We’ve reached a major milestone at the Red House and we need your help deciding what project to take on next!
In This Post
The Decision
We’ve passed a huge milestone at the Red House! Inspections are passed, the kitchen (reveal soon with a small sneak peek above!), the little bathroom (reveal soon!) and the big bathroom are complete. Now on to the next, but… That’s what we’re struggling with, and that’s where you come in!
While the bedrooms and living room are performing their intended functions of being spaces to sleep and live, they’re kind of doing the bare minimum. Both bedrooms have new mattresses and placeholder beds to support them and not too much more than that. The living room is more ‘furnished’, but we’ve got biiiiiig plans to customize it to meet our needs. But, which one should we tackle first? Let’s break down what might be next, and leave your choice in the comments below!
The Kids’ Room
The Kids’ room is, by far, the larger of the Red House’s two bedrooms. The eventual goal for this room is for it to perform multiple functions and to perform all of them well. In the end, it’ll be a combination laundry room, playroom, craft room, bunk room and office. With lots of storage. So, yeah, we’ve got our work cut out for us.
How will we accomplish all of this in a room that’s roughly 13′ x 17′? Well, part of it is already done. We moved a couple of walls in the room and flipped the orientation of the existing closet and bumped the wall out six inches to accommodate a stacked washer dryer unit. Laundry room functionality – check!
The rest of these plans will be accomplished with a massive custom built-in structure. We’re envisioning a ladder/staircase scenario leading to a lofted twin bed up top, with a king or queen bed down below. We’ll also integrate some storage in the form of a desk with drawers or shelving (or both) and a wide desk for work or creative endeavors. We’ve sketched out a handful of variations on napkins and we’re narrowing things down, but this will likely de-throne the Tree house banquette and turn out to be the biggest custom built-in we’ve ever taken on.
The Primary Bedroom
On the other side of the house is the pint-sized primary bedroom! This little space is barely over the required square footage for a bedroom, with a 6′ x 9′ rug just the right size to fill the space. As we mentioned, it has a king sized bed, a wall-mounted TV and a couple of end tables at the moment. The plan here is to keep the layout exactly the same as it is now, but with a big custom upholstered king-sized headboard with integrated nightstands… and maybe a bed platform with integrated drawers or storage?
We’ve gathered a handful of inspiration images for this one, and we’re fairly certain of the direction it’ll go. We don’t, however, know what color we’ll end up with for the fabric or the structure itself. Will we keep it natural or pick a bold paint color? Will we go with leather, velvet or a secret third thing for the headboard? Time will tell!
The Living Room
Over in the living room, we’ve got a couple of projects up our collective sleeves that will likely happen in conjunction with one another. The larger portion of the two-part project is yet another built-in, but this time it’ll surround the sofa on three sides like a big cozy hug. We’re envisioning a small integrated coffee table on each side of the vintage Herman Miller Chiclet sofa, with surrounding bookshelves up the sides and likely some integrated lighting. We’ve planned for this with strategic outlet placing for plug-in lamps, but may opt for hardwired fixtures along the top.
As a bonus, the living room also encompasses the ‘entryway’ of the home, which is yet to be defined. Our plan for the area just inside the front door is to build out a storage bench area with drawers for shoe storage. We’ll also likely integrate a ton of hooks and bonus storage, not too different from what we did in the Tree House mudroom.
Help Us Choose!
So there you have it, the next few projects we’re considering the Red House. And they’re all built-ins! In full disclosure, all of these projects will happen eventually. So if we decide to go a different route than you were hoping, please be patient. Your project is coming! Let us know in the comments, which room should we start with? We’ve got a mountain of cleaning and organizing to tackle in the meantime, but we’re also itching to lay out the design and get rolling!
WOW…what a beautiful transformation! I say go for the bunk room followed by bedroom. Can’t exactly say why except once done the other tasks remain much smaller in my mind. Can’t wait to see what your plans look like in the end. Beautiful job as always.
Good point!
+1 on this comment! + the living room is already so special and beautiful, just let us enjoy it a little longer as is 😍
Living room/entry!
My vote is primary bedroom. It seems like the least amount of work and gives you longer to live with, use, and design the other two larger spaces. Excited to see all the finished and yet to be finished spaces!
We could probably use a smaller project right about now, haha!
I vote the big build, the kids room.
I’m along for the ride whatever you choose! I’d be leaning towards the living room because that is likely where you spend the most collective time.
True!
I vote for living room first! For purely selfish reasons – I’m envisioning a similar project for our home and I’d love to learn from what you do!
I’ve been loving following along, the house looks so beautiful so far! I vote for the living room!
I think the kids room will be the most complex, but I’m actually really interested to see what you come up with for the living room. The colors and forms (that panneling!!) are so good already, I’m really intrigued by what you’ll do for the built-in + entry situation. Living room gets my vote.
Eeee!
THE LIVING ROOM! I want to do a similar coffee table surround for my couch so very excited to see that project!
We have so many ideas swirling!
I can’t wait to see the living room complete because it already has such a cozy fall vibe and I know the finishing touches are going to be glorious but the entryway sounds like a low stress way to ease into all the built ins. Can’t wait to see everything come together, you guys are the masters of setting a mood!
Aw, thanks, Sarah!
Bunk beds! Can’t wait to see how you design this room (and all the rest, but most excited about the “I have to make this functional for 7 completely different things”)
Haha, yup, we’re up for the challenge!
I vote the primary bedroom – it seems like the “smallest” option, which might be a good breather from the kitchen, where you might get the most impact for the effort. No matter what you pick, I’ll tune in!
Thanks, Carla!
I vote primary bed! That room feels like the fastest to “done” and done is motivating
That’s very tempting, for sure!
Agree! Simplest first.
The primary bedroom. That way you have an oasis while the rest of the house is in disarray.
Each project sounds amazing in their own way. The primary bedroom sounds the most simple so it will be quicker to get that one checked off. The bedroom plans sound massive and impressive, but from what you mentioned, I can envision the end result. The living rooms plans have me stumped and sound the most intriguing and mysterious, so a more exciting process and reveal. So to quench my thirst, I vote for the living room!
I vote for the primary b/c so often the kids rooms go through several iterations before the parents ever get a finished space. Plus the kid’s space and living room look more finished already!
Definitely Kids room/multifunctional room. Your kiddo needs a place to place and do crafts. Plus think of all the wonderful storage in sight! My 2nd choice would be the living room built-ins. Having extra storage and built-ins is ALWAYS an asset!
I think the kids room would yield the most added functionality so that gets my top vote. An entry area storage solution could also be key with messier weather on the horizon and the primary bedroom looks calming and restful but also most in need of a little personality so I don’t think there’s wrong answer!
All good points, haha!
Livingroom! 2nd, Primary Bedroom.
Go with the “easiest”… the primary. It will probably be the fastest job, letting you check one thing off the to-do list and letting you move on to the next! :) Like Dave Ramsey’s snowball if you’re familiar. Everything looks so cozy and wonderful. Great job!
Okay so I originally wanted to vote for the living room because I think it’ll be so nice to be done with this space and spend Fall and Winter enjoying it & the fireplace but the more I think about it the more I’m using that logic for the opposite and enjoying Phase 1 of the living room through these colder seasons. Tree House isn’t rented in the winter right? So you can focus on the primary bedroom in Red House, and stay at Tree House while it’s a reno zone. Then move onto to the kid’s bedroom, and come back to the living room in the spring so when you open Tree House back up for rentals, you’ll have your bedrooms back in Red House!
I love all the thought behind this!
Bunk room appears to require the most creativity & space planning at this point in the reno – I’m here for it.
Very curious to see the kids room, with all the functionality, as I am in a similar situation myself at the moment. After that the living room, I think it’s going to be stunning. It already looks great!
Thanks! It’s kind of a win-win-win for us. All three spaces need more functionality and each change will help us move items into their ‘forever’ homes. It’s the renovation domino effect where every completed space also clears out space in another!
living room!
Ok, so on instagram I said the primary bedroom, but I’m changing my mind to the kid’s bedroom, because I would love to see how you fit that much functionality into the space, and how you do it with beauty!
Eeek, thank you!
My vote is the primary bedroom as I would LOVE to see a tutorial for the headboard idea as it would work beautifully in our primary <3
Wow, that is a small primary bedroom. Mine is a little bigger but doesn’t function well, so I would love to see what you do for yours.
It’s not large, but even with a king sized bed, it still flows well for our needs. There’s always room for improvement though!
I vote the living room or the primary bedroom! Living room because that’s likely where you will spend most of your time, so it would be nice to have a “completed” room to hang out in. And also since it’s attached the entryway, and is the first thing you’ll see when you walk in! The second vote is the primary bedroom because you need a nice relaxing place at the end of the day. I can’t wait to see it, it looks gorgeous already!