Marty Bell moved to Washington from Gainesville, Florida, 12 years ago. It wasn’t a hard sell to get her to make the move. Her daughter Cathy Bell, co-owner of Backwater Jack’s Tiki Bar and Grill with Laura Scoble, had arrived in Washington several years prior.

“It was really easy. I’d been in Gainesville for 50-some-odd years. I wasn’t working then and when I came up to see Cathy, I just fell in love with Washington,” the 83-year-old Bell said.

A harder sell was Bell’s latest move from her two-bedroom home on East Fourth Street in Washington to the Bell-Scoble household in Country Club Estates. A three-bedroom home with an open living-kitchen-dining area and a “Florida room,” a tiled-floor den with sliding glass doors to a backyard deck, there was plenty of space. But Scoble and Cathy Bell wanted Marty Bell to have her own space — so they built it for her.

They enlisted the help of contractor Julia Smith, who took on a simple, but life- and space-changing project. Soon, a door replaced two windows on the exterior wall of Marty Bell’s bedroom and the foundation created for a 12-foot by 24-foot sunroom with floor-to-ceiling windows on the western side of the 1960s-era brick ranch house. Next, a small deck was added, along with stairs leading to a fenced-in backyard. The windows were quite a find, according to Bell.

“They were custom-ordered windows from Lowe’s, but the customer didn’t like them or they didn’t fit and they were severely reduced. Laura snatched them up,” Bell said.

The result is three walls of windows overlooking a landscaped yard; the fourth wall is the original exterior brick wall. They decided not to put central heat and air in the room, relying instead on space heaters and room air conditioners, and open windows in the spring and fall.

“It’s easily a three-season room, but on cold days, we’re in the living room in front of the fireplace anyway,” Bell said.

The addition — both the sunroom and deck that make up Bell’s suite, as well as Bell’s addition to the household — is working out well for everyone.

“We love having Marty live with us. Now it’s like the Golden Girls — we’re all together,” Scoble laughed.

Marty Bell has made the space her own, downsizing a lifetime of belongings, but holding on to much-loved antiques and art that she’s collected during her travels over the years.

“Most of the furniture that I really loved came with me,” Bell said. “I guess the hardest part was dishes that were my great-great-grandmother’s.”

Safely boxed up to send home to Florida with her son on his next visit, the china will be waiting for her granddaughters.

“Twenty years from now they may not want it, but if they don’t, that’s not my problem,” Bell laughed.

In all, Marty Bell said the redesign of a simple bedroom into her own suite provides options: independence and privacy when desired or company when she chooses.

“It’s comfortable. I can go out there and read. I’ve got my music out there, which has been a huge addition because I love music,” Bell said. “I’m just extremely happy and extremely fortunate that Cathy and Laura have done everything they possibly can to make me feel at home.”