Master bedroom suites are the third most common remodeling project undertaken, after a redo of the kitchen or bathroom. There are a number of ways to improve a master suite, from reworking the existing space, to borrowing some square footage from adjacent rooms, to adding on.
When you have a large open space, such as an attic, that you want to convert into a master bedroom or guest suite, it’s a natural temptation to use walls to separate the various functions.
Instead, consider using a “pod” of space — a room that’s not attached to any of the side walls, but that floats unattached within the larger space.
In the remodel shown here, a pod of space partially encloses the bathroom, giving the bed a wall to rest on and partitioning the rest of the room into closet and sitting area. The beauty of this solution is that it maintains the sense of openness — and avoids all the tricky carpentry work entailed in meeting the complex ceiling shapes that are present in an attic.
Adapted, with permission, from Not So Big Remodeling by Sarah Susanka, published by The Taunton Press (2009).
