Renovating a Queenslander: The bedrooms

Thursday 13 November 2014

The bedrooms

Our original Queenslander cottage had two bedrooms that had quite a puzzling layout - both originally and as part of its last renovation in the mid 1960's. In some ways this made it easy for us to change the layout of the house, as we had to move a lot of the walls that had been damaged by termites and/or were modified with asbestos materials during the 1960's renovation.

One particularly interesting puzzle was the location of the front bedroom. In this room, the bedroom door was positioned next to the front landing / verandah entrance way adjacent to the front door - but had no entry from the internal hallway. This lead us to wonder if the house was originally set up as perhaps a Doctor's office, or some other small work from home business, that necessitate an entry from the outside verandah rather inside the house...we need to do some more research to try and find out the history of the house! There was also a 'third' bedroom according to the real estate agent, which was actually a narrow single bed only sleep-out area that also opened onto the verandah - it now serves as our new pantry which probably gives you an idea that it wasn't a large room!

Lifting the house gave us lots of options in terms of bedrooms. We decided to keep two bedrooms upstairs but rather than try and squeeze in a third bedroom upstairs, we made the living area larger to make best use of the view and sea breezes upstairs. Downstairs we added two more bedrooms (both with more than sufficient room to put a queen-sized bedroom (I'm not a fan of modern homes with pokey third or fourth bedrooms that fit a bed and nothing else) and created a multi-purpose room that can be used either as a rumpus room, second lounge room, media room or a fifth bedroom at Christmas when all the relatives come to stay!

We spent a great deal of time designing the layout of the house and incorporating key features but trying to make the house replicate the simplicity of the original design with a central hallway, and french doors off every bedroom onto the verandah. We used reclaimed french doors, passage doors and windows wherever possible and kept the Queensland spotted gum hardwood floors throughout the house - as per the original Queenslander style. We also compromised somewhat, and decided to put built-in wardrobes in the two downstairs bedrooms to maximise storage - though they are walled with T&G timber and skirting boards so if we really wanted to, we could remove them and just put freestanding wardrobes there...but probably not. We also opted for ceiling fans, rather than air conditioners, and used traditional period features a Queenslander would contain such as breezeways above the passage doors (upstairs bedrooms), fanlights above the french doors, picture rails and tall skirting boards. The chrome light switches, window and door hardware also help 'unify' the rooms and hopefully add character without cramming the house full of period features that would overwhelm you!

I've already done a post about the master bedroom so I won't repeat myself and bore those who were dedicated enough to read it, but I have included some pictures for continuity of the bedroom theme! Note, the curtain rings have since arrived so all the curtains now hang on proper curtain rings so that they slide across more easily!