Bonus Room - Original

This is the half-story bonus room, which Ben says was not part of the original house. (Don't know when it was added.) As you can see, it is far from a finished room, with random pipes sticking out everywhere (including many pipes that aren't attached to anything) and cardboard rather than sheetrock adorning the ceiling/walls.

There is a large window at the back of the room, which lets out onto the roof. This could be handy come Fourth of July; the neighbors in the townhomes next door insist that the best view of the Lake Union fireworks is from our roof.

The front of the room faces out to the living room. Although this is currently a closed-off room, we're planning on turning it into an open loft (my aforementioned epiphany), lining the front of the room with rails that echo the banister, rather than full walls.

Part of the bonus room will be cut off in the final version, where the roof meets the room's floor. On the other hand, Ben is currently in the process of extending the platform at the top of the stairs a little more into the living room. This will enable us to fit a half-bath under the stairs, and will also add some square footage upstairs.

All in all, the room is quite large. It includes a second window that is nestled into the south wall (on the left if you're walking up the stairs). Ben says we can cut back the wood surrounding this window to create a little alcove, perhaps for a desk or a little sitting area. We can't do the same on the other side (pictured above). I still don't really get why, but I assume it's a good reason. I think we were originally planning on sticking a water heater in that corner, but those plans may have changed when we decided to do an open loft.