Our New Digs

Things are moving along here in renovationland. The loan has been approved, the permit has been applied for, and the hubby and I managed to find a house to rent for the duration. I thought I'd introduce you to what will become our new base of operations for the next 6 months or so.



It's a snug little house with a labyrinthian collection of rooms, but it suits our needs. Here is a view of the living room area with an old brick fireplace and built ins:



Next up is the dining room complete with mural. That mural makes me nervous actually. I'm scared half to death we'll ding it or scratch it up. Just past the dining room windows you can see another room that they made by enclosing a porch. It's not well insulated and is already hot this time of year, but it will make a good place to watch the wiener dogs while they frolic in the back yard.



Off the dining room is a very spacious kitchen, complete with lots of cabinets and counter top space (more than I actually have now). The fridge is a nice size too, but it doesn't have an ice maker. The washer/dryer is in the forefront of the pic, and while it's a bit awkward to have them in the kitchen, I'm glad to have them far away from the bedroom. A dryer close to the bedroom can really heat it up in the summer.



And speaking of the master bedroom, here it is. It's going to be a bit of a squeeze to get the king sized bed in there, but we'll manage. Not pictured is a small closet, but I don't mind living out of wardrobe boxes if necessary.



Off of the master bedroom is the teeny tiny bathroom. This picture makes it actually look a lot larger than it is. The hubby is crouching on the toilet to take this photo- and to make matters worse there are two doors in this bathroom. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they built this house, but if it were mine this would be the first thing I would renovate.



Next up is the bedroom that will become our home office. I like the nice wide windows that overlook the backyard. Perhaps I can surf the web while I watch the wieners frolic and play.



And finally, one of the biggest selling points of the rental- a big, level fenced in back yard that is wiener dog approved!



For reasons that elude me, the hubby did not take pictures of two of the other bedrooms. They're nothing special- they'll just serve as storage for our stuff during the renovation. He also excluded the laughably small "bathroom" off of the office. Folks, they stuck a toilet in a closet and called it a bathroom. It's really funny. I'll try to take a pic of it and add it later.

So I guess that's it! The hubby and I will be moving in to our new digs at the beginning of April and then the renovation will truly begin on the old homestead. I'm glad we found a place that is so close to our house (less than a mile), but it's weird layout and tiny rooms make me appreciate the convenience of my own humble abode. Still, I'm grateful for the fenced in back yard. I won't have to walk the wieners constantly in the summer heat.

I'll be updating this blog as soon as the construction starts so stay tuned!

New Old Mantle

I just have a quick post today showing our new old mantle. You see, we have four coal burning fireplaces in this house that are inoperable. At the time that this house was built, coal fires were the very latest in modern indoor heating...now, not so much. I know you are thinking that we must have been crazy buying a house with four fireplaces that didn't work, but the truth of the matter is that while I love the look of a fireplace, I don't really like dealing with the mess. Also, since we live in Hotlanta we tend to have short warmish winters, so I probably wouldn't wind up burning that many fires anyway. This old house was perfect in that respect. I get my lovely old fireplaces without having to deal with the mess of a fire.

Except...the fireplaces weren't that lovely. Some time in the 80's a contractor bought this house and (for reasons that boggle my mind) he pulled out all the beautiful old mantles and replaced them with chunky modern ones. So, the hubby and I have been slowly trying to replace them with old mantles that would have been appropriate. We replaced the one in the living room with a mantle we found in an antique store. It had been used as a backdrop for a professional photographer. Many a bride in her wedding dress stood in front of this ole mantle. We installed it and painted it green to match the rest of the living room.



A little while later, we heard the news that neighbors were renovating their bungalow and didn't want two of their mantles. We happily scooped them up and have them waiting patiently stacked in the corner of our office for our own renovation.



This week on craigslist I noticed an antique mantle on sale that looked like a really good match for the old photographer's mantle. A nice lady named Randi was renovating her farmhouse and no longer needed it, so we were happy to give it a good home.



It's a real beauty and I know it will add a lot of character to whatever room it ends up in. So there you have it folks, our new old fireplace mantle.

The Before

Sooo...I'm just gonna gloss over the fact that it's been a year since I've updated this blog. Suffice it to say life happens. The good news is that we are closing on our reno loan this week, so the hubs and I decided that it was time to take our official Before pictures. Hopefully by the end of this year we'll have a whole lot of After. So without further adieu, I give you our house:

First off, this is a drawing of the current layout (on the left) and the changes we'll be making during the reno (on the right)



This is the view of our house from the street. If the money holds out, we plan to move these columns a bit so that they don't block the windows. We'll also be adding Victorian details to the porch, and possibly painting it purple.



Some detail photos of the front porch. Hopefully it will have inviting furniture, a new porch swing and a door mat that isn't a jack o'lantern.







Stepping through the front door, you get a view of our long hallway that leads all the way to the back of the house. We love this very Victorian feature of our home, and have no plans to change it. What probably will change is all the clunky storage furniture that we have in there now because of lack of closet space. Imagine a nice long smooth hallway with neat pics and such on the wall, and where you see the back door way at the end of the house will be an opening leading to the new addition. This is the view looking slightly to the right. That doorway that you see on the right there leads to our current home office (future master bath). That doorway will be closed up completely to give us more space for the bathroom.



For contrast, this is the view looking slightly to the left. See that door with the little weird shelf in front of it? That's our junk room (we'll visit it later). That weird shelf is preventing the wiener dogs from getting in there and messing with the litter box.



Because I love my neat stained glass front door, here's a view from the hall looking back at it.



Let's continue our Before house tour by going through the first door on the right and entering our current home office (future master bath). If you step into the room and turn to the right, you see our computer desk. The hubby sits on the left, and I sit on the right. Where he sits will be a nice open shower, and where I sit will be a toilet.



Looking straight in from the hallway you see our lovely futon. That was the hubby's futon in college and our first couch. Ah...memories. Anyhoo, along that wall underneath the window will be the aforementioned ginormous tub (hot Nordic vampire not included).



Looking to your left in the room you will see a fireplace and a couple of fireplace mantles stacked on the wall. In the 80's a builder bought our house and replaced all of our lovely old fireplace mantles with clunky plain ones. Les and I have been scouring Atlanta (okay, we've been using craigslist) to find replacements. Those are two we've already acquired. Behind the stacked mantles is a wall where we will put a doorway connecting the new master bath to our master bedroom.



Heading back into the hallway and going into the next room on your right you find our charming (but small) guest bathroom. This will be remade into a hall closet.





Continuing down the hallway, the next door on your right will lead you into the master bedroom. The master bedroom will remain mostly unchanged. The doorway entering it from the hall will be moved a little to accommodate the bed being moved to that wall.



A door to the new master bath will be added to the left of the fireplace.



The door to your right that leads into our current master bathroom will go away. In it's place will be a small inset chest of drawers flanked by two doors leading to a new walk in closet (in the old master bath area).



Let's go through the door from the bedroom into our current master bath. This would be the view if you stepped in and were seated on the toilet. Along the wall to your right is a window seat and a bay window (because who wouldn't want a bay window in a bathroom?). To the left is the sink and the shower, and straight ahead is a door leading into the kitchen/dining room area. That door will go away entirely when this area becomes a walk-in closet.



This is a view looking out from our bathtub at the bay window. The three old stained glass windows that we are using as window treatments right now will be reused in the reno as windows between the new guest bathroom and laundry room.



This is a view looking back towards the toilet. On the right is the doorway that leads to the master bedroom, and straight ahead is a door leading to our only halfway decent closet in the house.



Let's just open up that closet door shall we? As I've said, this is the only decent closet we have in the entire house. We have two more, but they are not deep enough to hang a wire coat hanger in straight. This closet has to hold all of our clothes, linens, and even our washer and dryer. Keep this in mind when you see the blue room.



I'm including this shot because the hubs took it, and I think it looks all artsy and cool. This would be your view if you were a sock on the floor of our closet. Oh, and this closet will be part of the large walk in closet. It's door will get recycled and used elsewhere in the house.



Continuing out of the bathroom, we have hit the back wall of the house. If you turn and look to your left you will see the back part of our large central hallway.



Straight ahead is a dining/kitchen area. This part gets a bit tricky. This entire area will be turned into a guest bathroom, a laundry room and a stairway leading down into a basement (yay! storage!). For reference, take a look at the plans up at the top of this post.



The area with the kitchen cabinets and sink will become the laundry room, while on the opposite wall where the stove and fridge are will be steps leading down into the basement.



The area kind of to the right (with the kitchen counter and pie safe) will become our new guest bathroom.



The open wall here that is looking from our kitchen into our living room will be closed, and a door will be added to it for access from the guest bedroom (our current living room) to the guest bath. The door to the right of the fireplace is one of our teeny tiny not-big-enough-to-hang-things-in closets.



Let's continue on into the living room. Have a seat on the couch and watch some TV. That doorway that has no door will have a door rehung so that people enjoying our new guest bedroom can have a little privacy.



A view looking from the corner of our living room into our kitchen. That's the wall that will be closed up to make the guest bathroom.



I think we'll probably put the guest bed along the wall under the windows.



If you exit the living room and turn right out into the hallway and continue towards the front of the house, you come to the last room. We call it the blue room (because it's painted blue). Folks, when you live in a house with very few closets something's got to give. This extra bedroom became our room of shame..our junk room. We had to have a place to store our stuff, and the attic gets way too hot to store most things safely. So here it is...

ACK! THE SHAME! THE SHAME!!!



Hey, don't judge me! A lot of that clutter is boxes and packing material we've been saving for the move. Anyway, this room also features a lovely fireplace that needs redoing, and we have big plans to make it into a nice home office. We'll have a new computer desk along one wall and lovely arts and crafts built ins. Here's another pic of what it currently looks like though.



So that pretty much completes the interior of the house. Wait..what's this? You'd like to go see our attic? Well just haul yourself up those crickety stairs.



As you can see, we've got lost of storage space up here, but even with ridge vents and other fancy stuff, it gets unbelievably hot most months. You have to kind of pick and choose what you think will survive in this environment. On a side note- when did the hubby and I get so much stuff? We have to move all this out so they can do rewiring and ductwork. I get tired just thinking about it.



Another art shot by the hubs taken on the attic stairs looking towards the front of the house. I'm just including it here cause it looks neat. Also, check out the crappy popcorn ceilings. That's all going to be changed to beadboard.



So that's all of the current house. This is a view from our backyard looking at the deck and back wall of our house. The back wall will be completely removed, and the new open kitchen/dining/family room will be built here. We also plan to have a screened porch and a new deck.



I hope you enjoyed the Before tour of our renovation project. It will be fun to look back at these photos and compare all the changes in the After.

A Little Bit Of Hallway, A Whole Lot Of Bathroom Tile

Wow, well that was quite a blog break, wasn't it? Sorry about that, usually I'm very productive in the winter (the low temperatures gets my blood pumping) but for some reason, this year all I've wanted to do is curl up on the couch and nap with the cats and the wiener dog. I wish I could report that the hubby and I have been hard at work packing, cleaning and organizing during the hiatus, but honestly we've been sorta lazy and just devolved into our usual patterns (cooking fancy weekend meals, going to parties with friends, playing way too many online games, etc). Design has kind of slowed too because poor Karen and has been very sick this winter- nothing too serious (thank goodness) but just really yucky stuff like nasty head colds and the stomach flu. Fortunately, spring is coming, everyone is on the mend and hopefully we'll be able to finalize our plans, get our financing, and start the renovation soon!

In the meantime I have a few things to show you. Take a look at this picture of the floorplan:



Notice the colorful square in the front hallway? That is actually going to be a multi-hued design painted directly onto the floor. It is supposed to be reminiscent of a classic quilt pattern- but get this, it's also going to be able to function as a chessboard! The hubby can have friends over and play over-sized chess on the floor in our front hallway. How cool is that? I think this painted floor "rug" was a very clever way to incorporate both of our passions into the design of our house. You'll also notice down the length of the hallway there is a sort of "cross-hatch rug" that will also be painted directly onto the floor. The colors of this "rug runner" will match with the colors of the front hall "quilt/chessboard rug", giving us a very neat and inventive way to tie the whole hallway together. I couldn't be more tickled with this idea!

Now, let's move on to the bathroom, shall we? For the sake of discussion, let's assume that the front of our house (the top of the above picture) is north. As you enter our bathroom from the bedroom and turn left and look along the west wall, this is what you are going to see:



That's the tub along the bottom with a window over it, and an open shower area to the far right of the picture. Note that there is a line in that picture that follows a little over halfway up the wall, then sorta over the window and the shower area? Well everything below that line (including the window frame) is going to be covered in this beautiful "graduated" (that means the color changes subtly) autumnal purple tile:



(ignore the white tile in that photo, it was put there to show the beautiful Japanese maple leaf that served as an inspiration for the bathroom color)

The tile will continue across the entire room, stretching around the window on the north wall here (shown beside our shower):



And all the way around the east wall where our two sinks will be:



Karen has designed a little nook between the sinks (for display and storage) and two mirrors above the sink- all of which will be framed in tile as well. Did you notice that marble sample in the tile photo? Well, our sinks will be custom made out of that marble and will be sitting on rusty, antique pillars.

But, what about the floor? Well, Karen has come up with a very cool idea for it. You see, Victorian houses often had fancy tile work in their front hallways, and she took the inspiration for our bathroom floor from them. It should look something like this:



Notice how it looks like a quilt? Well that's not by accident!

Sometimes I look at these elaborate plans, and I hardly think I deserve such a rich, beautiful bathroom...but then I remember I've been living with this for 8 long years:





I think it's time for a little pampering, don't you?