My husband and I bought the second house we looked at on the first day of home shopping. I started crying in the driveway and we both just knew it was absolutely perfect for us, with one exception – it only had three bedrooms and an open loft.

We have a family of five so we were looking for a four bedroom house, but standing in the driveway that day we made a plan: our son could temporarily have the loft as his bedroom while we renovated the garage into the master bedroom.

“Six months”, my husband said, when I asked when he thought we’d have it completed. Three years later, we finally moved in (and our son got a bedroom with a door)! The actual work took us about eight months, since my husband and I both work full time and only had weekends to work on it. Factor in busy weekends, vacations, and the holiday season, and it really seemed to drag on forever!

My husband and I are DIYers, but certainly not professionals, so we had to look up (and make up!) a lot along the way. There were times when I thought we were in over our heads, and days when I thought it was never going to be done, but the final product has exceeded my expectations and I’m so excited to share it with the world!

Before & After #1
The garage already had some nice windows that we left in place. The new door in the after photo leads to an existing bathroom. That wall connects the old master to this new one – so we just moved the door from one wall to another so we could access it from here.

Before & After #2
We added a mini-split A/C-heat unit that is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. We control it with a remote and it keeps the room super cool and dry in the summer and nice and toasty warm in the winter. We added these rectangle windows that look out over the driveway so bring in some natural light without having to look at cars in the driveway all the time.

Before & After #3
Another shot of the bathroom door we added – in the after photo the doors lead (from left to right) to the bathroom, house, and closet.

Before & After #4
We have well water and for some reason the water filter/softener was added to a corner of the garage instead of inside the utility closet. It would have been such a pain to move it, so we decided to just build a little corner wall around it with an access door. You can also see it in photo #1.

Before & After #5
The utility closet was so super gross and dirty I never thought I would want to keep my clothes in there! I do not have a dresser, so all of my clothes are hung up or stored in bins.

Before & After #6
Another shot of the closet.

Before & After #7
This was inside the utility closet. We lost a good amount of space building this wall and door, but didn’t have much choice – and it provides a little additional out-of-sight storage.

Some bonus shots of my jewelry & scarf storage (with some artwork made for me by my kids).

And a close up of our custom black out curtains.

This is my solution to the issue of shoe & purse storage! This open-front cabinet came with the house and I just hung a curtain on the front and stuck it in the corner of the room. You can also see it above in photo #2.

Bonus shot of my work from home space and bar cart. Thanks for looking!