It’s man code to deny to your wife and kids that you snore. They could have audio and video proof but any man will shift blame when confronted. Wasn’t me, I slept like a baby.
Renovating this cottage on the nature coast meant not only dreaming up what we wanted it to look like but also solving problems. Snoring can be a problem for your loved ones and the maker of this racket must have a retreat or vice versa.
We knew we could not have a home with just one bedroom but adding a second did create the most challenges for this entire makeover. You see, this potential second space was likely the center of a lot of “wrong-doing” if you know what I mean.
The smell of urine, God knows what was pickled in jars, wiring that would make a death row inmate wince, and just lots of weird stuff in what I would call the hell hole of the house. If that were not enough, termites and dry rot had left nothing more than paper shells for walls.
I’m blessed to have good friends who take a sincere interest in seeing me succeed. If you don’t have such friends then maybe you don’t have friends at all. One such friend, Dan, is an architect and an all-around super-knowledgable person. I invited him for the weekend to fish and have a look at our coastal cottage project.
One of the things he immediately saw was how to take this tiny room and turn it into a real legitimate bedroom. That was the plan all along but an official bedroom for property tax purposes requires a closet. We didn’t have an inch to spare by walling off a closet area.
It was easy for Dan to see that there was a way to have not only a closet but have it recessed in the wall and save the bedroom’s square footage. His expertise didn’t stop there. He then helped me visualize how to run heat and air into the room. Lastly, how to light the room with modern and flat can lights was given up by him as well.
To top it off, our lack of space was further solved by installing a pocket door (one of my few good ideas) instead of a swing door. It’s truly amazing the transformation of what many would probably call a meth lab to a crisp, clean modern bedroom ready for the antique iron bed, nightstand, and likely 1-2 more pieces of furniture.
This is all that I have loved about working on this project. Problems to solve and enjoying the company of the experienced people who helped us solve them.
So, pack your bags and hanging shirts. If you snore (I don’t) you’ll now have that part of the cottage all to yourself where you can saw logs in peace.