Bedroom

When we bought the house this side of the house was rented out as a unit. There was our living room, our guest bedroom, and then the stairs to a bedroom upstairs. They built it so that you could access the upstairs from this side of the house but you had to go through one room to get upstairs. We wanted to use both rooms as bedrooms so we needed to do something with the stairs. Our first idea was to wall the stairs and make a hallway with a door into the downstairs bedroom but it would have left the bedroom very small. We decided instead to direct the stairs through the wall into the "library/office area". This way the guest bedroom was off the living room and had it's own access and the upstairs bedroom had it's own access near the other bedrooms. It also gave us a straight shot up the stairs. This being helpful since the stairs are narrow and we couldn't really take anything up them going around a corner. So we took down the banister and opened the wall. This is a picture of the stairs with no wall after taking down he banister. You can also see where the stairs came down into the room. These pictures are taken standing in the bedroom door.

After we had the stairs taken out we framed the wall and used plywood instead of sheetrock. Our thought on this is that nobody will go thought the plywood. It also less likely to get get dinged by things falling down the stairs. We figured this was safer since we are only doing one layer on this wall for now. After we get the electrical in this room and the stairway done then we will finish both sides of the wall. So we put up plywood, filled in the cracks with wood putty and painted. So here are pictures of the stairway with plywood and a picture of the dresser in the place that the stairs used to come into the room. The last picture also has the wall painted.