Master Bedroom + Music Room + Office

We recently moved our bedroom upstairs into a room that already functioned as an office and music room . A dramatic reworking of the space was necessary to accommodate these triple utilities while maintaining a calm, sleep-inducing retreat .

Jump ahead to see (1) the transition from guest to master bedroom , (2) office organization , and (3) music organization .

Guest → Master Bedroom Transition

We originally had this side of the room set up as a guest bedroom with a pullout sleeper sofa.

To transition this space into a master bedroom, we moved our actual bed upstairs and the sleeper sofa downstairs into the living room.

Nightstands. I sold the old sofa side tables and wall sconces (lol, yeah right) and replaced them with a side cabinet and nightstand with more practical storage and swivel-arm wall sconces that we already owned.

Aesthetic Accessories. My jewelry and scarves didn’t fit in our custom wardrobe , so I hung them out here for easy access. Bonus benefit! They look nice displayed like this!

And check out the view from bed.

Not bad for functionally hiding office clutter to actually fall asleep at night!

Office Organization

The Desk

The standing desk had to go on the only wall without a sloping ceiling. I reduced stressful tech clutter by installing monitor posts and drilling grommet holes for wires.

The Printers

How sneaky is this!? I hid the 3D printer inside the office credenza on a slide-out printer tray blocked with café curtains.

The printer works perfectly while tucked away, and the curtain blocks drafts, too!

Our regular laserjet printer is also hidden in the middle section of the office credenza, and I arranged my paper types for easier DIY labeling.

File Storage

Guess who’s no longer pointlessly holding onto 12-year-old rental leases?! Me!! …As of two weeks ago. I whittled down an enormous 2-drawer file cabinet of junk into this single crate.

Office Supplies

Our other office supplies are organized and labeled in the top drawer of the office credenza (using these fantastic interlocking drawer organizers)…

…and in the bedside cabinet (using these clear bins, which I also use for kids’ art supplies and toy organization).

Music Organization

You probably saw the banjo and digital piano already.

I found a stand for our digital piano on Etsy (not that I recommend it) and a piano bench to store music in these sheet music organizers.

What you didn’t see was the recording equipment , amplifier and ukelele that are now stored in the bedside tables out of sight (but within reach). The accordion and keyboard travel case fit under the bed. We did it!

Cost

After I moved my workspace out to the loft in 2023, I felt bad for my husband’s (relatively super ugly) office space, and so I prettied-up the room for the first time then.

Here are prices for the new design for our master bedroom, but I include costs from that former redesign separately below.

Here are the costs from the previous office space renovation in 2023, where I crossed out items that I’ve since sold or given away:

Moving our master bedroom required building a custom wardrobe , redesigning our living room to accommodate the relocated sleeper sofa , and allowed us to redesign our son’s new bedroom as well. The many steps of the Big Move of 2025!

Shilpa Kobren is the Associate Director of Rare Disease Analysis at Harvard Medical School where she focuses on analyzing genomic sequencing data with patient clinical information to derive insights into human diseases. Shilpa lives in an 1890s urban apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and two energetic toddlers. She retains her sense of peace amid the chaos by creating and iteratively improving systems that optimize daily efficiency in her family's constrained living space.