Front Room Closet Remodel: Assessing & Planning

Dan's fall and winter project is to finish the front room. Originally a bedroom, I set up my big floor room in it and am now using it as a weaving room. Or at least I will be when all the remodeling is done! There are several things that need finishing in this room: the walls where he replaced the original windows, the back of the masonry stove, and the closet. He starting with the closet.

The first step was to tear out the remaining closet wall.

What's immediately curious is that paint job. Why would they only paint it green part way up? Probably because that was a high as they could reach.

Our ceilings are high at 8'10." The original closest door measured 72" in height (standard door height is 80"). The closet shelf was at installed at 64." Include the door molding and this configuration only allowed 7 inches between the shelf and the top of the door for shelf access.

You can see more photos including the original room layout here.

That meant that the 32-cubic-feet above the shelf were pretty much inaccessible for storage. I definitely want to remedy that.

The other problem with this closest is that the original interior depth was only 17.5 inches. That's barely wide enough for a clothes hanger! By tearing out the wall, we gained 4 extra inches in depth. You can see the difference in this next photo looking up into the closet ceiling.

The original closet interior is painted white. The unpainted part is where the wall used to be. The 2x6 is where the new closet exterior will be. 

The next step was to cover the exposed bricks on the lefthand wall.

I missed getting a photo, but before he put up the plywood, Dan added a thick piece of ceramic fiber blanket to insulate the wall, the same stuff that he used to insulate the masonry stove core. Because it's just the inside of the closet, he used plywood instead of trying to match the tongue-and-groove.

The plan is to install standard hollow core bypass doors, with a shelf over top to give me access to the additional storage space, similar to what Dan did in our bedroom. 

In the bedroom closet, Dan built shelves. He asked me to figure out what I want to do with this closet, so I've had to think about how the space will be used. What I really need is storage space for my totes and boxes, not a clothes closet. Considering that the room could still be used as a bedroom, however, I don't know that it would be wise to put the whole closet in shelves. At the moment, I'm considering some stand-alone wire shelf units, something like these. One on either end of the closet.  

So those are our tentative plans. Next step is paint those walls. 

Front Room Closet Remodel: Assessing & Planning 

© 2025 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Slow Progress on the Front Bedroom

The last time I talked about this room was in April, when I got my floor loom set up in it. Even though the interior still needs to be finished, that won't happen until our priority projects are finished. In the meantime, I'm working to make it more comfortable and homey. One of the things I did, was to hang two old printed quilt pattern bedspreads as window draperies.

Front window before

Front window with full size bedspread.

Side windows with thermal curtains.

Queen size bedspread for the side windows.

Even though the walls and window trims still need to be finished, the bedspreads help cover up the mess! 

The front window is shaded by the front porch, but the side windows in the photo above get the full brutal force of our afternoon southern sun. That means the room heats up, even with energy star windows. So in addition to the bedspread, I also used the four thermal curtains; one pair on tension rods in the window framing, and the other two hung on the inner rod of the double drapery rod. That gives me a double layer of thermal curtains plus the quilt. That seems to be helping quite a bit.

What's on the loom? It's a throw rug for the entryway of this room.

I chose the yarns to compliment the bedspreads. You can see those photos here. It's finished now, and below you see it here it is in its new home . . . 

Technical details for the rug are at my fiber blog.

The book shelf cubes are new too, and create a nice visual partition. My large desk is behind them, so they help hide the clutter!

I've also been able clear this wall in preparation for future work.

The brick wall you see is the back of our woodstove alcove. Originally, this bedroom and the living room had back to back fireplaces, both of which have been torn down. Dan is still planning on having a masonry stove built, and this brick wall will be incorporated into the thermal mass. After that, we can finish the wall and do something about the closet. 

Old photo from when we first bought the house.

The closet is 6-feet wide and 17.5 inches deep. The door is only 72-inches tall. That gives the shelf above the closet rod a 7-inch opening for storing items on the shelf.

With our 9-foot ceilings, there's almost 32 cubic feet of storage space above the shelf, but that narrow opening means it's near impossible to utilize! This currently unusable space could easily accommodate the few boxes I have left after my sort and purge. Obviously, the entire closet needs re-vamping, which we'll work on once the stove project is done.

So progress has been made, even though it will be awhile before we get the room finished. But it looks and feels nicer, and that makes me happy. 

Slow Progress on the Front Bedroom © July 2024

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Front Bedroom AKA Storage Room: Something's Happening

April is prep and planting month. Mostly, I've been busy outside, spot seeding pasture and doing final garden bed prep, but when we had a forecast for three days of rain, I reckoned it was a good time to work on one of my winter project goals, i.e. trying to make the front bedroom functional again. The motive for this is to begin setting up my Glimakra floor loom. 

There have been a lot of steps to reclaim that room as living space. The first (and a biggy) was unpacking, sorting and purging things we simply don't need. Next is figuring out what to do with items we want to keep: mostly seasonal things like space heaters, box fans, beekeeping equipment, soap making supplies, archery items, surplus tincture bottles, etc. With no basement or garage, and limited attic space, I'm thinking our old garden shed may be the storage answer. Except cleaning it out is another big project. 

When I finally managed to clear out the floor space, Dan and I took a look at the room once again. Initially, Dan had lots of plans for this room; he was going to replace floor, ceiling and walls. But after years of focusing on other things, his enthusiasm has become much more realistic. This is actually a relief for me, because I've already waited fifteen years and am not interested in waiting many more! The question now is, what absolutely has to be done?

The windows were replaced in 2016 (front windows) and 2020 (side windows). The exterior siding was finished then, but we left the interior walls for later.

front window

side windows

For comparison, you can see photos of the original room here.

Then there's the floor, which is in pretty bad shape.

If I'm remembering correctly, this is actually the sub-floor, which was probably intended to be covered. I would love to put a hardwood floor on top of it. Even wall-to-wall carpet would help. But for now, we don't have the funds to do anything with it. So I need a temporary solution.

Another problem, is this . . .

The house originally had two back-to-back fireplaces, one in the living room and one in this bedroom. Unfortunately, the mortar in the original chimney was soft enough to poke your finger through, so everything was torn out. You can see the interesting innards of a dual chimney here. 

It would also be nice to do something with this closet.

It's about 6-feet long and very shallow, just 17.5" deep, which is barely wide enough for clothes hangers. The shelves are on one side only. The door opening is 23 in. by 6 ft, so it's awkward to utilize the space. Making it deeper would mean building it out into the room; an idea we've discussed. I think an easier solution would be to tear out the door and wall to the left and hang a pair of by-pass doors. I keep off-season clothing in there, but mostly it's for storage.

Even in opting for the simplest solutions, the ability to actually do anything isn't imminent. In discussing what needs to be done, Dan said he'd be able to work around the loom, which gave me the go-ahead. The room will be finished eventually, but for now, I want to abandon the storage facility decor and make the room functional. I want to use my large loom again. 

For now, I decided to cover the floor with an area rug and there it is. This is actually my old dining room rug, which I replaced with a new, cleaner one. The loom is in the middle of the room, with space to walk around it and get to the windows. There's enough room to scoot it over if needed.

I still need to attach the texsolv cords, which is called "tying up." This connects all the moving parts (countermarch, shafts, lamms, and treadles).

It's a project in itself because everything must be even and level. 

Both Dan and I are pleased to see the loom assembled again. It certainly looks better than piles of boxes! I'd like to weave rugs, draperies, and yardage on this loom and use the table loom for smaller projects such as hand towels, table runners, scarves, etc. (My next planned project for the table loom is a small t-shirt yarn bathroom rug.)

After the windows are finished off, I can paint, which always freshens up a room. In the meantime, though, we can at least enjoy this room once again.

Front Bedroom AKA Storage Room: Something's Happening 

© April 2024 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Winter House Project Part 2

In my first "Winter House Project" post I showed you the windows we wanted to replace and the new window to replace them. The first step was to remove the old trims.

One of the reasons our house was so energy inefficient is because the original windows used a weight and pulley system for opening and closing. This requires space on either side of the window to accommodate cast iron sash weights.

These balance the weight of the window sashes making them easy to open and shut - that is until the pulley ropes break.

With the other double windows Dan has replaced, the builder's rough opening has had no header. The job of the header is to bear the weight of the materials above it. Without it, sagging will begin to take place. Instead of a header, the builder of our house used the window casing to act as a post to bear the weight. We assumed this set of windows would be the same and so were surprised when that wasn't the case.

There's actually space between the window casing and the 2x4 above it.

So nothing was holding up the 2x4 that served as a pseudo-header.

View from the outside looking in. You can see the 2x4
with the blown-in insulation above the window opening.

It sagged a little bit but not too badly.

Dan's new header is a sturdy 3.5 inches by 5.5 inches.

The best part was being able to use all of our own homegrown, home-milled lumber.

New sill on the table saw.

Since the new window is smaller than the two old ones, the next step was to frame out the space for wall with a new rough-in for the new window.

Amazingly, there have been no unpleasant surprises to fix or rebuild, and this is probably going to be the fastest house project we've ever done.

New window shimmed and secured. The next step will be to put up the new siding.

Click here for Part 3.

Winter House Project Part 2 © December 2016 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Bedroom Remodel: Floor Done at Last!

There were times when I thought we'd never get this project done. We got the carpet last March but the job never seemed to make it to the top of the priority list. Finally Dan had some time off work so we were able to finally knock this out! We did it ourselves (Dan mostly) with the help of library books and YouTube videos. Here it is in pictures.

Tackless strips were nailed around the perimeter of the room. I'm not sure 

why they're called tackless because they had tacks poking up through the

 bottom to secure the carpet.

The carpet pad was cut and pieced to fit inside the tackless strips. 

Those pieces were secured together with duct tape.

The padding was rolled back to apply double sided tape to the floor. I'm
glad we did this because it kept the padding from sliding  around when we
wrestled the carpet into the room. 

The carpeting was laid out.

This is one of the two tools we rented, a knee kicker. It's used to scooch the

carpet over the tacks on the tackless strip. The hammer was used to press

the carpet securely onto the tacks, i.e the tackless strip tacks. 

A carpet stretcher was the other rental. It, of course, stretches out the

wrinkles in the carpet when securing it on the opposite wall. 

The excess was trimmed off with a carpet knife and a stair tool was used

to tuck the edges of the carpet under. 

And there you have it!

Still to install are the thresholds and the bedroom door. Not sure when we'll get to that but then I can show you my before and after shots.

Bedroom Remodel: Floor Done at Last! © June 2014

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Bedroom Remodel: No Progress But Something To Show

We've been so busy with kidding, the chicken coop, and the garden, that we haven't done a thing on the bedroom since we bought the carpet. It's still sitting as a huge roll in the dining room, but every time we have to step over it to get to the dining table (which is pushed over against the far wall), we say we really must do something about it. Even so, I have something I've been meaning to show you - the closet doors!

Whoopty-do, what's so special about closet doors? What's special is what Dan did to them! This was his winter creative project, a woodburning on each door.

For enlarged images, you can visit Dan's pyrography blog and click on the individual photos.

He needs to finish staining and finishing, and then they can be hung permanently. At the rate we're going that may take awhile. :)

Bedroom Remodel: No Progress But Something To Show 

© May 2014 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Bedroom Remodel: Back In Business

In our last bedroom remodel episode, we had pretty much set the whole project aside for the time being. That was because the money we'd earmarked for the floor was needed elsewhere and given away for that purpose. Since nice chunks of money rarely come our way, we set the project aside, thinking perhaps the cheapest solution would be floor paint and an 8'x12' area rug. Even though we've put down hardwood floor and ceramic tiles in the other rooms, Dan had his heart set on carpeting for the bedroom. He says it's easier on his bare feet and knees. With no money, however, it didn't matter one way or the other.

The other day Dan saw a classified ad in a local trade paper for new piece of 12'x18' carpeting, complete with pad for $195. He called and we went to see it. The price was too good to be true but I was doubtful we could be so lucky as to having it match the fabric I was using to make draperies. Lo and behold, we couldn't have found a better match.

The camera doesn't catch the match as well as live, but not bad. 

There's a story behind the drapery fabric as well. I scoured every store and outlet in town but wasn't happy with anything until I found "just" the fabric at Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately there was only a few yards left on the roll. The manager said she could order a new roll, but it turned out the fabric was discontinued. That was sad, but what else could I do? I continued looking for curtains.

A couple months later I was back in Hobby Lobby, wondering if they'd gotten anything new. There it was! A brand new fat roll of that same "discontinued" fabric! With one of their weekly 40% off coupons I got it for a reasonable price. I did the same for lining material too.

Dan wants to install the carpet himself, but first he will finish the chicken coop. In the meantime, I'll finish painting the bedroom ceiling. I feel extremely blessed.

Bedroom Remodel: Back In Business © March 2014 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Bedroom Remodel: Floor on Hold

Our bedroom floor is actually a subfloor, or perhaps there is no subfloor.
What I mean is, it's the only thing between us and the crawl space.

Here is a long overdue update on our bedroom remodeling project. The next step is the floor, and from our 2012 income tax return we set aside some money for that. We hung on to it until the end of the year and hoped to tackle the bedroom floor around Christmas. But a family member had a need and so the money went to that because, in the end, people are more important than things. So, getting the floor finished is pending the acquisition of new funds! In the meantime, life goes on with a zillion other projects.

Bedroom Remodel: Floor on Hold © February 2014 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Master Bedroom: New Ceiling

We're in the homestretch with the bedroom/master suite remodel. The ceiling was the next to last project and it's almost done. Here's how it's coming along, starting with a before photo of the original pine tongue and groove ceiling.

Ceiling before, but after the closets were torn out.

And a close-up of one corner, where a stove pipe used to go. . . .

Where the old chimney pipe used to go

The house was originally heated with coal and there is evidence in each room of where a coal burning stove used to be. The problem with this corner is that when the stove pipe was installed, a hole was simply cut in the ceiling to accommodate the pipe, but with no structural support for the ceiling itself. Over time, the ceiling sagged in this corner. Being 90 year old tongue and groove boards, the sag is pretty much petrified into the boards now. We discussed what to do about it. Based on time and money, we'll just live with it.

Still, we want the room to look nice. For purely decorative effect, Dan wanted to add some pseudo beams made of stained 2x4s.

Dan stained 2x4s for a beam look. In the lower left you can see the
storage compartment Dan made when he began to rebuild the closet

Dan doesn't care for the tongue and groove, however, so we decided to cover the ceiling in between the beams. We like the styrofoam tiles we use in the hall bathroom, and went with that again. They look nice, are inexpensive, paintable, add a little insulation, and cover a multitude of ceiling flaws.

Styrofoam ceiling tiles

I bought the tiles from Antique Ceilings on Amazon. They have a good selection and are about half the price of elsewhere.

I alternated the pattern to prevent a striped or checkerboard look.

My problem was that they don't quite cover the space between the beams.

Cutting strips of foam tiles to fill the narrow gaps next to the beams

I cut strips to fill in the gaps. Not what the professionals would do, I know, but as my grandmother used to say, "No one will notice on a galloping horse."

My piecing doesn't really seem to show, does it?

The foam takes paint very well and with regular ceiling paint, the ceiling looks like painted tin or a molded plaster.

My apologies for the wonky picture! This is as far as I've
gotten for now. You can compare unpainted tiles in the
upper left corner. And you can still see where the ceiling sags.

Unfortunately, I have yet to finish that. It got too cold before I was done and I would rather paint when I can crack the window and put in a fan to vent the smell. I don't suppose the ceiling is going anywhere, so I'll have to wait till springtime to finish this project.

Master Bedroom: New Ceiling © January 2014

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/