The Plans…
As Lila detailed in her last post, due to circumstances outside our control, we chose the fixer-upper house. And oh boy is it ever in need of some fixing. We’re not sure of the exact circumstances that led to the current condition of the house - while it’s been occupied by the former owners, it hasn’t seen much love. That’s okay with us though, we’re up for the project, and it gives us an opportunity to really make the house our own.
Good news first…
I’ll start with what’s good about the house. We plan on doing the vast majority of the work on the house ourselves, so it was really important that the house be structurally sound and not in need of any major repairs or upgrades like foundation leveling, a new roof, etc. To put it mildly, we’ve obsessively inspected every square inch of the house inside and out and are happy to say that it’s surprisingly solid.
The foundation is in excellent shape and structurally the house is as true and square as one could hope. The roof is relatively new, as are the windows and doors, appliances, HVAC, electrical service, etc. It doesn’t need any major repairs or replacements.
Then the bad…
So, the house isn’t going to fall over the next time the wind howls, and we’re not going to blow the budget fixing a leaky roof. That doesn’t mean this will be a walk in the park, there’s a lot of work to be done. Like, a LOT.
On the exterior, the forty year-old cedar siding is in rough shape and needs to be replaced. The front door, while relatively new, is not a nice door, nor does it compliment the architectural style of the house. The garage doors are solid wood and original, but in need of some TLC and refinishing. And the landscaping has been neglected for so long that the vast majority of it - right down to the grass - is beyond salvage.
Inside things get worse. The hardwood floors are badly scratched from the previous four-legged inhabitants (possibly wolves or a chupacabra, still trying to determine this), and it’s also nickel-gapped without having been properly filled, so each floor board has a 1/8” gap that conveniently collects all things icky. The carpets have been eaten in places (yeah, you read that right), and thoroughly urine-soaked in others. The dated bathrooms weren’t spared the wrath of the hellbeasts and much of the linoleum has also been consumed. The entire kitchen is too dated to revive, which is fine because the layout is awkward and Lila would require a step ladder to remove anything from the oven. The light fixtures are dated and not of our tastes, and the trim and doors are stained and buried under so much varnish you can see the runs and drips in the finish from across the room.
Suffice it to say, we’re going to fix all that. Here’s how.
The plan…
Exterior first. We spent some time in CorelDraw creating some exterior renderings to visualize the eventual end results. Here’s how the front looks now, and what it’ll look like when done:
And the back:
Quite a big change. Here’s a high-level breakdown of what we’ll be doing:
Replace front door with a single door with sidelights that’s more appropriate for a colonial house.
Replace the ugly octagonal window above the front door with a regular double-hung window that matches the others.
New full-width 6’ deep covered front porch.
Restore garage doors, refinish natural wood.
Replace all siding and trim on main house with Hardie cement board. Garage will receive a 3’ tall section of cedar wainscoting and cedar shakes with a semi-transparent green stain.
Remove the ground floor door from the kitchen to the back yard.
Replace the existing double door from the dining room to the back yard with a nicer double French door.
Remove and replace all the existing rear concrete walkways and patios with a new wooden deck.
We haven’t fully decided on the paint colors, but this general family of colors is where we’ll land. We really hate the brown roof, but it’s relatively new and not worth replacing, so we’re stuck with choosing a paint scheme that compliments it.
We’re also still unsure of exactly what to do with that second-floor deck off the master bedroom in the back. Our initial plans were to remove the door and replace it with two windows, and then remove the deck entirely and just build a new cedar pergola over the new deck. However, the more time we spend up on that deck (looking over the neighborhood at the Coast Range mountains a few miles off in the distance) the more we think we might want to just rebuild it and have a nice private garden oasis right outside our bedroom to enjoy our morning coffee.
On to the interior.
Inside, we’ll be making some major changes. Throughout the house we’ll be replacing all of the flooring with either new carpet or new wood flooring depending on the room. The wood flooring will be 8” plank New England White Pine, face nailed with reproduction cut steel nails.
All of the doors are in bad shape and are either beyond saving, or would require so much time to refinish that we’d miss our deadline, so we’re going to replace them all with new solid maple doors. All of the interior trim is too small and out of scale with the house, so we’ll be replacing it with larger baseboards and door and window casings that are more complimentary to a colonial house. Throughout the house, all hardware, including doorknobs and hinges, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, etc., will be an antique brass finish.
The ground floor will be seeing the most work. Here we’ll be gutting everything down to the studs - every surface will be replaced. Here is the original floor plan and updated floor plan:
Right now the house feels chopped up and the room arrangement is, well, weird. The biggest change we’ll be making to the ground floor is to open up the current two awkward living rooms to the right into one open living room/dining room/kitchen space. Then we’ll wall off what’s now the dining room from the kitchen to create a family room complete with a wall of custom built-in bookcases and entertainment center (essentially the home theater/game room).
The entryway will be opened up quite a bit as well by enlarging the opening into the living room and exposing more of the staircase. The staircase will be rebuilt with wood treads and new risers and trim, plus new wood newel posts and custom wrought iron hand rails and spindles. We’ll also be hanging a new, massive chandelier in here. The small door into the current dining room will be closed up and a larger double-sliding French pocket door will be installed to further open the entry.
The kitchen will be replaced with an entirely new one, including grayish blue cabinets, butcher block wood counter tops, a huge farmers sink, white subway tile walls, and right in the middle a huge 10’ marble island with a waterfall edge cascading down to the floor. Currently the washer and dryer are located right off the kitchen - we’ll be relocating them upstairs and turning the current laundry room into a kitchen pantry. The half-bathroom off the kitchen will also be completely renovated. We’ll also be installing some faux wood timbers/beams in the ceiling we’ll be building from reclaimed lumber.
In the new dining room, the walls will get wainscoting on the lower half, plus a new chandelier over the table. I’ve got a soft spot for old antique drafting tables, so I’ve got plans to build a custom dining table with locally sourced live-edge timber and some antique drafting table base hardware.
In the living room, we’ll carry the wainscoting effect from the dining room onto the staircase wall. Then we’ll be giving the fireplace a huge facelift, including a new wood fireplace surround and mantel, plus covering the current 70’s era glazed red brick with a reclaimed antique brick veneer.
Here are some photos we’ve been collecting for inspiration to show the general look and feel we’re going for with the interior finishes:
We also spent some time in Photoshop and Illustrator mocking up a few interior views. Starting with the entryway:
And the living room/dining room:
And finally the kitchen:
The second floor won’t escape our saws and hammers - it’ll be receiving a complete makeover as well. Here is the before and after floor plan:
We’ll be relocating the laundry room from the ground floor up here, which will require carving some space out of one of the bedrooms and reconfiguring a closet, but the sacrifice of a smaller guest bedroom is worth having the laundry upstairs in the living space.
The guest bathroom will be completely gutted to the studs. We’ll be installing new tile floors and walls, fixtures, a new tub, and vanity. There’s also a small closet you run into when you enter the bathroom (literally) that we’ll be removing to create a bit more floor space in there.
Currently the master bedroom has a wood burning fireplace in the middle of it. Initially we were excited about this, but it didn’t take long to realize that we’ll probably have all of three fires in it before the novelty wears off, and then we just have a big ugly brick hole in our wall taking up space. So we’re going to decommission it and hide it behind drywall.
The master bathroom will also receive a major renovation. We’ll be knocking down a few walls in here to open it up into one large space instead of two small ones. The current walled-in bathtub will go in favor of a custom walk-in shower with glass French door surrounds. The narrow closets along the wall will be enlarged to create two his/hers walk-in closets. A new double vanity and subway tile throughout will round it out. If we have some leftover materials from the wooden beans for the kitchen ceiling, we might install those in the bathroom as well.
We’ve been saving some inspirational photos for the upstairs finishes as well:
Well that was a long post… As you can see, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Stay tuned, next week we’ll start demolition!