Bedroom Remodeling

Closets that hold what a room needs

Closets are the most common complaint about secondary bedrooms in older Massachusetts houses. Capes and colonials built decades ago often have shallow closets under a sloped ceiling, or a single narrow closet that was an afterthought. A bedroom remodel can reframe the closet to full depth, borrow space from a hall or an adjoining closet, or build a closet into a knee wall where the roofline slopes.

Inside, the layout matters as much as the size. Double hanging rods for a child's room, shelves and drawers for a guest room that doubles as storage, and a light inside the closet so you can see what you are reaching for. We build the interior to fit what will actually be stored there.

A closet can also come from a room that is larger than its use. A long guest room might give up a few feet at one end for a wall of closets, which leaves a better-proportioned room behind.

This page covers secondary bedrooms. The primary bedroom, its bathroom and its closet are planned together as a suite, and that work has its own page.

Windows a person can get out of

Every sleeping room needs a way out in an emergency other than the door. The building code sets requirements for the size of the window opening and how high the sill can sit above the floor. Many older bedroom windows, especially small double-hungs and windows in finished attic rooms, do not meet them. In a finished attic, a dormer or a larger gable window is often the only way to get there.

When we replace a bedroom window, we size it to meet the egress requirements where the opening allows. Sometimes that means widening the rough opening and installing a new header, which is structural work and gets permitted and inspected. The window is flashed and trimmed to match the rest of the house, inside and out, and in rooms on upper floors we talk about window opening limiters for young children.

Basement bedrooms are a special case. A sleeping room below grade needs its own way out, usually a larger window with a well dug outside or an exterior door, and that work involves the foundation wall. Our basement remodeling page covers it in more detail.

We check that before any design work, so you are not halfway into a project before finding out there is a problem.

Quieter walls between rooms

Kids' rooms that share a wall, a guest room next to the nursery, a teenager above the living room: sound between bedrooms is a problem most houses were never built to handle. Interior walls in most homes are hollow, so sound passes straight through.

When the walls are open, we can fill the cavities with sound-dampening insulation, use heavier or resilient drywall assemblies and seal around outlets and doors so sound has fewer paths through. A solid-core door instead of a hollow one makes a noticeable difference too. Results depend on the house, and we will tell you honestly what to expect before you decide. Insulating an exterior wall while it is open also makes a corner bedroom noticeably warmer.

Floors carry sound too, especially in older houses where a bedroom sits over the living room or kitchen. Sound insulation in the ceiling below, when that ceiling is being opened anyway, cuts down on footsteps and voices traveling between floors.

Making another room a legal bedroom

Converting an office, a den or a finished attic into a bedroom is more than adding a bed. The room has to meet the code for a sleeping room: an egress window, enough floor area and ceiling height, and working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, with any hardwired alarms installed by a licensed electrician. Most owners add a closet as well, since buyers expect one in a bedroom.

On a house with a septic system there is one more question, and it should be asked first. Under Title 5, a septic system in Massachusetts is designed around the number of bedrooms. Adding a bedroom brings a design-flow review with the local board of health, and depending on the existing system, it can affect what you are allowed to do. We check that before any design work, so you are not halfway into a project before finding out there is a problem. Those reviews can take time, so it pays to start early.

We also check the heat. A room used as an office a few hours a day may have been fine with a little warmth, but a bedroom at night needs to hold a steady temperature, and a room over a garage or porch often needs better insulation to do it.

Lighting, floors and finishes

Secondary bedrooms tend to be under-lit, with a single ceiling fixture on a wall switch. Adding a fixture with a fan, reading lights by the bed or a light in the closet is straightforward when planned with the rest of the work, and licensed electricians handle the wiring. A ceiling fan needs a box rated to carry it, which is simple to install while the ceiling is open. Floors get repaired and refinished where possible, and trim is matched to the rest of the house so the room does not look like it belongs somewhere else.

Steve keeps you updated through the whole job, and the site is cleaned every day. On homes built before 1978 the work follows lead-safe practices, which matters in a child's room.

Rooms for kids change faster than any other room in the house. Adjustable closet shelving and rods, durable floors and outlets in sensible places will still work when a nursery becomes a teenager's room.

Before work starts you get a written scope for the room and a schedule. If anything changes once walls are opened, such as old wiring in an exterior wall or water damage under a window, you get the change in writing with its price before it goes ahead.

See the rest of our remodeling work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.