Project Payne – Planning a bedroom fit for a ‘princess’! Eat your heart out, Kate Middleton ;-)

I posted images of the huge fireplace in this rental apartment bedroom last week and below are some of the rest of the completed bedroom, along with some hideous befores. The layout of this apartment remained largely the same as pre-works as there wasn’t much leeway for change, however extra room and storage space was gained by adjusting the en-suite shower room stud walls and simply moving things around a little. You can see this in the drawing below of the existing layout on the left and then my completed layout to the right.

The positioning of the doorway into the old shower room meant the bed couldn’t be moved to what was the wardrobe wall and I wanted to open up the fireplace. So I had a little play around with the en-suite to take the long stud wall back a bit, meaning the bed could be moved, giving space for a clear walk into the room, my dressing table fireplace, drawers, a wardrobe, large double bed and side tables – result! We even managed to squeeze a large 1000 x 800 shower in. Everything was measured to the nth degree with not an inch to spare 🙂

So this was what the previous landlord had left us…. a romantic, relaxing sleeping space with beautiful furnishings…?!!

And some during work shots….

Here the new stud work is being built for the new en-suite, posted previously, and the walls have been stripped of the old plaster to allow new Knauf thermal board to be fitted to keep the apartment toasty warm. We insulate under all the floors too for extra warmth.

Also built was a false ceiling to slightly lower the bedroom ceiling. In old buildings such as this the acoustics are terrible and sound travels between apartments, so this extra layer with insulation and sound proof boarding helped.

This was also the apartment where last summer I posted about wet rot, uncovered to all the joist ends when we lifted the floors to insulated and run new cabling. Not the best find in the world but not a disaster either, all quickly replaced as I didn’t want my new tenant’s wardrobe to end up in the cellar if it fell through a rotten floor!

So what did the finished bedroom finally look like? That’s where the princess comment comes in… when the tenant met us there for the handover of keys and it was all dressed, furnished and finished, she stood in the bedroom and sighed “Ohhhhh, I feel like a princess.’

She was delighted and as her landlord, so was I! Eat your heart out, Kate Middleton 😉