I was hoping to have the studio bathroom wallpaper finished by bedtime last night so I could show it to you today, but that didn’t happen. I’ve made good progress, but let me tell you that the wallpaper I’m using in this bathroom is the most difficult wallpaper I’ve ever installed. The difficulty lies in the design, but I will give more details about it when I finish the wallpaper and share it with you. So I need another day to finish this. But while I’m working in the bathroom, I’m already mentally planning my next project – the storage space in our bedroom.
If you have been reading and following my projects, you already know that our guest bathroom is in our master bedroom suite. This is very inconvenient and of course we cannot keep this layout. So the bathroom is turned into a much-needed storage room where I can store Matt’s equipment (power wheelchair, shower wheelchair, and Hoyer lift) when he’s not using them. Therefore, all existing bathroom fixtures must be removed to make room for storage.
The bathroom I’m talking about is behind those double doors in the bedroom suite foyer.
This bathroom used to look like this and was our primary guest bathroom the entire time we lived in this house (since 2013).
Now things look a little different. I had a new countertop installed a few years ago. And a while ago I was planning to renovate my bathroom, so I took down the colorful shower curtain. But for the most part it looks the same today and is still used as our guest bathroom. My studio bathroom will be our only guest bathroom for the foreseeable future (once it’s finished), and then I may remove everything from that bathroom to turn it into a storage room.
I’ve had all sorts of lofty ideas about how I want this space to look and function, but the one thing I’ve never done before is sit down and make a list of everything I want and need to bring into this space, and then try to come up with a solid plan of action. I had big ideas for a sink, lots of closet space and of course our water heater has to go in here. I also want the litter box, food and water in here.
But when I sat down and actually started planning the layout, I very quickly realized how small this room is. The entire room is only 93″ x 88.5″. That’s 7′ 9″ x 7′ 4.5″. That’s pretty small. And once I put a water heater (even if it’s tankless), a Hoyer lift, a shower wheelchair, a power wheelchair, and a kitchen sink in there, there’s almost no room left for actual storage. So something has to go, and of course it has to be the energy supplier.
I’m a little disappointed, but it’s okay. To be honest, I had no real need for a kitchen sink. I just thought it would be handy to have one. But unfortunately I don’t have room for things that aren’t necessary.
After taking the measurements and coming to the conclusion that this room should be an area where only “bare necessities” are needed, I started thinking about what kind of storage space I would like to have here. I want one entire wall to be storage space with shelves and drawers and then the other wall to be dedicated to Matt’s gear, with shelves above that run the entire length of the wall. And then I hope our tankless water heater can be installed in the middle of the wall opposite the door.
For the one wall storage, my first thought was to try IKEA Pax wardrobes. This would be so much easier and faster than building from scratch. On one wall I could add two of the widest units about 14 inches apart where I could add more shelves.
Although I would like to just buy something that can be put together quickly, I don’t think that will work because of the placement of the door in the room. Here is a room layout…
The wall where I want to put the storage is the wall to the right of the door in the floor plan above. On this wall I only have 21.5 inches of space between the wall and the door panel. The IKEA Pax wardrobes only come in two depths. One is 22 7/8 inches deep, which is too deep for this space. The other is 13 3/4 inches deep, wasting too much space. I want to use every inch of space available for storage, especially because I want drawers in there, so I want the drawer storage to make up all 21 inches of the available depth.
So it looks like I’m building from scratch. This is another disappointment because I wanted it to be as simple as possible. But I don’t want to give up storage space just to make it easier. Since this is our forever home, I want to get this right.
I have a lot more to think through before I can commit to a concrete plan or even a definitive room layout, but at least I now know for sure that (1) there is no room for a kitchen sink and (2) I need to prepare to custom build the room. I also need to think through everything I want to store here and make sure there is room for everything. This includes things like vacuum cleaners, carpet cleaners, mops, cleaning supplies, etc. All of these absolutely need to go in here and I want to take the time to plan them out just right so that everything has its place. I’m learning very quickly that designing small spaces is actually much more challenging than I thought when maximum utility and storage space is the goal.
However, I am very excited about this project. If I’m being completely honest, I’m much more excited about this storage room than I am about my studio bathroom. We’ve lived in this house for so long without enough closet space, and I dream of a day when everything has a place and can be stored properly. My walk-in closet was a big step toward that goal, and this storage closet will be another big step toward that goal. I want to do it right.
In any case, I really hope that I can finish the wallpaper in the studio bathroom today so that I can show you the progress tomorrow. I’ll also share details about why this wallpaper was the hardest to install. What I thought would be a two day process has now become a four day process. At one point yesterday I was almost ready to throw in the towel, but instead of tearing it all down, I decided to stop, sleep on it, and look at it with fresh eyes and renewed energy this morning. So today I’m going ahead and I think I can finish it today. More details on this tomorrow (hopefully).
