Master Suite Remodeling

Planning the bedroom, bath and closet as one suite

Most owners who call about a master suite start with the bathroom. It is the room that feels oldest, and it is usually too small. The trouble is that a bigger bathroom has to come from somewhere, and in most Massachusetts houses that somewhere is the bedroom, the closet or the hall next to them. Redo the bath on its own and you can end up with a nice shower and a bedroom that lost its only good wall for a bed.

So we start with the whole wing. On the first walkthrough Steve measures the bedroom, the bath, every closet that touches them and the hallway outside the door. We look at where the bed wants to sit, where the windows are, which way the doors swing and how the two of you actually get ready in the morning. Two people leaving for work at the same hour need a different layout than one person who works from home. That conversation decides more about the finished suite than any tile choice.

What you get from that visit is a written scope that covers all three rooms together, with the order of work spelled out. If you only want the bath done now and the closet next year, we plan both so the second job does not undo the first.

Where the extra square footage usually comes from

In a colonial the primary bedroom often sits at one end of the second floor beside a hall bath and a linen closet. Pulling that linen closet into the suite, or shifting a wall eighteen inches into an oversized bedroom, is often enough for a double vanity and a walk-in shower. In a Cape, the knee walls under the roof hide space that can become closet storage once it is framed and insulated properly. Ranches and split-levels tend to give up a small adjoining bedroom, which becomes a dressing room and a larger bath in one move.

Every one of those moves takes something from the rest of the house, and we say so up front. Losing a third bedroom changes how the house sells. Taking the hall bath means guests share a bathroom downstairs. Moving a wall may mean moving a heating run or a return. We lay those trade-offs out before anything is drawn in detail, so the decision is yours and it is made with the facts in front of you.

If a wall we want to move carries a load, we will tell you before anyone swings a hammer, and the plan accounts for a beam or a different layout.

You know who is on site each day, what is happening that week and what decision we need from you next.

Plumbing, venting and the floor under a new bathroom

A bathroom that moves across a room is a plumbing project as much as a carpentry one. The drain needs pitch, and in a second-floor bath that means running it through or between joists that were never cut for it. Older houses have notched and drilled joists from earlier work, sometimes badly. When we open the floor we check what is there, sister or reinforce what was weakened, and plan the drain route so we are not cutting more out of the structure. A cast iron tub or a tiled shower floor also asks more of the framing than the old bathroom did.

Licensed plumbers handle the supply and drain work, and licensed electricians handle the new circuits, the fan and the lighting, as Massachusetts requires. The exhaust fan gets ducted outside, never into the attic, which matters for ice dams and for mold. Your town building department inspects the rough plumbing and electrical before walls close, then the insulation, then the final.

Water-resistant backer board behind the tile, a properly sloped and waterproofed shower pan, and a flood test before the tile goes on are the parts nobody sees. They are also what keeps a new bathroom from staining the ceiling below in a few years.

In a house built before 1978 we treat painted surfaces as lead until we know otherwise, and we follow lead-safe work practices during demolition with the rest of the house closed off.

Closets, lighting and the details that make it private

The closet is where a suite earns its keep day to day. We plan hanging lengths by what you own, drawers where they work better than shelves, and a light that comes on when the door opens. A walk-in needs enough width to turn around with an armful of laundry, and we will tell you when a reach-in with good fittings is the better use of the space.

Sound matters more in a suite than people expect. Insulating the interior walls around the bath and bedroom, solid-core doors and a little care at the outlets cut down on noise between your wing and the kids' rooms or a guest room. Lighting gets planned in layers: something low for the middle of the night, real light at the vanity mirror, and fixtures on dimmers in the bedroom.

Heated tile floors, a bench in the shower and a bathroom door that does not open toward the bed are small decisions. They are easier to get right on paper than to change after the tile is set.

Living in the house while your wing is torn apart

Most families stay home during a master suite remodel, so the work has to be contained. We protect the floors from the entry to the work area, run dust barriers at the suite door, and keep one path through the house clean. You will need another bedroom and another bathroom for the length of the job, and we talk that through before we start so nobody is surprised in week two.

Steve spent years working for builders who left owners guessing, and this company was built to do the opposite. You know who is on site each day, what is happening that week and what decision we need from you next. When a wall opens and shows something nobody could see, such as old water damage under a toilet flange, you hear about it that day with photos and options, and any change is written down before the work moves on.

The site is broomed and picked up at the end of every day. When the suite is finished, it is cleaned before you move back in.

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