Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Making plans…

Sunday and Monday of this past weekend were both rather nasty days here – April 1st saw about 2CM of snow on the ground (really, no kidding!) when I finally rolled out of bed, and though it proved to be a sunny morning, rain started in the early evening here and continued heavily almost all day Monday.

Sunday night, at a loss for things that I actually WANTED to do, I sat down and started planning home renovations. I should point out that at this point in time, all I will be doing is planning since money is tight and renovations come in at the end of the list of things requiring doing that are actually POSSIBLE to do… but regardless of when and where money comes from (maybe I’ll win the lottery?) planning is free.

I sat down with some graph paper and drafted up a plan to tackle the badly designed closet space that the two bedrooms in my house actually have.

For reference, the space I’m working with is a single closet in my bedroom and a weirdly laid out closet and inset in the front bedroom – combined the space would be a room that would be roughly 5’5” by about 7’. I’m not entirely certain how a family of four managed for 30 years with this kind of closet space!  

My thought is to use ALL of this wasted space and create a single walk in closet in between the two rooms (accessed using pocket doors,) to have a functional and practical clothes hanger system AND build in a shelving \ drawer combination unit (floor to ceiling) that will have sides facing out in both rooms.  And, of course, have lighting inside it so that items can be seen!

Sidebar: Eventually I also intent to install a queen-sized Murphy bed (side fold up) and an additional window in the front bedroom – but that will be a few years out.

Where possible, my plan is to do all of the demolition and most of the construction myself.  I’ll have a professional look at the space AND my plans and tell me if it’s going to bring the roof down around my ears, of course, but all in all (aside from the drywall) it shouldn’t be TOO hard to build what I have planned.

The other space I’m looking at drafting up plans for is my bathroom \ laundry room.  They sit side by side in the house – the challenge that I think I may have, though, is that the wall separating them is the original outside wall – which I think would make it a supporting wall.  Again, before I think to do anything major I will have a professional look at the space AND my plans and tell me if I am being realistic.

My thought with that space was to make a combination room.  One large space (with an actual window!!) that would house the bathroom and laundry facilities (as well as the hot water tank) and perhaps make the space MUCH more functional that it currently is.

I think, though, that the destruction / construction of this particular room would be much better left to professionals, and that it would be best planned to be executed while I am on vacation and away from the house for at least 2 weeks so that bathing and doing laundry isn’t a major problem!

Small steps forward, though.  The next things that are planned are to have the rest of the crap taken out of the yard and then to have my 8 bales of insulation (for my attic) and new front door delivered.  After that, the new front door will need to be installed.

Hm.  I wonder if I should paint the front door before or after it goes in? What do you think?  And yes, I am finally going to have my RED front door!

Ok… On that note, I think its time to have a hot bath and get myself ready for bed – morning seems to come early these days and, if it’s a nice morning, I’m planning to take Jasmine out first thing for a bike ride \ run.  Me on the bike, her running.

With love across the waters,