The Interior (part 2)

 There are two interior 'rooms' in the house...meaning rooms with actual walls.  One is the bedroom, which is small enough that I can't take a pic that encompasses the whole thing.  So the first pic is from the doorway, looking toward the two windows, and the second pic is from the corner between the windows, looking back toward the living room.  There are exposed beams in the ceiling, which I love, and an area above the small closet, as well as two transom spaces above the door and in the wall.  I think these also add a lot of spaceousness to the small space.

 Although the former owner had her queen-sized headboard against the wall next to the door, we intend on putting a smaller full-sized bed in this room for company (although we may stay in it initially ourselves), and the headboard will be inset into a niche in the wall next to the closet, so we can lay in bed and look out the windows at night.  From the window facing down the drive, we should be able to get an amazing glimpse at the sky.
The other room is the bathroom, which has a small closet area ajacent to it that contains the washer/dryer combo.  After much deliberation, we have decided to leave it there instead of moving it downstairs, but I will go into much more detail on all these plans as we work on them.  I will say, however, that the plan that I think will be final is my idea, and I love, love, love it.  In the meantime...what you see here is the washer/dryer, and a small linen closet next to it, which will be removed.  As it stands, you have to walk through this little area to get into the bathroom, the door of which is just beyond the washer/dryer.

 Looking through that door, you can see into the bathroom, which is probably about ten times the size of the one in the camper that we're used to.  And I do love that window, which overlooks the back side of the house....the only side with no long-range view....but it's full of huge rhododendrons, which you can see in this pic.

 There is also a full-sized tub in this bathroom...with a FULL-SIZED SHOWER.  And that shower contains HOT WATER....in abundance.  After two years of standing under a warm trickle, that alone is worth the price of admission.  And I cannot stress that enough.

I haven't spoken much about the kitchen, but I have included a pic of it here, because it too will be getting a huge transformation.  As with all the other plans, though, we have decided...for the moment, at least, to scale back in this area, too.  (We can always add more later, but we really, really want to get in this house as soon as possible!)  So instead of tearing out the wall you see in this pic, I think we've pretty much decided to work within the space we have.  We will still be tearing out the cabinets, but the sink will stay in the same place, so we don't have to reroute plumbing, and we'll have a bigger window over it.  The back door (beyond the refrigerator) will be removed, and the kitchen will take on a U-configuration that will wrap around the walls for more counter space.

In the loft, we'll be removing the railing (at least initially), so that we can expand the floor all the way to the wall above the kitchen.  That will remove our open beams (sigh), but the beams will still be visible, and that's more important.  Here in these pics, you can get a better idea of the views we'll get sitting on (or in) our bed in the loft, which is why we want our bedroom up here.  We'll figure out something for privacy screens, which will have to be worked out eventually, anyway, just for when we have company, if for no other time.  With just the two of us living here, it really won't be an issue most of the time.  One thing I do want that Keith is working on is to install a horizontal fan across that open space above the living room, and remove the two ceiling fans that are there now.  They don't move much air where they are, and are impossible to clean.  I want them gone.

Here, you can see the beams looking down into the kitchen area.  This will all be floored, and it's this area that will become the upstairs powder room (waffling on the shower, still, but only because we really want to keep the view on that side of the house).  Looking over the front railing, though, you can see how much larger the living room looks.  Keith is standing in what will wind up being our dining nook. He's going to make me a wide-planked farm table to go there.



As I've said all along, the best asset of the house is the breathtaking roof line.  It's by far one of the most unusual ones I've ever seen, so whatever we do, I want to be able to enhance that, which is why I want to get rid of the ceiling fans and add a beautiful paddle fan across the space.  It will absolutely be beautiful, and functional too, and one heck of a lot easier to clean!  Below, you can see where the stove pipe goes through the ceiling...I'm really hoping that the stove works out, since that would mean we wouldn't have to figure out how to plug that ugly hole in the otherwise breathtaking ceiling.

The head of the bed will be against the door-windows in the loft, and I'm not sure how we'll go about treating them to keep out the cold. I haven't actually brought it up, but I'm almost hoping that we will rework that to regular windows so that the head of the bed will be against an actual wall, with windows above it.  We shall see, I suppose.  This is also the back of the house, with no long-range view, but lots of rhododendrons.

One of the coolest things, though, is the idea I had for moving furniture into the loft.  Since we're not sure what kind of stair treatment we'll have, or whether it will be feasible to utilize it for moving furniture, the only other alternative will be to move it up and over the loft railing from below.  I came up with the idea of installing a rustic barn pulley for hoisting things with a rope, etc, that we can attach to the main ceiling beams on a track that can be moved back and forth.

 Then it will always be available for whenever we need to move stuff, and the rest of the time, it will just sit there and look cool.  Here is the centermost point in the ceiling, and I just love the way the massive beams come together to form it.  I just hope that all our ideas will come together to really showcase the workmanship to it's full potential, because for all the crappy things the builder did, he did do an outstanding job on the roof!