The Fifth House - Upstairs

Welcome to the tour of the upstairs. In my last post I gave a tour of the main floor. I have also posted about why we moved from our fourth house and our decision to build; and posted a little bit of the inspiration behind the design; and I posted about the construction of the house. If you have already read these posts, you know that we found out we were moving again while building this house and that we ended up unexpectedly moving into this house right before Covid-19 shut everything down.

The upstairs did not receive as much decorating attention as the main floor (which would have also received a lot more if we were staying), at first with the thought we should keep it simple for potential buyers, and then because quarantine took away some of the ability and some of the desire to refine the details of everything.

The Stairwell

Here are a few shots of what it looked like walking up the stairs. The first photo is starting from the basement stairs.

The Master Bedroom

Initially we had planned to have an office space in our bedroom above the sunroom below. When we thought we would never live in the house we decided to keep the bedroom as one large space. The windows where the office area would have been match the sunroom windows below and we were going to put a wall in with large French glass pocket doors separating that space from the bedroom. John actually ended up using the space as his home office at the beginning of the pandemic, just without the walls and the doors.

Since we had not planned to live here, we did not have the dedicated office furniture I had planned to furnish the space with and the "office area" ended up looking like a kind of storage room for furniture we weren't sure what to do with.

Here are some pictures of the bedroom (for all of the shots to follow, some are from me and some from the listing photos).

The Master Bathroom

Between the master bedroom and bath was the master closet. I do not have a picture to share. The entrance to the closet had French barn doors though across from the baskets you see in the picture below:

Here are some pictures of the bathroom. Originally we had planned to use blue glass tile in the shower and marble on the floor. We changed to the tiles and flooring you see to be more cost effective. When we changed to this floor tile, we planned to get a black soaker tub to add a little bit of a wow factor. Unfortunately, the incorrect tub was ordered and when we went to change it out, the black tub was no longer available.

Our Son's Bedroom

This was the smallest bedroom in the house, originally intended for our oldest daughter who no longer lived at home (until Covid). Our son wanted his bedroom to be next to his parents though, which made me happy, so that was that.

Our Younger Daughter's Bedroom

In our previous house our older daughter had her own bathroom and we had told our younger daughter that when her sister graduated from college and no longer lived at home that she could move to the room with its own bathroom. We moved out of the house before that happened and since I wanted another bedroom with its own bath besides the master in this house, our younger daughter lucked out.

We had originally planned to wallpaper this bathroom and have a tile shower, both of which we decided not to do when we found out we were moving.

Our Older Daughter's Bedroom

As luck would have it for our oldest, who ended up moving back home to work remotely in March 2020, she had a larger bedroom than originally planned. The bedroom is over the mudroom below. Since this room is the most far removed from the "action/noise" of daily life in the house it made the constant Zoom calls easier. We will start from the view to the bedroom turning the corner from the stairs and then look at the room.

The Hall Bathroom

I knew I wanted the hall bathroom to have two sinks and that I did not want the toilet completely visible from the hall. I had a custom vanity made with a trough sink that allowed for two faucets since the space was a little tight for two separate sinks. The sink/vanity was placed between the wall of the bathroom and a "pony wall" that partially hid the toilet. This bathroom is the one that changed the least from the original, pre-move design.

The Laundry Room

The laundry room was my favorite room in the house. "Pathetic" according to my children. The thing is, I take my laundry very seriously. If I cannot get a stain out, I am depressed and then disappointed for days, and for thirteen years our laundry room had been in an upstairs hallway with no sink, for the 18 months following that in our rental house it was a stackable in a closet, and prior to these setups the laundry had always been done in unfinished spaces in basements. The pictures do not do justice to the love I felt for this room.

In my inspiration post for this house, I mentioned how I had always loved the idea of a glass door leading into the laundry room. Here is the inspiration photo I ripped out of a magazine years ago:

I had a barn door custom made for the laundry room because even though we weren't staying, I wanted to see this dream become a reality. Again, these pictures do not do justice. The craftsmanship on the door was tremendous and I loved it!

That will end the tour of the upstairs. I'm sure you could tell which photos are listing photos and which are mine-I need to work on my photography skills! Next time we'll take a peek at the basement.

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Kerry