Our construction project is all-but-finished and so I thought it would be fun to look back with some before and after photos. The only thing left to finish is the stucco on the outside of the dormer and that should be happening in the next few weeks.

For those that haven’t been following my series, the quick recap is that about 18 months ago, the pressed fiber tile ceiling on our second floor died of old age and fell down all over the bedroom and office that we had up there. We worked with my dad, a retired architect, to rethink the space; took months to find a contractor and get on his schedule; and in October, we finally started fixing the mess. Instead of just repairing, we decided to add a bathroom and replace all of the windows. The previous space was like a cave. There were no overhead lights, ancient insulation, and everything was covered with knotty pine paneling. We had been intending to update this space for about 20 years (not kidding) and we’d been saving up for it, but some other project always came up with more urgency (like replacing the furnace) and so it wasn’t until the house decided to self destruct that it forced us to jump in.

The previous photos are a before and after of the space. The following photos are the brand new spaces we created by cutting a giant hole in our roof where you see that row of closets. We added a second dormer, which made the ceiling high enough to add the bathroom and window seat.

One of the last fun details I added was to design some wallpaper for the inside of our linen cabinet. When they demolished the old walls and insulation, they pulled out huge booklets of newspaper from the 1920s that were used to insulate between the floors. It was very fragile, but I went through pages and pages and cut out all of the advertising that had to do with soap, toilet paper, and beauty products. I put together a collage of these that was about 24″ square and made a repeating pattern. The cabinet and drawers of this beautiful vintage furniture piece are now lined with this wallpaper, which delights me every time I open a drawer.