Porch-to-Bathroom Conversion

A significant element of the Green on Gift renovation is the conversion of the enclosed porch into a second bathroom. At some point, a previous owner converted the back porch, accessible through the living room, into a storage room. They likely did this to increase the square footage of the house, but the transformation was incomplete–an exterior window remained looking into the second bedroom, and the floor became uneven over time.

Left: The original bedroom window was removed and the opening converted to a doorway. Right: The enclosed porch pre-renovation.

I decided to convert this unusual porch/storage room into an en-suite second bathroom. Early in the demo process, we created small holes to see if the walls were insulated. The wall on the left was, but the back wall was not, so both walls will be insulated with spray polyurethane foam insulation. The transformation also involves creating a door in the bedroom where the window used to be and closing off the original door from the living room. In the old doorway we will install shelves on the bathroom side to maximize space. The second bathroom will also include the clothes washer and dryer, which were originally in the hallway.

Left: The original bedroom window. Right: After the window opening was converted to a doorway.

Cutting the opening for the new doorway gave us another opportunity to see how the home was originally constructed. Just like the other original exterior walls, the wall here is three layers of structural brick with plaster on the interior. At some point they installed drywall over the plaster.

Here you can clearly see that the exterior walls are composed of three layers of brick.

Green Shortz was kind enough to put together this video on the new en-suite. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube to follow along–eventually the bathroom will start to look like a bathroom!