The Estate of Things

You might remember my post about my friend Kristine’s house.  She and her husband Fred are remodeling their kitchen and redecorating their living room.

I’ve been helping Kristine a bit in both of these pursuits.  Kristine has chosen IKEA cabinets in the new Ramsjo door style, which is a shaker/traditional fusion. By electing to install IKEA cabinets she and Fred will save thousands of dollars without having to sacrifice quality.

Here is the space after drywall repair and floor installation,

Kristine completed the demolition herself to save money and when I say “herself”…I mean just her. She rented a dumpster and went at it! She hired a plumber and an electrician to come and terminate the connections and to relocate some of the plumbing and install recessed lighting. For the new floors, Kristine chose  4″ wide white oak which was continued from the kitchen in to the living area, down the hall and in to the master bedroom.

After Kristine and I talked through the layout using a measuring tape, a pencil, a calculator and a little painter’s tape, Kristine got to work and downloaded IKEA’s kitchen design software and begin putting the layout on paper. She and Fred travelled to IKEA and loaded it all up themselves. The couple is lucky enough to have a contractor friend who is experienced in installing IKEA cabinets. 

I have been encouraging Kristine along the way to wrap the island with wood. The reason why–because we (I’m) are shooting for a modern rustic, Southern California aesthetic. Kristine really had her heart set on white cabinets and so in order to warm things and play up the rustic vibe, I have suggested wrapping the living room side of the island in teak or another warm modern wood material. It also acts as a compromise between the natural finished wood cabinets I wanted her to get and the white kitchen she wanted.

Some images to illustrate,

Living Etc

Real Living Australia

Jeffrey Alan Marks, Elle Decor
 

Just a little peek of the new and improved exterior at the Indiana house. Its not finished yet so I can’t unveil.

I did consider leaving the brick exposed but the mortar was in bad shape and decided to skip expending time and resources on revamping it.

A close up of the window and the shelves that have been framed in the shower.

Standing in bathroom looking toward door and hallway.  You can see the ring for the toilet on the floor on the right.

• Challenge #1- How to best position the shower?
  This room is long and fairly narrow but the challenge is the slanted ceiling.  We had to restructure the entire bathroom and really part of the upstairs hallway to get the room you are looking at now. We had to carve out a space in the room for a shower. Our first design included a clawfoot tub along the slanted wall and then the shower stall against the right side of the room, eliminating the window and adding a large skylight. The final design is a tub/shower combination at the far end of the room.

• Challenge #2- Where can we put the toilet?
  We are required by code to have a certain amount of vertical inches from the front of the toilet to the ceiling.  Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but in a room with a slanted ceiling it quickly becomes a problem. The inspector was asked to come and consult with us on our preferred spot for the toilet. He agreed to allow us to put it where we wanted to because it was a remodel and it had previously been a bathroom. If it would’ve been a new house, the inspector wouldn’t have given us as much leeway.  Even after we placed the toilet, the challenge wasn’t over.  The plumbing has to tie in to the sewer so it has to travel down to the lower level.  The position of the toilet routed the pipe through the downstairs hallway ceiling. When this happens you have to build a box to house the plumbing. In order to make this box make visual sense, the carpenter built a tray ceiling in the downstairs hallway–problem solved.

Some of you might be interested in some other details,

• The window is vinyl clad with obscured glass.  The window itself will not be affected by shower water. The window will be trimmed in composite material that will not rot and then painted.  We may choose to apply a water resistant epoxy, which we’ve had a lot of success with in the past.
• A custom, frameless glass door will be fabricated to shield the floor from splash.
• I’ve already purchased the American Standard rain can, extension arm, faucet, shower controls and tub filler from Hubbard plumbing supply. I also bought the Aquaglass unskirted tub at Hubbard’s as well.  I did compare prices at Lowe’s and Hubbard’s because I knew Lowe’s carried the Aquaglass brand. Hubbard’s came out lower and they stock the particular tub I needed, no special order necessary. The side of the tub that is visible in the room will receive a custom wooden paneled front built by the carpenter. As plain as this tub might seem to those of you that are designers or cruise shelter mags or design blogs on the reg, it was still $500.00. Trust me, if it was in the budget I would install a $1500-$3000 soaking tub.
• There are four 4″ recessed lighting cans in the ceiling in addition to the sconces.

Fixture Sources:

Vanity, Home Decorators

Hexagon floor tile, Overstock

Subway tile, American Universal

Sconces, Lighting Universe

Grohe faucet, Overstock (sold out)

Rain shower head, Faucet Depot

Wooden mirror, Overstock (I purchased ours at Home Goods)

Towel hooks, IKEA

Right now I’m leaning towards Benjamin Moore’s Chantilly Lace for the wall color. I like to test the color out in the room so I’ll finalize the choice once I take the fan deck over and observe it in the room. The trim will be oil based, semi-gloss white and the ceiling will be white.

Last week the deck was completed. Let’s review again…

Then

Now

As you can already tell the windows are in too.

I hope to receive sign off on the rough in inspection this week, that would mean clearance to begin hanging drywall and really begin making the magic happen on the interior. I should be able to make the call to the inspector on Wednesday requesting the inspection. Thats my goal.

We’ve come a long way but still have quite a ways to go at the Indiana project.

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!

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.

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.

Clearly I’ve read The Very Hungry Caterpillar way too many times to DC (hence the title of this post).

I love when you find those home transformations where the beginning structure is a 1950s ranch or as some call it a post war box and it turns in to a Craftsman style cottage or bungalow.

Example given…

And then…

images via Fine Homebuilding

Some of  architect Ross Chapin’s fine work,

and after…

My family and I are working on a cottage in Southern Pines, NC. We plan to locate tenants for this property. It will be on the rental market by the end of this month.

We did some slight revamping and had to do some significant repair to the plumbing, kitchen, new windows and a bathroom upstairs. We purchased it at the beginning of December and experienced some setbacks mostly because we couldn’t all agree on whether or not to gut the kitchen. We ended up emptying it out.

This view looks in to the kitchen from a bathroom, the sunroom/laundry area in the back.

I snapped a few other pictures just for fun. We’ll take a look at the whole place once it’s done. Below is the exposed lath after cabinets and dilapidated beadboard are removed. Despite the raw quality of the lath, the color is a warm honey color, it will be covered over once again.

The linoleum underneath the cabinets

Vintage seeded glass in the downstairs bathroom, the old blue tile will stay for now.

Here’s a little reminder about our TEOT’s Flickr page which has an abundance of images for your design-related pleasure as well as images concerning this project, past and future projects.