Tag: remodeling

Moving the Door Over

We’re still a ways off from finishing the conversion of the kitchen on the second floor into a bedroom and finishing the hall, but it’s moving along.

We were going to keep the original doorway to the room and reuse one of the other doors to fit. The cabinetry is staying though, and it would have been difficult to find a good spot for a bed without making the room awkward or blocking access to drawers. So I talked to Brandon and the contractor about it and we decided to move the door across from the other bedroom door on that side of the house.

(You can see the original plan here.)

The hallway bumps out into the room a little on that side (where the door will now be placed) because we didn’t want the hall to feel cramped, and it also makes it easier to bring furniture in and out of both rooms. Since the radiator is behind the door (and thus unusable floor space anyway), it doesn’t make much of a difference on the new room itself, and the little nook that will now be next to the door will be a great spot for a comfy reading chair or a desk.

My sister came by over the weekend, and I was explaining the dangers of scope creep to her. We’re moving the door, which means we’ll also need to move the room’s light switch over. We need to put down new flooring from where the hallway built-ins started all the way to the bedroom doors, and now we’re wondering if we should redo the flooring in the entire hallway at once. I’m not looking to change the look of the wood — it’s appropriate to the house — but there are a couple of soft spots that do need to be addressed eventually.

And then there’s the whole issue of finding a replacement for the bathroom storage that we lost. There is a huge bedroom closet that could be split into two, with half of it accessed from the hallway near the bathroom. We could probably even reuse some of the wood that we saved from the built-in that was removed, but that isn’t a project that we’re going to do right now. Instead, I’ll reorganize the small linen closet down the hall and be on the lookout for a shallow dresser, cabinet, or armoire to place near the bathroom.

Moving along, moving along…

July 21, 2014
The Hallway, Opened Up

Our contractor got started last week on our second floor remodeling project. After just two days, the built-in was removed and the hallway was opened up. We have natural daylight in the hall now, from the window that was blocked off before!

There is a large bedroom closet that we could divide and tap into from the hallway if we ever want to add more storage near the bathroom, but it’s not in the plans right now. And though the built-in had been there a long time (70-80 years?), it was not original to the house. There were a few layers of some very old wallpaper hiding beneath it, confirming that the hall once went straight through.

The floor beneath was gone though, and the stuff on the stairway side is ugly high-traffic carpet over red linoleum over a couple layers of who-knows-what. So yeah, the floor is going to need some work, but we expected that going into this.

There’s still a lot of work to go, but it’s looking really good so far!

July 15, 2014
Demolition Ahead

We’re about to start on some big changes to the second floor of the Victorian!

Thank you so much for all of the input and comments when I first wrote about our possible plans for the space (here and here). We’re still mostly going with my initial plan for reconfiguring the hallway, but I was swayed to keep the kitchen cabinetry. We’ll reuse it as closet and dresser space, as well as storage for books and toys.

Having all of the built-in storage in the hallway right outside of the bathroom has been great, and we’re sad to lose it. Making another bedroom out of an awkward second kitchen is worth it though, and we think it’s much closer to how the house was originally laid out.

The Plan

• Remove the sink cabinet
• Remove beadboard behind sink
• Repair or replace wood floor beneath the sink cabinet if necessary
• Remove plumbing and gas hookups from the kitchen space
• Swap out the sink for the one in the kitchen downstairs, if possible
• Remove the door and doorway separating the kitchen from the family room
• Trim door to size and rehang in existing doorway off the hall
• Remove the built-in storage and open up the hallway
• Remove carpet from the section of the hall near the stairs
• Repair or replace wood floor in the new section to match the rest of the hall
• Remove the door and doorway near the stairs
• Open up the end of the hall as much as possible (there may be issues with load-bearing walls and a need for headers)
• Add L-shaped jog to the end of the hallway, closing it off from the new room
• Split and relocate light switches (two switches are for the room, one is for the hallway light)
• Relocate doorbell
• Skim coat plaster walls in the hall section near the stairs (it’s textured, and the rest of our walls are smooth)
• Strip the wallpaper
• Repair walls
• Add baseboard trim to match existing throughout

There will be a whole host of other things to do when it comes time to decorate, so tasks like painting and selecting new lighting fixtures aren’t even on the radar yet. Right now, we’re just hoping we can get the construction portion of the project done before baby number three arrives in September!

July 10, 2014
Improvements Made to the House
Brandon and I have done a lot to the house in our six years of ownership, and we did much of the work ourselves. We’re house-proud, and I wanted to gather some of the major work we’ve done here in one post! We (okay, I) made cosmetic choices that not everyone agreed with, like wallpapering the dining room or painting the not-so-nice wood trim white, but we’ve also made many structural improvements. We…
- remodeled the kitchen (adding a dishwasher while we were at it)
- ripped out old carpeting in two bedrooms and replaced it with dark bamboo flooring
- added zoned central air
- upgraded the closet doors in two bedrooms
- added a large freestanding closet to one bedroom (it will stay with the house)
- added a closet door with period-appropriate hardware to replace the missing one in my office
- updated the second floor bathroom with a mini redo
- completely finished the basement
- created a half-bathroom in the basement
- installed a tankless water heater
- updated the electrical wiring
- updated the plumbing
- created a new laundry room (with a gorgeous sink)
- replaced the roof on the upper portion of the house (the rest of the roof was a different type and is fine)
- added a paver patio to the backyard and landscaped
- added a railing to the stairway
- replaced light fixtures throughout the house
(The Edison chandelier in our bedroom is coming with us though.)

Our listing agent has advised us to not do too much more to the house to prepare it for sale. There are still a handful of projects that we could have done had we planned to stay here longer, but there are always things that could be done to a house that’s over a hundred years old. We decorated it to our tastes, sure, but we also gave it a lot of love and a lot of new life. We hope the next owner(s) of this house will love it as much as we have.
May 29, 2013
Boost Your Roost $20,000 Contest
We’re fond of major before and afters around here. Brandon and I have taken on some big projects, like redoing our kitchen, making over our backyard, and fully refinishing our basement.

We’ve improved our home a lot over the years, but we’ve also improved our life at home. Do you know how nice it is to do laundry in a basement that isn’t scary? Or to cook with the kids in a kitchen that is not only cute, but that actually functions (and isn’t falling apart)? Making my home, well, lovely, makes me and my family happy. These things take some planning though, and a bit of work, and of course you need a budget to work with.

Do you have a space that needs some attention? Maybe you want to create a laundry room too, or give your kitchen a facelift. Maybe you have a bathroom that has seen better days, or you dream of a wall of windows to let the light in. What would you want to do to your home if someone were to come in and give you the budget to do it?

I’ve partnered with HouseLogic to offer homeowners a chance to win a $20,000 home renovation to “Boost Your Roost!” To enter, send me an email (boostyourroost@gmail.com) with the following information:
- Describe the room you’d like to renovate with a $20,000 budget in 300 words or less. We want to hear about why your home improvement project is important to you! How will it help you enjoy your home? How will it impact your time with family and friends?
- I need at least one photo (5 photos max) of the space. Your images are part of what people will be voting on if you’re a finalist, so make ‘em good! You can host your photos on free sites like flickr or post them to your blog if you have one. You can also include drawings or a link to a video if you like.
- Include your full name, email address, phone number, and home location. (Your information will be kept private, but we’ll need it to contact you if you’re a finalist.)
I’ll be narrowing down the entries and choosing the best submission, which will go on to be one of six finalists (five from other participating bloggers). The finalists will then be voted on by the public to see who will win the $20,000 home renovation. So get creative, start dreaming, and let me know how you plan to “boost your roost!”

This post is sponsored by HouseLogic, a website for homeowners from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Entries will be accepted now through July 16 at 11:59pm (CDT), and you must be a homeowner living within the continental U.S. More details can be found at houselogic.com/boostyourroost.
June 20, 2012
How to Find a Wall Stud (Video)

I put up my almost Hang-it-All in the basement stairwell yesterday. To make sure it would stay put, I needed to be sure I hit the studs in the wall.

If you ever want to hang something heavy in your home, you’ll want to know how to find the studs too. I thought it might be helpful to show you a few methods for finding them: using an electronic stud finder*, knocking and listening, or swiss cheesing your walls. Can you guess which method you probably want to avoid?

* This is the stud sensor I use. We bought it years ago. It’s more expensive than most, but I’ve used cheaper models and have found that this one is worth the price.

October 24, 2011