says "exposed lath" in this picture is the back side of that door on to the roof of the porch. The master bedroom's sun room is the upstairs part of the "addition".

Thanks to the water damage in this wall, the cabinetry and pantry wall below are full of mold.

The best thing here is probably to tear off that addition and porch and restore the original line of the house. That means no sun room, but the remaining back of the house will be plenty sunny and it's not like the house isn't already big enough for us.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

The sun room is a lovely space. But we don't need it and the trouble that it brings.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Heading back into the master bedroom. The pink area through the door frame on the right is hallway we started in.

Right smack in the middle of the master bedroom is a weird little passageway. Before we go through it, let's visit the master bathroom.

We skipped over it on the left, as we came back in from the sun room.

Master Bathroom

I don't know about you, but this bathroom doesn't make me feel very masterful.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit. 

Here it is again, with the toilet and sink removed.

Please note the little piece of wall missing at the head of the tub. We're about to go through the weird little hallway we noticed and see what's behind there.

OK, let's step back out into the master bedroom, turn to the right, and take a look at the funky passageway again.

Secret Passageway

Why in the hell would someone put a hallway *inside* a room that leads to another room that could have been made accessible from the main hallway? (I will give you that those shelves do look like a handy place to store my books and make it feel like a "library".)

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Wha' the?

Kitchenette

A kitchen?!? Off the main bedroom? And that little opening in the bottom left of the picture is the same one you saw behind the master bathtub.

Although it's more likely that the previous tenant was hoping to convert this master suite into a separately rentable apartment, I kinda like the idea of sitting in the tub and having someone pass me martinis and hot snacks through the serving window.

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Here's the room, after some clean up. Better but we are still NOT keeping a kitchenette upstairs. (Well, maybe a little fridge off the master bath for milk and tea. OK, OK, and counter top for mixing martinis.)

Let's head out of the kitchenette, back through the passageway, out the master bedroom, and back into the 2nd floor hallway ....

Photo above courtesy of Curbed Detroit.  

Next time, we'll tackle the 3rd floor (attic living space) and unfinished basement.