If you’ve been following along, you know that we are planning to turn the old apartment kitchenette and pantry into a master en suite.  It is incredibly rare to find a closet larger than 2′ x 3′ in an old house, much less a walk in!  And you can forget about a large, luxurious bathroom.  Older homes just weren’t built to accommodate what we consider “must haves” today.  We’re so spoiled!  But lucky for us, the back half of the upstairs was turned into an apartment some time ago, leaving us with a large “kitchenette” that is no longer needed.  Which means, with a little imagination, we can create our dream master en suite!!

Here’s the general layout now.  For your reference, the kitchenette is about 15′ x 13′, the pantry and closet area in total is about 15′ x 8′, and the bedroom is about 15′ x 15’8″.

Here’s the plan… we will knock out the pantry and master closet walls, creating one large space in between the bedroom and bathroom.  However, we will leave the right wall of the current master closet and insert a pocket door to save space.  We considered leaving this room open, but we thought it would be nice to be able to shut that room off if for some reason we have guests up there and it’s super messy!

You can see how large this area is, thanks to my fabulous model (he’s 6 feet tall).

Then we will wall in where the pantry door and master closet door are currently.  By doing this, we will basically have a closet that is about 10′ x 8′.

We are still playing around with several layout ideas for the bathroom, but we know we want a double vanity, large tile shower (preferably with two shower heads and a bench), the pedestal tub from the current guest bathroom, and a separate water closet for the toilet.  The chimney in the middle of the far wall can make things a little awkward, but by closing up the pantry door, we create a long wall there, so it’s workable.  There are lots of options, we just have to decide which one works best for us.  More on that later.

Anyway, here’s a basic layout of what we’re going for:

While we’re still figuring out the bathroom layout, I’ve pretty much narrowed down my favorite ideas for the closet (of course…I’m a girl with way too many clothes and shoes).  I would like there to be plenty of hanging room, because Charles and I both would prefer to hang up most things; but I’d also like to incorporate some drawers, as well as shoe and jewelry storage.  Here’s what I like best about a few closets I’ve seen lately.

Ok, this is pretty much perfect.  I love the elegant white built-ins, with plenty of hanging space, but also lots of drawer storage.  I love that there are cubbies above for bags.  This one is especially appealing to me because we also have a full-size window at the very back of the closet (I didn’t include it in the floorplans above).

I love this one sort of for the same reasons.  The glass doors make it look even more resplendent.  I’m also in love with the valet bars for displaying outfits and the lighting with drum shades.

Being able to close cabinet doors like this helps to keep everything looking neat and tidy.

I’d love to do a lacquer dresser like this under the window for delicates and jewelry.  So glamorous!

I could go on and on.  If you’d like to see more ideas that I love, feel free to browse my Master Suite Pinterest board!