The Estate of Things

This bathroom remodel took place at a rental house in Southern Pines, NC, the same house with the painted stair runner posted about here.

I don’t have a true before and after for you because I didn’t make it over to the house with my camera before it had already been demolished.

There’s a different approach in renovating a rental property. Generally, I like to keep things neutral and keep a tight budget in mind which is why you see a lot of off the shelf fixtures. I don’t want to push the design envelope because I know that most of the people in my area probably won’t appreciate it, the painted stair runner blew a lot of minds but in a good way.

I’m not trying to sell this property, I’m really just trying to maintain it or remodel it to a level that will set it apart and guarantee higher rent.

Here’s a picture of the bathroom after it had been gutted.

Here’s what we did:

• Stripped everything out except for the shower. It stayed because it was tiled with neutral mocha brown tiles. I regret leaving the shower now, I think we should’ve gone ahead and re-tiled the shower. If we would’ve done that, I would’ve certainly used white subway tiles.
• New plumbing
• New wiring
• New toilet, Lowe’s
• New pedestal sink, Lowe’s
• New faucet, Overstock
• New mirror, Lowe’s
• Sconces, CSN Lighting
• New floor tile, Marjorca
• Added wainscotting
• New valve trim, showerhead, local plumbing supply

I think it turned out great!

This week at the Indiana project its all about the exterior.

Repairing those cedar shakes…

The carpenters named that unsightly shelter that once housed the steps to the cellar door the “dog house”.

Well its gone now, the cellar door was removed and the hole sealed and dirt filled in to the cement hole.  I am so glad that thing is gone, I hated it and it was sort of inhibiting me from seeing progress.

Dog house trashing the view, well actually the dog house isn’t the only negative in this image

Dog house gone

The underground oil tank was pumped out last week and my Dad dug it up with his backhoe. He had tons of fun doing that. I think its therapeutic for him. The tank was about 6 feet long and 45 inches in diameter. It should go to the salvage yard soon.

The rain drove the carpenters inside for part of the week.  While inside they removed some original flooring from the master bath and other areas of the house to patch the reading nook upstairs, the master bedroom and the closet in the master bedroom.

By reusing the original wood we hope to save money in material and we like reusing materials original to the house.  We will not however, save any cash in the labor department.

The floors are oak downstairs and yellow pine upstairs.  I’ve noticed in other remodels of homes built before 1940, that the more expensive wood was used in areas where guests were more likely to see it–oak being the more expensive of the two in this case.

As a side note, oak holds up a lot better to doggie toenails than the pine floors I’ve lived with in the past.

Looking forward to window installation possibly next week?!?

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”

The wall separating the kitchen from the dining room was removed, one of the best decisions that has been made thus far in the project.

Stage 1, Before

Stage 2, Cabinets, plaster removed

Stage 3, wall is gone!

Checking in with the Indiana project…really I don’t check in, I should actually pitch a tent out back because I’m there so much.

This week there are different sub-contractors running all over the house.  The HVAC will be roughed in and should be complete by the end of the week. This was a significant unforeseen expense. The house has an existing oil furnace and we are changing it over to natural gas, this required all new equipment.  We knew that we had to extend central a/c to the upstairs but we had no idea that we would upgrade the entire system and switch fuel types. This was a blow to the budget and we had to make some adjustments.

Plumbers will begin their work this week.  The plumbing rough-in is expected to be complete by the end of this week. I spent most of last Friday afternoon learning about drop-in acrylic tubs and doing some price comparison.

Electrical rough-in is almost complete, the absence of a concrete kitchen plan has delayed the electrician’s work.

The windows were measured last week. The window installation is now 3-4 weeks away, this will result in the largest delay in the project thus far. I cannot move on to the next level until the entire rough-in and framing are inspected and the house cannot be inspected unless the new windows are in.

This week the carpenter will continue to repair the exterior. Some of the shakes needed to be replaced or added where windows were deleted. When the vinyl siding was installed all of the molding around the windows was trimmed down and the original wood brackets were also cut.  All of those are being repaired to look as they did when the house was built.

In the last couple of days the vinyl siding was stripped away entirely. Vinyl was stripped from the soffits to reveal exposed rafter tails. The cedar shakes can see the light of day again.  We found the receipt for the siding job in the house. The vinyl siding was applied in 1980 for $6000.00, materials and labor.

A huge development this week and a total change in plan. We’ve decided to relocate the steps to the basement. Currently the basement door is in the kitchen, inside of a wall that separates the kitchen and the dining room.  This is that wall.

We are going to move the steps in to what was going to be our half bath.  The new basement stairwell will be off the living room. 

The kitchen in it’s current state.  The old window was deleted, four new windows have been framed in that will line the exterior wall, you can see the first two.

The place is still pretty torn apart.  It will be exciting to go there this afternoon in hopes that the kitchen wall is gone.

I got the permit that I was complaining about.

and I kindly invited the inspectors over for a little pow wow and to take a look at the framing job in progress. They liked what they saw, they were cordial and answered my questions. Score!

I know all of you want to know where those pumpkin orange drapes came from and those wood shutters that are hung unevenly and stained from nicotine and tar. The sources are; somewhere in a 1950s curtain vortex and Phillip Morris

More to come on the Indiana project later today.

Good Morning and let the venting begin!

Who put the poo poo in the construction/remodeling process? Local city officials like those sitting down at planning and inspections, that’s who. Bureaucrats who live some times happily, most of the time unhappily under a mound of forms and are so ingrained in a process or code that seems to serve no one.

I know, I know those bureaucrats are someone’s mother, daughter, niece or father. That doesn’t mean that I can’t dislike their process and sometimes along the way not like them very much. Trust me I talk to bureaucrats all day long at the “real job”, I have lots of pent up disdain and for totally justified reasons.

OK so I live in an area that is referred to as the Sandhills in North Carolina, adjacent to golf mecca (Pinehurst), its a collection of small towns.  Although the downturn in the housing market has slowed things down here and selling prices are down and it is very much a buyer’s market, we haven’t suffered as much as other areas of the country.  The point is that the housing market isn’t booming here, meaning these compliance officers like planning staff and inspectors aren’t that busy.

In applying for a permit for the Indiana project, we first filled out an application. Then we had to submit drawings of the major renovations and the fixtures because they need to figure out how much to charge us for the permit.

The planning person calls me and says:

Planning: “we need to see a drawing of the structure on the lot so we know how the house is positioned on the property.”

Sarah: “don’t you have access to the GIS property lookup on the county government’s website, its pretty fancy now they just updated it. There are layers to use, you can see the topography and everything”

Planning: “oh those satellite pictures aren’t accurate, we can’t be sure that those measurements are accurate”

Sarah: “so you want me to go out and physically pull a measuring tape across the lot lines?”

Planning: “yes”

Sarah’s dream question: “What the hell do you folks get paid for and why do I see county employees out surveying?”

So I drew it. Went to turn it in to inspections, planning person says no not yet, you have to go see the Erosion Compliance office because you’re building a deck and a front porch. So we play along. We submit our erosion compliance form, the secretary says the inspector won’t be back until Wednesday and he won’t be able to get back to you until Friday (my thoughts–because he’s so busy and all). But we say thank you and hand over our form.

The erosion compliance inspector calls today and says we have to install silt fencing along the front and the back of the property! Why because we’re gonna dig some holes for porch footings, we could potentially flood the river with mud that is miles away or we’re going to erode the land away. Yeah…not so much.

So I guess we’re just going to ask the Erosion Compliance person if he happened to even get up from his desk and go out there and look at the property or did he just say oh lets make them intall silt fencing.

This is what sucks about renovating.

Oh boy, thank you Remodelista for unearthing this on Inspace Locations and presenting it to us all. It really helped me piece an idea together for the Indiana project.

So after seeing Remodelista’s post on the English Cottage entry, it was easy to draw a line from that to an image I found not too long ago at Canadian House & Home.

The color contrast is delicious and my love affair with watery blue seems unending. And as I said before, there are painted cedar shakes on the exterior of the Indiana house. 

And I found this rooting around in Flickr one day,

 This is an old Sears houseplan, it was called the Amsterdam. After doing some light research I’ve found that this house is a Dutch Colonial Revival and I think the Indiana house is too.  I originally thought the Indiana house was begging for a big covered front porch.  But after collecting all of these images, I’m beginning to think a generous covered entry is the way to go. Enter support brackets,

 Both of the images above are from Molly Frey Design

 Just a reminder, this is what the Indiana house looks like.

 Thanks for following along with my thought process. I love when things to start to come together.

Rearranging, restructuring and reframing–all things going on at the Indiana project this week.  We met our interior demolition goal last week meaning–we finished demo in one week with the exception of the screened porch that will be framed in to become the laundry/mudroom.

A surprising and very positive discovery was made last week. We pulled a portion of the vinyl siding off and discovered cedar shakes underneath! This is fantastic for the budget and the appearance of the house.  It is painted a boring gray color but that can be fixed.  For some reason I didn’t think to take a picture of this discovery but I’ll get one up.

Where we are now…

Before-Two separate closets in an upstairs bedroom

After-Two closets become one, the little door in the middle will be the access door for HVAC duct

Before-Upstairs bath

After-The upstairs bath has been completely gutted. The original construction of the floor joists was not ample to handle the load it was carrying.

Before-Downstairs hallway, entrance in to master bedroom

After- new doorway to master bedroom, bathroom door and door to extra room downstairs eliminated

Before-Looking towards front windows in master bedroom

After-Standing in new master bath, looking through future walk-in closet to front windows in master bedroom

Before-Looking towards upstairs hall closet/attic space

After-This area upstairs used to be an awkward attic closet. In the future it will house built in bookshelves and cabinet storage. The space will hopefully be large enough to accommodate a reading chair.

Before-Dormer in upstairs bedroom

After-Two tiny closets were on either side of this window. Neither one could hold adult clothing. The dormer and the closets were demolished. The window will be eliminated and it will become a larger closet.

I’d like everybody to meet the Indiana house.  This is my family’s newest full scale renovation project.

The Indiana house was built in 1920 and is slightly over 1,600 sq ft of living space.  The house sits on a huge lot considering it is inside the Southern Pines city limits and provides a lot of privacy.  The lot measures .63 acres.

Rear exterior

Because the house requires so much work I think it will be best to go room by room.  Demolition begins today but don’t worry we’ve got plenty of before pictures, you can view some at TEOT’s flickr page now.