When we bought our house, we envisioned turning the top floor into a primary suite and have made that dream a reality! I didn't necessarily plan to start on this reno so soon after doing our kitchen, but Maeve was bursting out of her tiny room and we wanted to give her more space by giving up our bedroom.
The top floor had an open hallway with a random sink (very Dutch) and washer and dryer.
There was a good-sized storage room. I forgot a before photo, but imagine this space filled with shelves and so much stuff! This became our bathroom (Dutch homes typically have just 1.5 bathrooms).
Then there was one big room with dormers and slanted ceilings under the roof. It was a playroom/guest room/dumping ground. Poorly insulated, it was very cold in winter and very warm in the summer making the space unusable year-round.
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| There was great storage already built in under the eaves and we knew we needed to create more as we lost our storage room and had a lot of things to rehome. |
The plans were to insulate the ceiling to make the room more livable, install a split aircon/heater, remove the gas radiators, create a built-in closet, close off the hallway (while busting down another wall) to create a linen closet and laundry nook, and add a bathroom. Not a small project! Leo, who did the prep work for our kitchen reno was available and demolition began at the end of March. Our linen closet still needs shelves, but the project was complete a few days before the end of the school year!
Some "during" photos. As we don't usually use the top floor, we were able to live at home through the reno, which meant we could easily track the progress. Every day when the workers left felt like Christmas, rushing upstairs to see what they had done.
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| Insulation getting pumped from the truck up into the ceiling. |
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| Wall taken down separating the main room from the hallway to create a laundry nook. |
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| Laundry nook creation |
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| Bathroom coming along |
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| Linen closet |
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| Built-in closet |
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| Main room getting plastered and painted |
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| Tons of storage created in the bathroom |
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| Wood floors from the storage room were repurposed in the laundry nook to look continuous with the main room |
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| Hanging toliet area tiled |
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| New window arrived and placed in the shower. |
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| Main room starting to come together |
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| Storage created to hide the CV boiler and solar panel inverter. |
And now some paint and wallpaper!
Bathroom After photos!
Bedroom After Photos!
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| I found these clothes hangers for slanted roofs and had two installed, one for each of us on either side of the built-in closet. This allows us to still access all of the storage in the back. |
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| Laundry nook |
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| Linen closet at the top of the stairs |
It took a solid week of hard work to put our house back together, moving furniture from room to room and cleaning up the mess. We are thrilled with our new space, Maeve is thrilled with her new, big room and Jude is thrilled that we turned Maeve's old room into a gaming room!
