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ash195

Advice on what to DIY vs. hire contractor for primary bedroom project?

Ash
last year
last modified: last year

We are expecting, and we would love to bang out some big idea home projects before baby comes and there's no time to do anything. In addition to moving our guest room and decorating a nursery, we would like to update our primary bedroom to be our dream sanctuary.

Currently the room is very long and skinny. Our real estate agent described it as a bowling alley during the tour, and she's not wrong.

Additionally, both the upstairs and downstairs chimney encroach on the walk-in closet space, which means our storage capacity is a lot smaller than it looks (not shown in the floor plan). We have our furniture in a different arrangement because it looked weird to have the bed on a wall where the window wasn't centered. This floor plan is what we currently have, including the layout of our furniture:


We would like to expand our storage with a second walk-in closet, but that would require moving the door further away from the stairs. It's not all bad news, though, since we'd be fewer steps from the soon-to-be nursery. I thought it would be nice to center the pathway between the two walk-in closets with the off-centered window on the far wall so it all felt a little more intentional. I also left some space between the door and the new closet so we could put a console table and mirror behind the door, but I could be persuaded not to if there's a reason we wouldn't want to do that.


This is also the hottest room in the summer, and there's no overhead lighting. We thought a ceiling fan with a light would be great, but it might look a little odd if we had to put it on one side of the slope or the other. We're also not fond of the textured ceilings throughout the house, but it seems most noticeable in this room.


We were thinking we could add faux wood beams to the ceiling to make it look a bit more upscale and give us a surface for the ceiling fan to hang from. We're also considering covering the ceiling with shiplap paneling or styrofoam ceiling tiles to hide the texture. Something like these examples:


Hope Ranch · More Info


Lido Isle · More Info


Contemporary Farmhouse · More Info


One last update we both would really like to do is the exterior of the fireplace/mantle. Right now it's this weird drywall...built-in monstrosity. What is this style even called?? See above for another angle.


Whatever it is, we really dislike it. We both consider it the biggest eyesore in the house, and it's basically the first and last thing we see every day. We prefer colonial and craftsman styles, and we would love to incorporate a way to hide tv cords while we're at it. Something like this would be a huge upgrade to the space:


So, the questions are: of all these lofty ideas for our primary bedroom, what is reasonable for an intermediate DIYer couple to accommplish? What are we better off getting a contractor to tackle? What else should we consider doing (or not doing) with the space? And do you have any other general advice?

Thank you so much, and I appreciate the feedback!!

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