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grlwprls

Making the Most of an Unfortunate Room

grlwprls
11 years ago

...or in my case, a Series of Unfortunate Rooms (apologies to Lemony Snicket).

We have accomplished so much in our gardens to soften (eventually) the view of our neighbors' house and the first floor is really something *wonderful* despite its lack of accessories. So now, I am ready to turn my attention to the Series of Unfortunate Rooms that make up our second floor.

When we bought the house, I immediately sketched up a plan to restore what I assume to be the original 1920's second floor space plan. Three modest bedrooms and one hall bath. I had an architect draw up a plan for construction. But....

We simply can't afford to do construction right now, so I also need a plan to make the second floor work without renovations.

My first attention is the room my husband and I sleep in. It hardly rises to the level of "master suite" although it is attached to the gigantic bathroom by way of a hollow core sliding door. Yikes.

This room is 10.5' x 11'. With a king sized bed. And two walls have double windows (not centered). And the remaining wall has a 6' pair of French doors (that access the room that is trapped behind another bedroom...don't ask...it's all very complicated up there).

No. My husband won't give up the king sized bed. I'll admit, I like it too. Having said bed up against a bank of off center windows...ugh. That said, this is my marital bedroom and something better has to happen up there.

So we have no uninterrupted wall space (none of the other rooms do either in their current configurations). I don't know if I should go bold with color - something deep and restful like Kevin's Mount St. Anne with white shutters and a fluffy white bed and a custom bound wool sisal. Maybe a very dramatic (but obviously small) brass chandelier?

Our current iron bed has a headboard/footboard and I am starting to think that the footboard needs to go, so we'd need a new bed. In front of windows, does a solid headboard read better? If the windows are off center? We can't hang drapes to "fool the eye" because the windows die into the corner and the sliding door has to tuck in tight beside the window trim.

Any investment in the windows will carry over to a future renovation of that floor. I can't change the hollow sliding door because that would vanish if/when we renovate. Same with the French doors. Plus, until we renovate, those French doors are one of the access points to that trapped room.

So, what do you do with an awful, small room?

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