The Farmhouse Primary Suite: Before + After
After.
Next stop on our not-really-an-actual-farmhouse tour: the primary suite. As you may or may not remember from our living room tour, the old “primary suite” opened right off the “living room”. Which was rather….abrupt.
Also……..I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the house was abandoned for five years before we bought it.
Before. The living room, and the doorway leading into the *original primary suite.
*Probably not original, but it’s how it was when we found it.
Originally, we believe there were probably two back-to-back small bedrooms that shared a single bath, but sometime in the 60’s or 70’s the back bedroom had been converted into a weird family room type space, and so the only bedroom on the main floor was this very small one with it’s very small bath (a suite!!!! HOW LUXURIOUS!), that opened onto the living room.
Before. Just inside the bedroom doorway looking at the closet and the attached bath.
I’m sure that at one time, this bedroom and bathroom were quite…adequate? But after years of neglect, they were…not so…charming. Or clean.
Before. If you look closely, there are two things of note in this image.:
1). The bathroom faucet is running. WHY IS THE BATHROOM FAUCET RUNNING?!!
2). There are strange drip marks running down the walls of the closet. WHAT WAS DRIPPING DOWN THE WALLS YOU GUYS. There was no evidence of water damage. WHAT WAS ON THE WALLS.
Before. The primary bath. It was a VERY tight space.
I mean…it was a FULL bathroom. That’s something. It even had linen storage!!!! And as we established above: the faucet worked. And there was also a……wooden…toilet seat.
It’s a little hard to show side-by-side before and afters of the entire primary suite space because we moved everything. We moved everything, except the toilet. The toilet stayed in exactly the same place. Just kinda cling to that in your mind’s eye.
So let’s go back to the living room as it is now:
After. The living room, looking at what used to be the entrance to the primary bedroom.
After. The old entrance to the primary bedroom now leads into “the vestibule” which is a small hallway that leads to both the new primary suite, as well as a small guest powder room.
Here’s a “during” shot of the renovation where we were opening things up and creating a hallway that would lead to the new primary suite:
During. Look at those layers of wallpaper.
In the previous shot, you can start to get a feel for how we rearranged things. Essentially, we pushed the primary bedroom back to the backside of the house (what was originally probably another bedroom but what was, when we bought it, a family room annex to the kitchen). The existing primary bedroom was reconfigured, by us, into a primary bathroom, guest powder room, hallway, and closet space.
And the following image is a “before” shot of the “family-room-kitchen-annex”, that was probably once a bedroom (you can see the closet door sitting open on the righthand side which is a mirror image of the closet in the old primary bedroom—basically those two closets were back to back).
Before. Might I interest you in some…….paneling?
And here’s a great shot of that space during the renovation:
During. Egads.
This space would eventually become the new primary bedroom (with a wall going up to divide it from the kitchen, which is where I was standing to take the shot). The window on the lefthand side would stay in more or less the same spot (I think we shimmied it to the side a bit in order to fit in a french door that would lead from the bedroom out onto the deck).
Again, the above is a great shot of how the house was originally built: just boards and battens for walls, covered only with paneling on the interior. No studs. No insulation. Just boards, battens, and faux wood paneling.
After.
Obviously, I couldn’t get quite the same shot as the before and during images, because now there’s a wall separating the bedroom from the kitchen. But in the above shot, that lefthand window is pretty much in the same spot as it was before.
After.
And now there’s also a handy-dandy french door that leads out onto our deck. Perfect for wayward chickens to wander where they don’t belong.
In the following photo, the hat wall divides the kitchen from the primary bedroom in what was previously the weird family room annex.
After.
After.
We added two small clerestory-type windows over the bed for light and airflow, as well as two hanging pendant lights. And, of course, a shiplap wall—which serves as both a focal point and a way of skipping an actual headboard on the bed, which we felt would add unnecessary furniture to an already tight space.
After.
After.
After.
After. The chickens don’t ever really come in the house. I swear.
After. By now you realize that the entire point of these after shots is not to show off the room, but to show off this cute dingo.
After. I MEAN COME ON. Look at this dog. But also look at the bank of closets that line the entry hallway of the bedroom.
From the vestibule that is just off the living room, you pass through the primary bedroom door. Immediately to your right is the door into the primary bath, and ahead is a hallway that is lined with closets that leads to the bedroom.
After.
During. A shot of this space during the demo phase.
Now let’s circle back to the primary bath. Just for reference, here’s the previous bathroom again:
Before.
After.
After. Look at that glorious, non-wooden toilet.
Just for general orientation, the toilet remained in exactly the same spot—but the bathroom was widened and lengthened to accommodate a completely full bathroom suite: double sinks, tub, and separate shower.
After.
As is the theme with our house…it ain’t big, but it gets the job done. And once again, because there was very little existing storage space in the house, we tried to squeak some in wherever we possibly could—this full-length mirrored medicine cabinet was by FAR one of the best things we did in the entire renovation (we also have normal sized medicine cabinets over each sink). This extra storage makes up for the fact that we had to do two pedestal sinks instead of putting in something with more storage in it—there just wasn’t enough space to have two sink cabinets. And we didn’t want to fight over one sink. So two pedestals and a little extra wall storage, it was!!!! And it has worked out great for us.
After.
After.
The sign on the wall is a bit of an inside family joke. Firstly, “Kalamity Kate” is an old nickname from college (and I’ll just let you fill in the blanks with that) (also of note, I always said that if I ever owned a bar, it would be called Kalamity Kate’s) (but, I digress). Secondly, I am one of three siblings, and the only girl. My entire life, my mom (bless her f*#king heart) has lamented the fact that her only daughter somehow wound up with more of a potty mouth than her two sons (that special double standard where she is offended and disappointed that ANY of us would use such language, but she is ESPECIALLY offended that her daughter does. I actually think my brothers are pretty offended by my language, too, just for the record). Every string of expletives that spills out of my mouth is met with my mother’s knee-jerk, standard response of an indignant, dramatic gasp and then, “Katie! Why can’t you just be a delicate flower!??” To which I usually respond with a very immediate, very colorful, very non-flowery but very articulate (in my opinion) retort. So: thus the tongue-in-f*#king-cheek “Mouth Soap” advertisement. Also of note: my mom is the only person allowed to call me Katie. JUST FYI.
After.
After.
After. Please look at this magnificent liger.
And that about wraps it up!
Oh—
Product SOURCE LIST:
All paint by Behr
Bedroom and bathroom wall color: North Woods
Bedroom and bathroom trim color: Swiss Coffee
French door and bathroom door: Farmhouse Red
BEDROOM:
Bedding:
Sheets: Threshold Performance Sheet Set from Target
Rugs
Nightstands…I forget where I got these…possibly Target but it was a long, long time ago.
Dresser: made by my grandfather
Artwork:
Three handcut paper chicken prints: Angie Pickman via Etsy.
Linocut Hens and Cockerel print: Little Ram Studio via Etsy.
Hallway mixed media metal painting by me.
BATHROOM:
Bathroom rugs (out of stock, but here’s the link to all the similar indoor-outdoor Annie Selke rugs)
Apothecary cabinet: I rigged this together from two thrifted nightstands
Mouth Soap sign: handpainted by me.
I know I have missed things—if you’ve got questions, drop me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer!