Attic Conversion Chronicles

Blue Ridge Bunkroom

This fall and winter, we have been unstacking ourselves.

For years, the three of us have shared a bedroom at my family’s mountain house in North Carolina. Even when there were empty rooms elsewhere, we chose to cohabitate. What started as convenience slowly became something I cherished. There has been a safety to it… a sweetness I wasn’t in a hurry to outgrow.

But my daughter is seven now, all opinions and bedtime negotiations. The Brady Bunch sleeping arrangement has reached its natural conclusion. It’s time.

Adjacent to our bedroom upstairs is an unfinished attic space, actually two spaces, both low and dark. The ceilings slope aggressively and the windows are small. It is a squirrely situation with all the potential to be charming, provided we don’t ask too much of it. The plan has always been to use one space as a bedroom and the other as a den, with the long-term fantasy of a bathroom someday, when we are feeling brave and flush.

This is not our primary residence, and this is not a primary bedroom. It’s a secondary room in a much-loved, heavily used second house: one that values comfort, practicality, and momentum over perfection. That context matters, because this project is less about indulgence and more about intention. Much of what went into this room is intentionally inexpensive, all of it is in service of how we actually live here.

The details as they stand: