this old foreclosed home: the invention of an office

When we bought this sad little house, the upstairs wasn't laid out very well. At some point, it looks like the parents said "That's it! We need more room, build an addition!" with no thought or purpose to the design beside space. I mean, they even opted for less expensive options, like panelling, drop ceilings and carpet. So I KNOW that they were only thinking 'space, space, space!' Anyway, it was now up to us to make it work. To make it feel more on purpose and less like two giant rooms.

Here's what the hallway looked like before:


We decided that it was too confusing to have two rooms the same exact size, so we left the one on the right large so it would clearly be recognized as a master bedroom. Then we decided to put a hallway right down the center of the two doors and push the second bedroom wall back, quite a bit. Enough to make an open area large enough to hold the set of windows for natural light, and a desk and shelves for a usable computer area. This should come in handy when bebe decides she's going to get a Facebook account in 23 years, if Facebook's still around that is.

So here you can see the new wall and the office area, along with new doorways to the secondary bedroom and the master bedroom. Make sense?


Here's the new office area painted and waiting for floors...


We really designed around having that set of windows in the hallway, to provide natural light and avoid the long hallway feeling like a dreary tunnel. It's nice and bright during the day:


And the finished area, which personally I find is a great resource and space for both of us. I'm really glad we made the decision to rework the plans and have something that we could get a lot more use out of.