Historic home: basement door before and after

This is what it's come to. Redoing a basement door makes me so very happy!

It was done out of necessity. The threshold was allowing water to leak in and some old wood rot had been poorly patched (that gray patch in the lower left corner of the outside door jam). And ewe, that faceplate for the doorknob had seen better days. And it was not original, a historic replica, so easy enough to replace with the same.

Now the door looks so spiffy, I'm thrilled with the difference and almost glad it was leaking!! Otherwise I might have gone on thinking this "before" door was decently acceptable. I think a new manual doorbell is also in order since this one is on its way to become like the door knob plate. It's so fun to ring, you turn the key and a bell rings on the other side.

Photo of the door before and after

Historic home: peek at recent past

Just when I came to terms with the fact that I'll never be the historic homeowner who finds the cool original doors to the house in the attic (namely because our attic is more like a crawl space thanks to a flat roof); I was totally shocked when I found a new snippet into the past today.

I was honestly just wiping up a little spill off the floor, when I noticed the baseboard also needed a wipe down. Then I figured I ought to wipe down the area behind the cover, where the knobs are.

Can we keep it a secret that this discovery highlights the fact that this is the first time I cleaned inside there? Shhhhhh. But I was pleasantly surprised to see a snippet of the 1980s wallpaper behind the baseboard cover.

So now I'm fairly certain the kitchen I bought, was renovated by the previous owners as it had a stripped wallpaper. And the paper sort of matches the wallpaper under the office's silk cloth tapestry they added.

Kitchen wallpaper before (tan and red stripes):

It's just so interesting to me. Just when I was thinking I had seen all of our home's surprises - boom! I get one!! Okay. It's a little one. And it's just from the 80s... but it's still super fun to me.

Lately we have learned tons about our attic and HVAC system lately. Our rooftop unit went out (ahem, the bedrooms, of course). Now we are wait for the weather to be nice enough to have a final diagnosis on the A/C; so that may be another adventure on its own. As of now, we are grateful that the cooler weather makes it bearable while we wait.  But now I live in fear that we might need an entire new unit, which isn't the end of the world, but when they mentioned a crane would be required, it freaked me out a tad.  Luckily the hubs is ultra cool and is absorbing it gallantly so I have been attempting to emulate him.

And in the last 5 ish months since I last posted?? Our kitchen was finished early March.
Contractor Chris wrapped everything up and gave his key back to me in April.
Designer Elizabeth is on maternity leave, (it was a boy!) so that gives us time to recover from the renovation and start to consider some new furniture pieces.

Move In Day aka Week 15 of House Renovation

We moved house today! Oh yes we did.

We are so excited by the new home (even though we know we are moving into a semi-construction zone and won't have a kitchen quite yet!). Seriously excited our top floors are done!! 

In fact, we are too busy, and too happy to notice the "to do" list or even make much of a blog post. I just wanted to say WE MOVED IN.

Below is the floor that needs the majority of the remaining work! Oy!

 The very super duper original light fixture! Circa 1880s. Wow, right?!?

Weeks 9-13

I'm starting to be able to see what the house will actually look like finished and I'm getting excited!!

Been averaging a visit to the house about every 5 days which has been good. Hubs gets more stress about all the work left to do when he visits the house too much. There's times where I refuse to go over with him because I know there won't be enough changes to warrant the visit. Weird. I know.

Real life outside the house seems to take up most of my time these days. And because I tend to over research sometimes, it's taking me longer to make decisions. It's a curse, but then, it's pretty cool when your SIL is on the way to the store and asks what brand washing machine she should get since she knows I already did more reading on it then she ever would. We went with Electrolux brand if you're wondering.

Week 9-10
The house wounded up needing tons of plaster work to repair walls after wallpaper removal. Especially the dining room. Oh that poor dining room. Then the plasterer didn't show. And then finding a new one became it's own challenge. And then I had to leave town for two weeks.

  

Week 10-11
The weather turned cold, so it was a relief to when the radiators started up without any problems. Finalized all paint colors! Okay, a few I totally asked Elizabeth to pick my kitchen wall color. I think because I want the kitchen to be perfect, I couldn't make any decision. Frozen. Plus it was weird to worry about colors about while traveling. Hubs and I joke about the scene in Lost in Translation and the package his wife overnighted him. We can't be like that! Ha!

Below: Kitchen & family room flooring & cabinet colors (squares) with paint samples.

Week 12
Looked at lights with Elizabeth in person, cause online was so uninspiring. It was hard to connect to any until I saw them in person.
Photo below; current thoughts for house (sorry it's a pic of a pic, life is crazy hectic these days).
Antique chandelier below is being considered for our dining room. They are re-wiring it this week so we can go see what it would look like lit.
Mover bids & giving away random house stuff.
Selling a few things on my condo's bulletin board has helped us purge.

 

Week 13
Finalizing light fixtures, still. Hubs took an interest, it's been more of a negotiation between us. He prefers way more traditional lights and while I tend towards the juxtaposition of modern fixtures in historic homes. It took time to find ones that we agree on, fit the budget, and work for the house. Yeah. It's an annoying trifecta.


Haven't ordered them, but this is the idea:

Upcoming week:

• A radiator specialist is removing a long baseboard radiator in the basement because the new built in cabinets are going where it sits. And then we are thinking to replace it with a smaller one. Heat wise we should be good since we are adding heated floors. 
• Calling antique store to request they go ahead a re-wire a light fixture we are potential interested in for the dining room. Then hubs and I will be able to see what it looks like lit  we like it off, so fingers crossed  
• Working through the "to do" list for the move. Seriously so many annoying details. 
• New car search. The timing of this is the worst. And Hubs and I have different ideas of what we should get next (we only have the 1 vehicle), so we are kicking tires and getting to know what's out there now. I test drove one and loved what cars are like now. 

Weeks 5-8 of Home Renovation: Old Wallpaper Behind Walls & Pipes Moved

October was a lot of behind the scenes progress after the demo phase. Seems to be the phase where things look a lot worse before they can look better. Which has been a bit discouraging as the homeowner, but the logical "construction side" of my brain knows better.

Check out these two photos of this old wallpaper we found behind the walls after the pipe was moved. Photos of where it was hiding are after the jump...

Week 4 Home Reno: Pipes behind the walls

It was a fairly smooth week, so I only made it over to the house twice this week. Once to drop off new tile we bought (pics below!) and to check out the newly discovered pipes behind the wall.

I'd like to suggest that every renovation budget have an automatic line item of "moving pipes" and be sure to double it from what you anticipate.  That's the page we turned this week.  Don't get me wrong, I knew it was coming, but it still hurts.


Tuesday / Kitchen Slabs - Went to see our new kitchen slabs in person!
Relieved I like the new ones just as much as the original (the original slabs had a finishing issue). I had a super hard time deciding on the cabinet color but...drum roll... it is officially Sherwin Williams Serious Gray 6256
Happily hand Elizabeth a key to the house this week too!

So many potential gray paint colors!

Home Renovation Weeks 2 and 3: Carpet Gone

Week 2: Surprise Under Stairs

Two weeks of updates in one post! Hope it's not too long, but we were traveling last week.

Carpet Removed - the old carpet was removed while we waited to receive bids from potential contractors. And SURPRISE we discovered this black stripe on all of the above ground stairs.  So at some point in time the stairs were stained an ebony color and it was (partially) removed, perhaps in the 1980s or 90's when it was last remodeled.
Which makes me wonder... at what point in time it was stained black??

Sanding and re-staining all the stairs would be much more costly than replacing the carpet runner so the stripe will remain for the next owner to wonder about.

Not to be out done, the basement stairs (pic below) also came with a stripe of unfinished wood.  And some really nasty sub-floor was at the top (to be replaced with original hardwoods from another location).

Renovation Week 1: A new car too? Noooooo!

Renovation Week One Report 

I'm starting the clock with the day we bought the house. It might be cheating since we planned during that month before, but it is better for my mental health this way. =)

Under the Carpet

We have wood floors under the existing carpet! Hooray!

The master bedroom needs to be patched where the original closet was removed, but they are in decent shape otherwise.  I was told due to the size of the existing flooring, they have to make the replacement floorboards by hand.  Hmmmm. Sounds expensive.

New Car

We had a "fun" surprise on the day we drove over to our new house with shiny new keys in hand. 

Our car can't turn the tight corner into the garage.  The garage is "normal" size. But the alleys were designed before today's oversized vehicles were invented, so they are quite narrow.  Our vehicle is too long to make the tight turn. After about 30 minutes of "Are you serious?" we realized it wasn't going to happen and went back to our condo.  

My friend's SUV fit after a 3 point turn, so not all hope is lost.  Have to say, I am so thankful I was not the one driving that day.  So um, yeah, let's just go ahead and add buying a new (smaller) car to the list.  No. That's not stressful at all. Not at all.

Quotes for Work Needed

Both our designer Elizabeth and myself met 3 contractors out at the house this week so they could size it all up with the plans and provide a bid for the work.

My carpet guy came out to measure for his quote on Monday. I had a coronary when I saw the quote for the new carpeting on the stairs. 

We might have wood stairs withOUT the beautiful carpeting chosen as a stair runner.

They are removing the old carpet next Tuesday. Elizabeth explained a carpet runner is very labor intensive work and we have a LOT of stairs (and price is in the normal range), but we can always do it after we move in aka when we have the money.

Keys

I asked Elizabeth if it would be too forward of me to give her a key to the house so she can come and go. She laughed and said lots of clients give her one. That made me feel better, I was afraid I was implying too much. 

In the back of my head, I'm debating to changing the locks for the renovation or just add a punch code key pad.

Cabinets

E & I made a second visit to the cabinet maker I selected to review cabinet faces for the entire home (kitchen, master bath, wet bar and the office). Picking a paint color for the study's painted cabinets was so easy, but I'm struggling with the kitchen color.  I want a blue grey, but not too dark and not baby blue. Internal struggles. 

Kitchen Slab Update

The quartzite slabs we selected for the kitchen were having issues with the finishing, but lucky me, they have a new shipment of the same slab withOUT the problem coming in next week.
The best part? Now I get consecutive slabs that will match end to end. Talk about a happy accident.  

Just hope the new slabs have the same look as my old ones. 

The lighter color slab above is for the kitchen (a natural quartzite) and the dark one is a marble for basement's fireplace hearth and surround. I know marble is all the rage now and lots of people love living with it, but the foods that destroy marble are all of my husband's favorites. Don't trust ourselves with marble in the kitchen quite honestly. 

Next Week...

Past Client Site Visit - I am traveling so Elizabeth will be visiting a past client of one of the potential contractors to see his work in person on our behalf. 

Wallpapers - Hubs and I (or just me?) will be looking at wall paper samples this weekend. 

Review Pricing - Hopefully the quotes from the contractors will come in for our review.

Removing carpet on Tuesday.

We Bought a House!! Planning a Renovation

We closed on our house Friday, September 9th! The entire process was amazingly smooth. We met some of our nice new neighbors while there for our final walk through too.

The home was built in 1884 and has been well maintained so we didn't hesitate to make an offer the day we saw it. And the best part is a previous owner already moved walls, so the work we want to do at this point is mostly cosmetic.

The kitchen and master bath are in great shape, but unfortunately outdated and not our style so we will be renovating them. Originally we tried to steer away from homes that needed work, but we realized most of them needed something, but I didn't know anything about the process and there wasn't much online. I'm going to do my best to try to document the entire experience in case it helps anyone else with their first major renovation project.

Kitchen (before):

Master Bath (before):

Made Offer - Mid-July 
When we made an offer, hubs and I agreed we wanted 1) a new kitchen and 2) to renovate as many bath/powder rooms as our budget would allow. All before we moved in. My SIL recently lived through a massive renovation and she recommended avoiding it if possible. One visit to her home mid-renovation was enough to convince me she was right.

Researched Designers/Contractors - Late July
I started researching design firms and asking friends if they could recommend anyone. Initially looked for a Design Build firm - where the designer and builder work together as one company. It sounded the safest from my perspective. Ultimately went a different route when I found a designer who's work I loved and who had glowing remarks from past clients. I read a lot of people think Design Build firms can be more expensive over hiring them separately, but I never explored it enough to discover if this is true or not.

Initial Meetings and Selection - Late July
While looking at kitchen photos on Houzz I realized that the ones I liked most, were from the same handful of designers so I started reaching out to them to set up meetings and ask if they were available for a new project.
One firm didn't return my email or my phone call which I think is just plain rude. It's not that hard to copy and paste some verbiage into an email to explain you aren't accepting new clients. I still have a grudge and plan to carry it for a bit longer.  

Contracted with Elizabeth for design work - August 1st
We selected a designer whose style and approach to our project matched us best. Most importantly, I could work really well with her. And this is important. We signed a contract with Elizabeth to start right away so we could hit the ground running after we closed. I feel lucky she had the availability for my project due to another one getting stalled.

What that month was like before we closed...
Within a month we have "bid ready" designs and all of our materials selected. Pretty sure this is not a normal turn around, so add an extra month or maybe two if you are reading this for your own renovation.  It was a whirlwind, but I think looking at all the homes we didn't buy, actually helped me hone-in on exactly what I did or did not like. I pretty much knew what I wanted.  And the Hubs was pretty hands off and even jokingly only requested we be sure to include a disposal in the kitchen. Only having one decision maker made things go a lot faster, as I didn't have to discuss each little thing, or coordinate multiple schedules to go look at tiles/slabs/carpets/plumbing/cabinets/etc.  I mean, I did struggle on some decisions, but it could have been so much worse if there were two of us struggling!  

Although we had to make decisions timely, it never felt rushed. Most of the time was spent designing the kitchen. What I envisioned, didn't always fit in the space or fit in the budget. Like the faucet I thought I wanted. Until I learned it was $2,890. Yes. I am serious. Or that pesky air conditioning tubing getting in the way of my wine fridge.

There will be design challenges for renovation work.  Expect them.
And when the stress of it all creeped in, Elizabeth was super helpful in defusing the process and answering all my crazy questions and making it fun and exciting. Even my husband who has been hands off, admitted to seeing the value in a designer and her work, guidance and experience being worth the fees (vs a DIY approach). This approach works for us, but might not make sense for everyone, I get that.

I want to point out, doing all this work with Elizabeth prior to actually closing on the house was risky. We could have ended up paying her for designs we didn't need if anything happened to derail the home purchase. The sellers and their agent were all so reasonable and genuine, we didn't have any red flags and trusted our instinct and decided the advance progress to be gained was worth the risk.

Next step is for the three potential contractors to walk through with our plans and provide bids.