Solution: I’m going to try to scrape off all of the textured material on the ceiling. I don’t know if it’s plaster or spackle or what - but it’s coming down! Hopefully I can get the ceiling down to a nice, flat, smooth surface and give it a good coat of paint.

Tools: Most of the textured ceiling will be removed with a hand scraper and a lot of elbow grease. Then I can hopefully smooth it out with an electric sander.

Installed Raft-R-Mate

Those bright pink things are vents for the rafters, it’s a products called “Raft-R-Mate”. They create a channel for air to flow from the soffits (the overhanging part at the bottom ends of your roof) into the attic. Fresh air flowing into the attic helps to prevent moisture build-up, which is the primary reason we wanted to install these. Additionally, the improved ventilation is supposed to reduce heating and cooling costs so this could be considered a “green” addition to my renovation, yay!

When I bought the house it seemed that the back bedroom, though large, had been mostly ignored. At one point it was probably a rental, which will be more obvious in the pictures below.

Without further ado, let’s see the “back bedroom” that will someday be the “master bedroom” back in 2004 when I first bought the place.

Here’s a corner of the bedroom as seen from the bedroom entrance. You can see the nice deep closet built into the corner. The floor is a beige carpet, walls are just plain white.

Here is one of the two windows in the bedroom, and to the left of it is the door to the back staircase. It’s a narrow staircase that leads down to a shed and storage area. The window looks out the back of the house, over the shed roof, and into the neighbors’ yard (not like we spy on them or anything).

Here’s the last pic, looking back to the front of the room. Yes, that’s a kitchenette, complete with cast iron sink with running water. The door to the left is another closet, a very deep and very long closet. I really have no idea what the thought processes were that led to a kitchen in the bedroom and two huge closets.

Now that we’ve seen what the room looked like before, let me give you a quick peek at what it looks like today!

Pretty great huh? Now all it needs is a little paint, lol. I’ll make another post soon listing off the steps I took to get to this point.

It all started with the toilet. See, it’s an old toilet and it was running constantly and I just wanted to fix it. Pretty simple right? Well when you’re dealing with old things nothing is simple. I was clunking around inside the tank when suddenly I had one of those TV moments where water started spraying around everywhere and my simple fix turned into “I need a new toilet”.

When the toilet came up I discovered the floor underneath was damp and rotting, so “I need a new toilet” turned into “I need a new floor”. Off I went to Home Depot, where I found out they’re having a bathroom promotion - don’t pay for one year on any bathroom fixtures…and that is how fixing the toilet turns into a major bathroom renovation.

Before I continue on my path of bathroom destruction, I’ll show you what it looks like today.

Here is the view from the door, my cute little tub alcove and window (the window being the only ventilation for the room at the moment):

Here is the corner opposite the tub. There used to be two doors in the bathroom, but I took one out a year ago and only patched up the other side of the wall:

This is looking back towards the entry. You can see where the toilet used to be, and you can see the corner of the vanity:

Finally here’s the vanity. Something about all the empty space around the vanity bothers me, it’s definitely going to go:

Check back soon and I’ll tell you all about my big bathroom spending spree at Home Depot!

My home is a wonderful old two-story in the downtown of my small city. It is somewhat drafty and has almost no yard to speak of, but it’s mine and I love it. I hope you enjoy sharing in my home renovation adventures here on the blog.