Upstairs: The Office and the Loft

The inside of the house is closing in on completion. It's hard to believe that the interior is all going to be wrapped up soon. This house has been an interesting project and experience. It's also been very painful and challenging at times. Through it all, the goal was to have a home that we could enjoy, feel comfortable living in, and be able to have family and friends come to visit. I think we accomplished those goals, but it has come at a cost of personal time over the last eight months. Still, being able to completely change, update, and renew a large house with just two people doing the work that probably should've been spread out over years -- well, we are grateful to have had the opportunity. It feels as though we actually were able to save something destined for demolition. 

Before getting to the upstairs areas (beyond the guest room, which we shared recently), we thought it would be nice to show the stairs. 

The upper-level stairs. They look better in the photo than they actually were. Not pictured: the smoke/burn marks surrounding the opening. You can also just get a glimpse of the door that was used to close off this upper area from the rest of the house.

It is likely that it is less-impressive in photos (especially because the original condition was never documented properly), but they have been quite a transformation themselves. First, they were closed off with an old, beat-up door, and they had old carpet that was in need of replacement. 

After the carpet had been removed and the underneath work began.

Once we'd ripped out the carpet, we saw that the stairs were partially-painted wood and decided that perhaps we'd just stick with the painted stairs theme (just as the back stairs are painted wood). We removed the door, patched up some spots, removed a TON of staples/nails, painted everything and installed a reclaimed wine barrel handrail, and voila! Functional stairs. If only it were actually that easy and swift a process to accomplish. Still, it is nice to have finished, usable passage to the upper level of the house.

The wood stairs are in definitely used shape, but we think it came together well, even if they may end up needing a different refresh at some point down the line.

But, on to the point of this particular post -- the upper area of the house. First up, the office. This room is super tiny and has very low ceiling height. It's perfectly usable for the two of us who are both vertically-challenged, but when my 6'4" brother came for a visit, he definitely had to duck to stand upright in this room.

The east side of the office as it stood at closing.

The west side of the office when we first bought the house.

The actual floor space is decent (I believe we measured it at 13'x8' or so), but because of the ceilings, it would be challenging for many adults to utilize this room. The former residents used it as their marijuana den, but we knew we'd find a better use for it.

Unfortunately, I didn't take in-process photos of this room because we were working pretty feverishly to get it done before another set of visitors arrived. So, instead I will say that although it probably doesn't seem like much, there was a lot of time spent in this room between wall texturing, painting, replacing trim, installing heat, creating closet doors, replacing lighting, flooring, and so on.

The east side of the office today.

The west side of the office as it sits now.

But, ultimately, we now have a usable office space (primarily for Sam), and it's kind of a fun spot to sit and watch the world go by. Not pictured are the window shades we are still (impatiently) waiting for, but that are on their way to us.

The loft space is another area that was a giant catastrophe from the get-go. Honestly, we really didn't get a good look at this space (or the now-office either) before the house closed. We've never jumped into a house that we really hadn't seen all of, so this place was a first on many levels.

The loft, as it stood the day we officially "owned" this house. Which is far superior to what it was when the former resident was occupying the space.

The loft is a pretty large space, but because the stairs run through it and the far side of the room has lower ceilings like the office, we were plotting out ways that this could be usable, but not feel as though the world was closing in on anyone using it.

This space was weird and gross, and included a ceiling light mounted on the wall like a sconce. 

Again, as with the office, there's actually quite a bit of square footage in this space, but how to make it usable and functional left us shrugging a bit. Initially, we thought that perhaps we would put in a futon or something of similar ilk so that it could serve as another sleeping space in a pinch. But, after realizing it isn't likely we'd have more than one set of visitors at a time, it didn't really make sense to do this.

The space, in progress, complete with B-dog photo bomb.

It is always nice to have a quiet space though for reading, reflecting, etc, and although we don't have need for this space specifically, it exists in the house, so perhaps that would be a good use for it?

A different vantage point of the loft while in progress.

And a slightly different point of view of the loft while we were working on it.

That was the plan we were moving ahead with - to use it as a simple, quiet space for whatever purpose... and, it could even serve as an extension of the guest room for visitors.

The loft area today... a huge transformation from the dark space it was prior. It's amazing what proper lighting can do to a room!

I am still in shock at the transformation of this space. It's one of those spaces that you truly had to experience in person to know just how grungy and dark it was at the beginning, but after all of the work we've put in to it, I have to say that it's possibly my favorite area inside the house.

It really is crazy how different this space feels today.

It's just a relaxing, calm area, and it's difficult to believe that this is the same space that we had to delicately walk into when we first viewed the house because of the massive amounts of garbage and lack of lighting that didn't really allow for passage through the space. No one will be able to truly understand the amount of work that went into this space, but I think it was well worth it in the end.