Capitol Hill, bedroom redesign

This is a four story row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Two sisters own the house (two floors each). The owner of the upper two floors called us to renovate her top floor where she had her bedroom, a bathroom and a second bedroom used for guests.

Everything started with the closets, she needed more closet space! She wanted walk in closets in her bedroom and also a more original look to the space; more “rustic” as she referred to. She also wanted to add a central AC system for her house and spread the “rustic” look to the entrance stairs and to the interior stairs.
We decided to move the laundry from her bedroom to the guest room; enlarging the bathroom into the second bedroom to keep hers as big as possible. To accomplish the rustic idea, we proposed to tear down the ceiling and capture attic space for the bedroom, removing the old useless insulation and adding rigid foam between the rafters; leaving the side brick walls exposed as well as the ceiling joists. For the new doors we decided to buy from a salvaged material place to add character to the house. For extra storage space we created two spaces on top of the walk in closets in the bedroom.

To enlarge the bathroom, we took some space from the second (guests) bedroom. Taking advantage of the redesign, we organized the bathroom in a better way; sink facing the entrance, toilet on one side, bathtub on the other. When we started demolishing, we realize we had to do all the plumbing from scratch. To make the vanity more interesting (simple furniture from Lowes) we found a wood mantelpiece in the salvaged material store which fitted perfectly the vanity and we asked a faux finisher to blend them together with an antique patina made out of the colors of the bathroom.
Providing central AC to an old house is always a challenge, trying not to disturb the existing and run the ductwork by the places we are already updating. In this case, fortunately we didn’t have to punch out the whole house. The condenser was placed on the roof and the interior equipment in a small closet in the living room.

We proposed the double French doors to the main bedroom, with a Bookcase in the hallway to create a proper entrance. The client mentioned she loves exposed brick as part of the “rustic” look so we added some exposed brick walls in the project. The side of the entrance stairs, where she’ll hung antique frames, one wall on the interior stairs to the second floor, the back wall of the bathroom (painted in white) and the exposed attic side walls in the main bedroom.

The house suffered a big renovation when was divided in two; on that renovation the trim work was poorly done (just 3 ½” baseboards and cheap 2 ½”casing) so we replaced all trim work around the house to match the existing on the original windows, adding missing crown moldings as well.