More Demolition Than We Thought and *Plans*

I thought I had a good plan. We moved out of the front bedrooms. We could pull them apart, put them back together, and then move back in. That would leave the back rooms empty so we could do those separately. Nice thought.

But it turns out we have to take out the wall between the bedroom we're sleeping in and the bedroom we're building.

It's the back wall in the picture above. That used to be closet space. The front wall (the studs) is a load-bearing wall so we can't take it out. But we want to put a door on the left wall (just outside the picture), and we have to move the back wall back 4-6 inches. No sense in dwelling on the short distance, though; it's the same amount of work for 4 inches as 4 feet, and at least we'll still be able to access the room we're sleeping in!

Since that picture, we have taken out all the lathe and plaster on that wall (both sides) and the last few sections of wall we needed to do. Here's a picture from the stair landing:

The construction zone is straight in front and to the right. We are sleeping to the left (past the hanging plastic).

 Here's a view from inside the master bedroom:

Troy is now working on ripping out the wall even as I type this.

Another thing he started was vacuuming out the stud bays on the outside walls and filling in the cracks with caulk.

Then we won't have to try to line them all with moisture barrier. I know there's not much in the picture for scale, but can you see how wide those boards are? That's what they were using for sheathing. Some day when someone tears down this house, I hope they recover that lumber and use it. Troy has identified oak and walnut among other types. Of course, now they'll have to clean off all this caulk, but I'm sure that will not be the biggest of their problems.

And another thing I've been up to is making plans. Like blueprint-type plans. I had done some layouts previously (see some here), but had had some revolutionary new ideas that I hadn't tried on paper. Troy and I measured everything again, and I made a scaled template of how the house is now:

(Although it is to scale, unfortunately the aspect ratio is not right. Things will look wider than they are. For example, the upper black rectangle is a square chimney but it looks like a rectangle. I also didn't include every single door and closet divder wall since at this point I already knew some of them would be coming out. Also, the bottom left window is in the wrong place. It's fixed on the plan below.)

I did a lot of playing around with stuff yesterday. Posted a plan to Facebook and then edited it at least twice more. This is what I have now:

The outside walls are thicker. The walls in grey are original walls we're not moving. All doors are 36". I was originally trying to fit in a powder room accessible from the hallway, but it just wouldn't work. Then I realized that it would only be used by guests staying overnight, so it really only needed to be accessed from the bedrooms. Adding a second bathroom definitely takes some space out of the right bedroom, but it was going to be narrow no matter what, and the long skinny shape isn't that great anyway. I'm pretty happy about getting it in.

And the walk through closet and master bath? I'm really happy about that. I couldn't figure out how to get both rooms into what was a bedroom, especially with that window in the middle of the wall. I couldn't put in a wall splitting the room in half. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about but during or because of a conversation with my sister Kim, I realized what I had to do--build the wall only part way across the room and leave the window area open. My original plan had access to the closet and bathroom only from the bedroom. So you would have to go the long way around to get dressed after your shower or vise versa. Having a walk through was perfect and solved the window problem.

Look it over. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I'd love to hear them, sooner rather than later. Thanks!

Second Floor Layout

Ready yourself for some information overload. If you don't have a lot of time, come back when you do!

I've got four layouts to show you of the second floor. This is the sort of thing that's been clamouring for attention and not letting me sleep at night. And I subscribe to the theory that you may as well start this early because you never get it right the first time. Things take time to percolate and build on each other.

What I'm doing: trying to design a layout for the second floor that includes a master bedroom (sorry for the term, but it's the one going right now), 2 spare bedrooms for guests (by the time we do this even Isaac will be a visitor) and at least one bathroom.

I first wanted a separate half bath for the guests to use, but really couldn’t get that to work out. So as a second option, I’d like the guests to have access to the master bath from a public area. (There’s no need to be walking through my bedroom! And no need to make guests walk all the way downstairs.)

For the bathroom, I'm planning on 2 separate [stock] vanities (his and hers--and I think it’s cheaper than getting a special custom long vanity), and a tub separate from the shower.

In all the plans you will notice that there has been 12" marked off from the outside walls. This is to allow for the extra thick walls that Troy will be putting up. The one exception is along the stairway/hallway where that is impossible. The 12” there will have to be added to the outside (somehow).

How it is now:

Clockwise from the top left, we have the bathroom (with closet), Isaac's room (with 2 closets), master bedroom (with closet) and spare room (with closet) and a small closet accessible from the hall way. The stairs are an L shape with a small hallway area giving access to all rooms.

The north two windows will have to be removed because they're only 3 inches from the wall and won't allow for that 12" of insulation. Good-bye windows! There are more windows in the bottom two rooms but I didn't mark them for some odd reason. I think we will be keeping all of them except the central window on the south wall.

I also failed to mark two chimneys along the central wall which will become significant in a Support walls are highly over-rated.minute. I was thinking I just needed a rough draft of the layout, but of course you always need all the information. Silly me. Good thing I live here and can measure it whenever I want and find the time.

Troy will have to do some exploratory demolition before we know for sure which walls can be eliminated, but for now I am assuming at least the walls which appear to only separate a room from a closet can be taken out. I have a strong belief that those were not original, thinking that this house probably didn’t have closets originally. I think this is a pretty safe assumption; Troy says, “We’ll see.”

(Of course from what we’ve seen so far, 2 of 2 structural elements have been doing nothing to hold up the house for quite some time, and we still seem to be standing. So perhaps support walls are highly over-rated.)

Key to pros and cons list:

* noteworthy but not important

** important

*** very important

Ok, here's plan 1:

Go ahead: take some time. Absorb it.

It’s the most similar to what we have now. Master bedroom is the same; the north bedroom and washroom have swapped.

(Note: one of the chimneys is in the way of the door at A so it would swap with the shower. So the picture's not quite right, but it’s in the ball park.)

Pro:
gain a lot of closet space ***
bathroom access for one spare room **
minimal rearranging of walls *
I like the privacy half-wall to screen the view of the toilet * (We’ll make it with storage for toilet paper and so-called feminine products and nice sliding doors—how come I’ve never seen this? It’s what every bathroom needs.)

Con:
Our bedroom is still on the south side of the house next to the noisy road **
Second spare room doesn't have direct access to the bathroom *

And now plan 2:

Now we’ve got the master bedroom in the north half of the house.

Pro:
master bedroom gains closet space (not quite as much) **
bathroom has public access **
privacy half-wall toilet screen *
master bdrm in back where it's quieter **
security: two exits from bedroom give you a possible escape route from intruders *

Con:
master bdrm is quite small *** we may not have room for our bed and our desks in there. We don’t really want our desks in a spare room.
spare room 2 is quite large—too large? *
It also needs a closet—perhaps somehow in conjunction with a surround for the stove pipe.
You can see I have a wall right into a window in the closet, so we may have to lose that window too? *


Plan 3:

I just noticed there's an error on the design: there should not be an extra door by the shower. (The bathroom already has a door.) It would just be open from the tub area to the rest of the bathroom. Sorry, that's a little confusing.

Pro:
public access to bathroom **
plenty of closet space for master bdrm **
office space is separate from bedroom *
there's room for an office **
master bedroom in back where it's quieter **
security: two exits from bedroom give you an escape route from intruders *

Con:
messy door area by the spare bedrooms and bathroom *
very small master bedroom (will our bed even fit?) *


Then I realized that the master bedroom was so small in the last few plans because the stairway eats up the north part of the house. Why not flip the stairs? Troy wasn't so eager at first because that is some major reconstruction, but it turns out it solves his insulation problem. Flipping the stairs to the south puts them into the front part of the house which is wider. Voila! Room for insulation!

So I give you Plan 4:

We're not sure if the wall at A (running through the middle of the master bedroom can be removed. If not, the south portion would probably become a separate office off of the bedroom. That would make it a "feature" not a drawback. ;-)

Pro:
public access to bathroom **
security: you can hear people come up the stairs, but are the very farthest from them. It gives you time to react or flee *
bigger master bedroom than previous 2 plans * (even if it is long and skinny)
large master bdrm closet area **
linen closet right in the bathroom (instead of in the hall) *

Con:
very small spare room 1 *
very long trip around to master bedroom * (unless a door is put in at B)
small master bedroom ** but after putting the office and clothes storage into other rooms, maybe it's all we need.
security: if no door at B you can be trapped by intruders *

Then Troy had a thought of a Modified Plan 4: he wondered if there would be an advantage to take out the wall separating Room 1 from the Hallway. This would make that room more like a loft. I thought I could hang a curtain across the room for guest privacy, but when we have no guests (which is like 350 days out of 365 at least) we could have it open. We're still thinking about whether that would offer a lot of advantage or not.

Please let us know what you think about this issue and all the other plans. Some say adversity makes you stronger, and I say opposing opinions can do the same with plans and designs. So fire away! (You can let us know what you like too though.)

PS: Troy is really fired up about the kitchen. Every day I come home to a big change. Last night was the floors being taken out (Goodbye horrible nasty linoleum tiles!) and we carried out the counter top. This morning he's taking the lower cabinets to the shop. They are horribly water damaged on the bottom (as was a good portion of the under floor). Troy had figured fixing them up would be cheaper and quicker than buying new ones for the shop. (And we all know that even cheap cabinets are $$$.) Oh no...he just came up and told me they are falling apart. So much for reusing...

Revealing all that nastiness has really let a repulsive odor into the kitchen. It's amazing the house in general didn't smell worse than it did. It's nasty work but it sure is satisfying to take that grossness out!! Thank you, garbage man!

Come into My Kitchen

Troy tells me the other day that he is just itching to tackle the kitchen...this summer. Although the whole house is a mess and functioning just well enough to live here, the kitchen is functioning the worst. It is by far the biggest heat sink, having lots of single pane windows and no insulation, and half of it being built out onto a former concrete porch. It's also hard to get stuff accomplished when it sucks up a lot of extra time just to prepare and eat food. (Troy's also looking ahead to having a bigger garden this year and just how we are going to process all that produce...) Plus if we get the kitchen in ok shape, maybe we could entertain a little better/more often. Everyone always hangs out in the kitchen at parties, anyway, right? Perhaps they won't even notice the condition of the rest of the house...we could hope...

Troy is getting this started now because until this past Wednesday we didn't even have accurate measurements of the room, let alone drawings, plans, or any clear ideas of what we were going to do with all that space. (Besides revel in it, of course.) So Wednesday we measured. Thursday I got an accurate outline of the room drawn. And today I spent all day (after sleeping in late, let me be honest) cutting out scale kitchen items on graph paper, and looking through a dozen and a half of kitchen magazines Wendy lent to me. (Thank you, Wendy!)

Besides the usual things one wants in a kitchen (like cupboards, counters, appliances), the one thing I had been stuck on is that I wanted a booth for everyday casual seating/eating. Troy wants a kitchen with room to process large amounts of food; loads of storage; and a nice eating area with a view outside.

Here is the initial plan I came up with. Let's call it Plan 1A:

[Clicking on the pics in this post should give you a full scale view.]

Some general notes:

1. You will notice some extra room behind the refrigerator and north counters. Right now that is hidden behind drywall and not being used at all. We are thinking that we will put in a broom closet behind the fridge (accessible from the east), and above the counter, we may use that space for an appliance garage. (Eew, fancy, fancy, I know!)

2. We will be taking out all existing windows, and in this plan would put in twin double-hung windows at the end of the booth (so we could watch all the pretty birdies, and Troy could still shoot squirrels while eating his dinner).

3. We have cleverly added 6.5 feet of pantry space (floor to ceiling) by using what is now empty space around the chimney on the east wall.

4. There would be upper cupboards above the north and west counters; but not the peninsula.

5. This layout has 14.75 linear feet of counter space. It has 9.25 linear feet of upper cupboards.

The next plan is Plan 1B, so called because the only change was to try out a "corner" sink (and I'm not even sure the sink would fit exactly in the corner like that, but that's what I assumed for now):

Notes on Plan 1B:

Besides notes 1-4 from above, all of which apply, I can add that

5. This layout has 15.5 linear feet of counter space. It has 10 linear feet of upper cupboards.

So this plan does yield a little more work and storage place, but only one person is ever going to be at that sink at one time. Since there are only two of us and we have a dishwasher, perhaps this would be acceptable.

On to Plan 2:

Definitely a more contemporary look, following the overwhelming trend to have an island. (But I will refrain from completely revealing my biases until you have had a chance to air your views.)

Notes:

1. The space behind the fridge/counter is used in the same way.

2. I lose my booth; replacing it with a partial booth. The feel changes, but the seating is more accessible. (I.e. four people can sit there and no one is locked in.) I forgot to draw in the chairs, but you can imagine them on the sides of the table without a bench. Yes, I'm sure you can.

3. The only window would now be centered in front of the sink, following a very old tradition. If you want details, you could also imagine an archway topped by half cupboards over the window, and then the same design echoed over the stove.

4. I have completely lost the desk workspace and china cabinet that was in the SE corner.

5. On the up side, the room works as a whole in this design. I'm sure it would feel much larger. (Of course it has less in it--see note 4.)

6. Now the really up side: this layout has 14.75 linear feet of counter space, plus the 3'x5' island. It has 13 linear feet of upper cupboards plus the ~5 feet of half cupboards above the stove and sink. That's a lot of stinking counters and cupboards!

So take a look, if you have some time. Which plan do you like? What would you change? How do you like your island, or do you love your peninsula instead? Would you not visit me because booths make you claustrophobic? Please spout off in the comment section or by other means, and click through the poll as well.

In any case, I am confident that any of these plans will beat the 6 feet of counter and 9 feet of upper cupboards we have right now. And having the fridge and dishwasher in the kitchen proper would not be bad either.

Alright, I am kitchened out right now so I will say good night!

-christina