@Pennydesign- yes, suzyq53 is correct; the furniture went in mostly through the deck steps. Little things came up the spiral staircase. @Lindsey, yes the privacy issues from the staircase is an issue. That's yet another detail we have been considering. We'll keep a door on the room. I have worked today on two new plans. Let me know your thoughts/vote! Thank you for your thoughts and time. Comments are welcomed. Please note, I am not a designer. The sketches will eventually be reviewed by my contractor. Another question: If you have the time, tell me how long you think each of these planned renovations should take. I want to compare your thoughts with my estimate. This is my first renovation and I want to make sure I understand the process. Sorry the pics are a bit light. However, picture one has a rectangular walk in closet with 1.5 ft expansion on the bathroom, while picture #2 has an incomplete diagonal privacy wall with 1.5 ft expansion on the bathroom. Please note we have an eastern king bed and side dressers for lighting & our personal items. That means we need about 11 ft for the bed and dressers to go against. Thanks for being interested.

@sanmav68 : Thanks for info. What I meant was that the number of squares on the graph paper doesn't match your written measurements in those rooms, assuming you are using one square per foot. Installing a new HVAC system can be worth the money for comfort and even temperature control around the house. A lot depends on how much insulation the old house has. Get two or three quotes, prices can vary a lot depending on how and where they want to install the equipment in an older house that doesn't have it now. If the inherited house hasn't been maintained consistently, your $20K could easily go toward new appliances, electrical upgrades, new windows, furnace tune-up, gutter cleaning, termite treatment, and new flooring. You may want to pay for a professional inspection just as if you were buying the house so you'll be able to anticipate repair and replacement costs. There are also checklists online if you want to do a runthrough on your own. Some real estate agents offer a list of service people on their websites.

I wholeheartedly agree with adding a bathroom. My own goal is to convert four bedrooms and two baths to three bedrooms and three private baths. I am interested in your post to learn things. I like your proposed layout with the vanity as focal point. This positioning allows you to have a full base cabinet if you want, without shrinking the space visually. And in a master bath, you likely need the afforded storage. Of course a floating vanity will make it look like you have more space, even if you stick the bathroom scale under it. Maybe make it the same tone as the wall to help it blend in though and not jump out at you. It would help the entire space visually to color coordinate the bathroom with the bedroom. To add more storage, I will suggest a couple ideas that worked for me in my existing small bathrooms. Keeping the vanity counter clear will help make it look spacious, especially since it is the focal point of the room. Have 2-3 storage shelves over the toilet for baskets with your makeup, extra tp, lotion, extra roll of paper towels, whatever. I also put a basket on the tank to store even more stuff, so choose a tank with a flat top. Another is to have a trio of shelves in the shower on the wall opposite the showerhead. They hold so much in-shower stuff. I used stick on wire ones I got on Amazon and love the way everything dries and doesn't get moldy or soapy. I imagine you already planned for a medicine-cabinet mirror for more storage. You may be stuck with overhead lighting, but maybe you are young and beautiful and don't have my wrinkles. :-) Wrinkle are why we made side-lighting. I haven't seen side-lit medicine cabinets, but they would be worth looking for. The great thing about small bathrooms is everything is within reach or close enough. So, though it might not appear to make sense to have stacking towel racks for drying used towels across from your toilet, they are close enough and really the only wall space available, especially with a pocket door. I imagine before a shower I would fold them and place them on the vanity to grab when I was done, then hang them back to dry. I'd also close the toilet lid before flushing though.  Some people feel like a small space feels cheap and therefore depressing. I don't, but I like the idea of compensating with high-end components. A top-end toilet with a heated bidet seat and skirted base, for example, will make your space feel luxurious. Or a wall-hung toilet? Luxurious towels are nice too. You can make your towel racks heated. Have a great lighted vent. Get radiant-heated flooring. Get a heated anti-fog mirror. Color the room with dark jewel tones and have lots of artificial lighting. Try canned ceiling lights in the shower ceiling, vanity lights, an overhead vent with light, and even some lighting in the toilet area. Pack that room with luxury and it won't feel small. Whatever dark color you use for the shower, continue it out beyond the glass on your back wall to prevent choppiness. Not everything in the room has to be dark. You can still have a white toilet, white towels, a white counter if you want. Just tie it in with the bedroom to mentally make a bigger space.  Speaking of the bedroom… The bathroom light will shine on the bed. Can I suggest turning the bed with the headboard at the window so the light doesn't shine on sleepers? This may make you cringe, but it affords you advantages. Currently it creates wasted space by the windows. If the head of the bed is at the window you now have additional useful space. For example, you have room on both sides for floor to ceiling shelving functioning as uber-nightstands. You have room at the foot of your bed for a bench to sit on while you don socks and underwear, AND if it is a storage bench, that's where you can store clean replacement towels near the entry of a bathroom too small for storing extra towels. It also creates space for a pair of dressers on the walls near the closet. I agree that you probably could use more clothing storage, but don't see space for it, so maybe room for two dressers is the next best thing and now you have room by your closet for two dressers instead of one. If you agree there are reasons to move the head of the bed to the window, the next concern is how to deal with the blocked light. The answer is more lighting. You can have light-blocking draperies for night and open them during day. You can get a slatted see-through headboard. You can use mirrored-shelf etageres for your nightstands to bounce light up or mirror the wall around your bed to create visual space you can see through the shelves or etageres. You can install mirrored french-door-look gridded closet doors to approximate a walk-out balcony. You will want to make the closet wall a beautiful thing to look at, since it is now opposite your headboard. Maybe a tall fake potted plant with an up-light by the dresser would help. Or if it's all too fake, an up-lit meaningful tall sculpture and reeded or textured closet doors instead of mirrors. Maybe a lot of dimmable canned lights in the ceiling, like stars in a night sky. A small room can be very luxurious so you don't feel cheated. I hope some of these ideas have helped.

This is obviously not mid-centrury modern, but I like the color palette and the wallpaper accents wall: For this one, the caramel leather might be a nice addition as a bench at the end of your bed: This is a nice look, too. I like how they introduced pattern for the nightstand and included brass accents with the lamps: