So yesterday, for the first time in at least 18 months, I decided to open the door and see exactly how I had left it. It wasn’t quite as bad as I had remembered it, but it’s not great, either.

But after a while, I grew tired of the walls. And when I started working on my studio in 2023, I decided that the bathroom needed a makeover as well. That’s when I started taking off the wall tile and coming up with a new plan for the walls.

And this is as far as I got before I decided to go a different direction with the function of this room altogether.

But now, the plan is to keep the function of the room the same and finish it. And I have to say, I’m kind of relieved about that. I really liked having a working, usable bathroom on this side of the house.

The room is a mess, and it’s been forgotten so long that there are cobwebs in here. But I don’t think it would take long at all to finish it. The hardest parts — the crown molding, door trim, window trim, wainscoting, and vanity — are all already in place.

So at this point, I’m looking at a very basic makeover, not a remodel.

Obviously, the first order of business has to be getting this pump fixed or replaced. Without a working pump, this bathroom isn’t functional at all.

And then I can finish up with the walls and few decorative touches. I think it will be a relative quick project as soon as I get a plan in place.

When I started working on the studio, I had a plan to keep this bathroom really colorful and fun in keeping with the colors in the studio. I even designed a wallpaper for the walls.

But with the new plan, I don’t think I’ll be using this wallpaper anymore. The new plan is to make this bathroom the official guest bathroom. That will allow me to completely finish the bedroom suite, including turning the hallway bathroom into a much-needed storage room for Matt’s equipment. And it will allow us to get a new hot water heater which will go in that storage closet as well. The hot water heater is the last remaining fixed item in the sunroom that is preventing us from tearing down the sunroom.

So with this bathroom turning into our official guest bathroom (and the only guest bathroom we’ll have for a long while), I don’t really want it to be a crazy, psychedelic, seizure-inducing room. As long as we had that hallway bathroom available for guests, I was pretty much the only person who ever used this half bathroom. So I could make it as crazy and colorful as I wanted to. But now that it will have a larger “audience”, I want it to be a more generally pleasing room that isn’t covered in crazy color.

Don’t get me wrong. There will be color. And, after all, it is still located inside my studio, which is a colorful feast for the eyes. Lest you forget…

So guests will have to walk through this to get to the bathroom. But I’m okay with that. This room, more than any other in our house, is my color-loving personality in room form.

And everyone who has seen my studio in person has been very complimentary about it. Even if they wouldn’t want it in their own homes, people seem to enjoy looking at it in our house.

And I’m pleased to report that so far, my studio hasn’t induced a seizure in one single guest. So that’s good. I think people can handle walking through my studio to get to a bathroom.

But I would like to come up with a calmer and more generally pleasing plan for the bathroom. I could even carry the green from the back entry walls onto the top portions of the bathroom walls.

But just to recap, I went from this bedroom…

…to this walk-in closet with a laundry area.

This was a pretty extensive project because it started with all of the old flooring and subfloor being removed and new subfloor and flooring being installed. That added quite a bit to the cost of the overall project. And then I stained and sealed the floor…twice. But at the beginning of the year, once the old flooring and subfloor was out, and the new subfloor was in, the room looked like this…

That contractor also did the plumbing and some of the electrical rough-in for me before I fired him. (You can read about that here.) But I did pay him some for the work he did in this room.

Contractor fees: $500.00

Then I hired out the installation of the new hardwood flooring, and then finished the floor myself. I’m so glad that I redid those floors! Can you imagine my closet with these dark floors?

I honestly think those dark floors would have made the whole room so dark and drab. I had them covered while I was building the closet cabinets, but once I decided to redo them, I uncovered them and sanded around the edges. I can’t find any pictures with the solid dark floors with the cabinets, but you can get an idea of what the dark floors would have looked like here…

It was a lot of work, but I’m so glad I went back and sanded down those floors and redid them with the Bona NaturalSeal and Bona Traffic HD. So the flooring cost for this room includes the actual hardwood flooring, the installation, and the finishing and refinishing (including the rental fee for the sanders and the sandpaper for the sanders).

Flooring Cost: $2581.83

The cost for the plywood and trim that I used for the island was included in this, so this cost covers all of the plywood, trim, molding, etc., for all of the perimeter cabinets plus the island.

Lumber cost: $3141.80

And, of course, there were a lot of little costs that added up along the way — nails, screws, sandpaper, wood filler, etc.

Supplies cost: $290.38

And then there was the cost of the primer, paint, and paint supplies. I probably could have reduced this cost by about $150 had I not purchased 100 paint samples. But I had such a hard time deciding on a paint color for the cabinets. Remember all of the colors I tested out?

I don’t think I’ve ever tested out this many samples for any other room. But I really struggled with this one.

I am so glad I went with a blue. I can’t even imagine the room being coral. And the color I went with — Sherwin Williams Billowy Breeze — ended up being perfect. I love it so much! But Sherwin Williams paint isn’t cheap. And neither is the primer I used — Zinsser B-I-N shellac-based primer. I was a bit shocked at the total cost of the paint and paint supplies (brushes, rollers, roller trays, etc.). Those pricey primers and paints, plus all of the supplies, added up really quick.

Paint and paint supplies: $1145.91

I put all of the hardware for the room into one category. This includes the brushed gold closet rods…

Plus all of the drawer and door pulls, drawer slides for the island, etc.

This was another category that adds up really fast. Drawer pulls and soft close ball bearing drawer slides aren’t cheap!

Hardware costs: $641.48

And then there’s the main lighting for the room. I went from having one dimly lit ceiling fan in the center of the room to having loads of flush ceiling lights on dimmers.

Good lighting makes all the different in a room, and I especially wanted my closet to be very light and bright. But I also put all of the lights on dimmers. So this cost includes the new lighting (not including the decorative light fixtures), all of the new wiring that the new lights required, dimmer switches, cover plates, etc.

Lighting Costs: $633.46

The next category is all of the pretty stuff. And my closet wouldn’t be my closet with the pretty stuff.

This category includes the wallpaper, sconces, mirror, glass for the jewelry drawer, clothes hamper, step ladder, etc.

The pretty stuff: $1375.48

And finally, I put my chandelier in its own separate category.

Once I added the numbers, I realized that it cost more than I thought it did. But it’s still a fraction of what the inspiration chandelier cost!

Chandelier cost: $388.54

And that’s it! So that brings us to the grand total for turning a bedroom into a walk-in closet and laundry room…

• Contractor fees: $500.00
• Flooring: $2581.83
• Lumber: $3141.80
• Supplies: $290.38
• Paint and paint supplies: $1145.91
• Hardware: $641.48
• Main room lighting: $633.46
• The pretty stuff: $1375.48
• Chandelier: $388.54

GRAND TOTAL: $10,698.88

I have to admit that I didn’t realize it cost that much. Was it worth it? Well, I guess only I can answer that question. And for me, the answer is a resounding YES!

So as a reminder, this is what our bedroom suite foyer looks like right now…

And this is the wall where I plan to incorporate a full-length mirror. So when entering the bedroom suite, the mirror will be front and center. Well, not quite center, but you know what I mean. It’ll be right there, so it’ll be one of the first things seen when entering the bedroom suite.

And then on this wall, I plan to put an upholstered bench that I can use if I need to sit down and put on my shoes.

I still haven’t figured out the details of that upholstered bench. I’m not sure if I want it to be built in or a movable bench. And while I do want the top to be upholstered, I don’t think it can have a full skirt on it like the ottomans that are in our entryway.

And the reason for that is because I need to put a passthrough on this wall for Felicity. So it’ll be small and low in the bottom corner of this wall.

That means she’ll need to be able to pass under the upholstered bench, and a full skirt would eventually get dirty with her rubbing against it all the time. But I want her to be able to come and go as she pleases because we’ll be sleeping with the bedroom doors closed each night, and Felicity sleeps on me every night. She usually leaves and comes back at least once every night (and I sleep right through it). She wouldn’t be pleased at all if she’s either locked in or locked out of our room at night.

So I need to come up with a design for the upholstered bench that will kind of hide that little passthrough hole and allow her to pass under the bench without rubbing up against fabric each time. That makes me think either a separate, movable bench with a short skirt or a built-in bench with an upholstered top would be the two options that would work for that purpose.

Anyway, another detail I’ve been thinking about is the mirror. Until the last few days, I had been planning on using the mirror that I made for the guest bedroom. You can see it to the right of the door in this photo…

Of course, I wouldn’t want it to be yellow, so I had planned on gold leafing the frame. But I’ve decided not to use that mirror after all.

I could do a simple arched top. I really like this one with the understated gold frame. This one is from Wayfair (affiliate link).

But I also like this one with the wider frame. The frame on this one kind of adds a more modern look to it. This one is also from Wayfair (affiliate link).

This one would also work perfectly. I like how the design on the bottom is like the design I plan to use for our headboard. This mirror is from Amazon (affiliate link). The shape of this one is probably my favorite, but my only issue is the size. The widest I’ve found in this design is 24″, and I was hoping for something at least 30″ wide. I’m afraid a 24″-wide mirror might look too small on that wall.

So those are really the only three options I’ve found so far. Like I said, it’s slim pickings when you rule out anything with a filigree design. In a perfect world where I could always get my way, this mirror would come in a full-length size in a width of at least 30 inches. But it doesn’t. This is a tiny mirror, but I love that it’s different. I like different. This small mirror is from Amazon (affiliate link).

So I’m going to keep looking, but I know for sure that I won’t be using the mirror that I already have. I need something with curves, but nothing with a filigree design. It’s difficult to find something unique within those parameters.