Before and After Photos

This only represents a small fraction of the remodel, because it's a universal truth that you never, ever take enough 'before' photos.

Family room before:

After:

(beautiful but an acoustic nightmare.)

View from original dining room, into the dank dark tiny kitchen that had to be walked, run, skipped, dashed, dragged, crawled, toddled or stumbled through, depending on your stage of life, to get upstairs:

Now it's a hall straight to the sunny West side.


View toward the old staircase, the lower section of which got moved.

Now it's the kitchen.


Old kitchen.

New kitchen.

(Not really a fair before-and-after because the kitchen moved, but hey, it's by far the most dramatic comparison.)

Previous living room fireplace. Originally it was probably just brick, but previous owners put in this heavy Renaissance-style rock surround (hey, it was the 1980s).

A fireplace has to have a mantel.

We didn't dare disturb the original 1913 wood-burning firebox, since wood-burning fireplaces can no longer be installed in our city, so we "only" made external cosmetic changes.

Office.


Its bones didn't change except for the addition of a closet, but it sure looks different with new flooring, windows, trim, paint, and lighting.

The former guest/west/what-is-it room, with a mysterious pocket door to the sunroom.

We kept the pocket door idea, but added closets, moved the patio door, changed windows, oh yeah and a new bathroom, and renamed the two rooms a "suite."


"Sunroom" facing outside. We were never sure what this room was -- it was sort of a large closet, but it had its own closet.

Now, instead of the patio door being at the farthest point possible, there's a new window, and it's really a room.


Sunroom closet, before:

After. Same place, but with extra storage under the stairs. Comes with a cute 5-year-old boy.


Now, upstairs.

Starting with the stairs. The 'before' view at the stop of the staircase from upstairs. Note which way the lower part of the staircase goes, to the left, like an upside-down L.

After. The lower stair section got moved to the right, and rotated another 90 degrees, so the stair is now like an upside-down J. We lost the built-in bookshelves in the stairwell, but added some other built-ins downstairs to make up for it.


I love how these metal ballusters look, but that's not why we did them. This whole section was designed to be unbolted and removed so that it's easy to move furniture up and down the stairs.


The 2006 remodel was motivated to incorporate this outdoor closet (that has a dormer window!) and this balcony into the master bedroom.

We got some extra closets in the knee wall to boot.


When we moved in in 1999, the master bedroom was two bedrooms crudely merged into one with this 5-foot opening in the separating wall, with a door leading out to the balcony on the left. In 2008, our architect easily convinced us that the rest of the balcony should also be living space.


So the MBR got moved out about 4 feet, with the rightmost window and the light fixture staying in the same place. The tacky gold ceiling fan was replaced with a schoolhouse-style light fixture, same location, though like with the rest of the house, the real lighting is all recessed.

Exterior:

View from the West side (facing east). Before:

Boy was I happy to see that vast expanse of nasty T-111 siding on the 2nd floor go. After:



Even more interesting, the view from Kinglet Court. This photo of the original house before its second-story addition was taken around 1971 by a neighbor.




View from the East side (facing west)(taken during 2006 remodel):

After:

Note how the upstairs balcony turned into a dormer.

View from the north (street)view. Before:

After:


Boy, we've come a long way.

And now....landscaping.

Moving Day!

We moved back home today!

In theory, moving on a Wednesday is easier: we have childcare, and there are extra weekdays before and after to deal with things.

In practice, having kids in school makes moving day a real pain. Grownups can just order a pizza and blow off unpacking -- moving is exhausting -- but with kids in the picture, you still have to dig around piles of boxes to find lunch-making accoutrements. Or plan ahead to put lunch-making stuff in a separate box in your own car (marking it clearly won't help, it'll still get piled under other boxes by the movers).

It took hours to find everything just for breakfast cereal in the morning too. I don't think I've ever been so tired as after an intense day of moving, going out to dinner, and then having to come home and go through the motions of a regular weeknight.

We're exhausted, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're thrilled to be back home.

PARTY!

We had our housewarming party today -- before moving in! It's much easier to showcase the house without our icky old furniture, and people can open doors and poke around closets as much as they want. The house will never be in this perfect condition again, so this is the time to do it.

Inexplicably, I got no photos at the party at all. I was too busy showing off my new house!

But before the party, I did get a photo of our 5-person-seating island being used by 3 of the people who will be sitting here on a regular basis.

Or so I'd thought. Once again, kitchen design clashes with social engineering: this was the only time the two boys sitting next to each other didn't wreak total havoc, and they pretty much haven't sat next to each other since!

Staging

Our architect and contractor (well, his wife) both requested some photography at our new house, and what better time to do it than right after cleaning and before we move in?

So, the day before the housewarming open-house party, they both came and staged the house for photos. This included all sorts of funny accoutrements I'd normally never use for decoration -- like roosters or pigs holding chalkboards -- but everything looked great.

Besides, it's time I post a photo of the finished kitchen.

Final inspection passed!

Construction cleaning complete today, the house is now a house, not a jobsite.

That said, the kitchen guys need to finish up tomorrow, something neither I nor our foreman trust they'll do well or with enthusiasm, so one or both of us will be there tomorrow to watch over them.

And for some reason, none of our heat works. Forced-air furnace upstairs doesn't work, and the underfloor hydronic radiant downstairs -- no workie. All four bathrooms have underfloor electric radiant heat, and those all work.

One basic thing that plagues our house is its location on the lot. The rest of the neighborhood got built up around it, including our neighbor's 2-story house to the south, blocking most of our southern exposure. One goal was to extend the family room beyond the neighbor's house and get more natural light into the main living area. While there will always be some obstruction, and that's expected in the suburbs, the family room area's natural light is vastly improved now.

Those dormer windows are for me to gaze out of from my command post in the kitchen.

More floor

It's unbelievable, but we came thiiis close to not having all the flooring in. Our contractor's flooring source underestimated the amount of material needed, and though it's nothing unusual or exotic (domestic red oak), this prefinished material has to be ordered weeks in advance. Ironic if we'd get hung up on one of the few decisions we'd made before demolition even started, but, back then in the good old days, freight companies weren't going out of business left and right.

But, our most wonderful foreman leaned hard and somehow got it here today, in the nick of time. Construction cleaning starts tomorrow (3/12), and after that, the house is no longer a jobsite.

Speaking of floors, one floor we hadn't planned to replace was the original porch floor. But it was already damaged and then had to be cut into for some electrical reason, so the only choice was to replace it. Which gave us the choice not to paint it, as the old porch had been. Instead, we just clearcoated the fir. Other than losing some interesting old screen door scratch marks, I'm beside myself about this change. It is beautiful, and really makes the new doors stand out too.

Our old porch, right before we moved out (and after a piece of exploratory trim was removed):


The new porch:


Oh yeah, and remember those living room floors that were redone? They were dry on a Saturday afternoon, so it was only natural I'd expect them to be in the same state Sunday morning. Who coats floors on a Sunday? Worse yet, what idiot homeowner steps on them, still wet, in socks, on a Sunday? That would be me!

Yupper, I left a nice perfect size 6-1/2 smoodge on our brand-new living room floor finish. As soon as I felt the stick, my heart sank and I backed out immediately. Fortunately, it can easily be buffed out. I don't have an answer to the question: why did I take off my shoes if I thought the floor was dry?

The stairwell carpet is in too -- all flooring done!

We've been living in a carpeted rental house for 9-1/2 months, and this has permanently cured Dave of his previous ambivalence about carpet v. wood floors. I grew up in a rowhouse in Brooklyn with no carpet, and have never liked it. Now, with all the spots, the stuff sticking to them and in them, the difficultly moving things around....good riddance. Rugs OK, carpet on stairs OK (ugly but quiet), wood floors, the way to go.

Wood Island

My island is in! And yes, it's huge -- 7 feet long -- but it fits the kitchen. I guess the kitchen is huge. I didn't expect that exactly, I didn't think I was a huge-kitchen sort of person. I must be the sort of person who can't, or won't, do division...I've known all along that the island would be at least 85". That just doesn't sound as long as 7 feet.

I wasn't sure about the woodtop's legs, but I do like them -- enough so that I sort of wish they were a squarer simpler design, but, whatever. I'm an expert now at "getting over" stuff.

I like how the hanging pendants line up in this view. Notice how the island is centered on the cooktop, niche and hood, and draws your eye right in there? That's the sort of thing kitchen designers think of. That never in a million years would have occurred to me as a design element, but I can't take my eyes off it now.

Why a butcher block top?

Well, I'm torn -- matching countertops would bring the whole kitchen together, but now that I see how the quartz composite doesn't bowl you over like granite does (sniff), it's just as well. Butcher block goes completely against my no-maintenance grain (har har), but it'll be easy to rub oil over it on an island with no corners or details. Really, my main reason was comfort. I bake a lot with glass bowls, chop a lot with acrylic cutting boards, and wanted a softer, quieter, more forgiving surface with a little extra traction for most of my prep.

The island is also a little lower than the countertops too, something only users 5'2" and shorter will notice, and greatly appreciate.

I have to laugh when people make comments about kids doing craft projects on the island. Kids? My kids? On my island?!! Glue? Crayons? Glitter? Pencil used as awls? No way! Yes, Sharpie does fade from wood in a few months (arrghhh...), but, thanks, no. They have the rest of the house for their graffiti.

Floored by flooring

This entire project revolved around maintaining some key few original elements of the house. Mostly, this was a remodel, but there were some "restoration" aspects to it as well, in the living room and dining room. From the outset, we were absolutely not going to refinish the 95-year-old floors or disturb them in any way. This is why the gigantic fireplace footprint remained; to eliminate impact on one of the few remaining original elements in the house worth keeping.

Yet somehow, Friday, days before final inspection, an open-house party, and move-in, something happened that triggered a refinish of the old floors. Mostly, we're down to knobs and screws and light switches, so this came as quite a surprise.

I'm not entirely certain of the reason....the floors were "screened," but a huge puddle was left in the middle of the living room floor, so the screening had to be re-done, but apparently they couldn't do that well because of years of previous buildup on the floors. Somehow, our contractor worked it out that this refinish wouldn't cost us anything, and though it's tight, won't delay our schedule. That's nothing short of miraculous.

There were two holes in the floor that went through to the basement, that had been covered by brass plates before. This was as good a time as any to repair those.


Meantime, the flooring we weren't going to have any problems or delays with, we're having a problem with a delay. It's a prefinished oak floor, and I absolutely love the material. Somehow, the amount needed was underestimated, and now they're having problems shipping the material. The whole side of the kitchen and family room isn't floored yet. Our hardworking foreman is doing everything he can to try to get it here, but we might be showing off our house next week with a carpet patch.


As long as we're looking downward, this corner is sort of tragic. I can't remember how it came about to have this little step, but it was necessary, and I don't mind goofy quirks like this. But whoever cut the baseboard for this didn't get the message that the angles aren't 45 degrees.


All in all, the living room looks really nice. The floor has a first coat of polyurethane on it, and everything looks so much better with the mostly-matching trim, and with actual color on the wall (even if I'm not very bold about colors).

For once, a photo with the flash looks better.

I'm so used to thinking this house doesn't have electricity. I could have turned on the lights!

That is some gap under the front door. Punchlist!

Finishing Bits

Our temporary power has been disconnected! We have regular electricity now. The 25-foot pole is still in our backyard, but that'll go now. Inexplicably, PG&E put in the old-fashioned analog meter that doesn't track your time-of-day usage, so we'll get charged the same for peak and off-peak usage. Yet another phone call to make.

Upstairs kids' bath replacement medicine cabinet is in. This time, both kids and grownups will be able to see themselves in the mirror. Recall that I'd expected the color to be much lighter -- this finish is great, but so not a kids' bathroom!

However, those tacky plastic gold-colored knobs must go. I think I'll replace them with something like this. I have to get my kicks somewhere, after all.


My kitchen pendants are in. They make the desired punch all right!

(Still, hand-wringing -- do they fit in with the style? Are they too high? Will the bulbs glare in my eyes?)

The family room fireplace works! I'm going to love this.


Another mistake, this time an honest one: we planned for this shower door to hinge on the left, so you reach for it with your right hand. Unfortunately, we didn't anticipate that the outswing would hit the robe hook and towel bar I'd planned for the wall right next to it. Which is why you don't see a towel bar or robe hook. And in general, doors opening right into walls is a bad idea.

But the real problem with this door is that it swings in slightly too, and hits the plumbing fixtures. My 5-year-old was VERY surprised when he was playing inside the shower, tried to get out by pulling the door toward him, which hit the cross-handle knob, turned it on, and blasted him with cold water! Poor kid. The worst part for him was that I was too busy rolling on the floor laughing to go fetch a towel!

Another "obvious" mistake I only just realized: in general, one should try to avoid a toilet being in view when a bathroom door is ajar. And bathroom doors are often kept ajar, and should be, to identify its availability. (I had a roommate once who insisted on closing the bathroom door at all times for this reason, because the toilet was in plain sight of the whole living room, but I never knew if he was in there, and I really didn't like to knock and bug him if he was!)

This is actually a nice-looking toilet, as toilets go, but really, who wants to look at one? We should have switched the vanity and toilet in the design. (It's a Kohler Memoirs toilet, and the same 5-year-old was the first to honor it with his rear end too. I think it works better than the Toto's that are all the rage, and that we have 3 of.)

Another decision I made, against my architect's and window salesman's recommendations, was to make this bay window lower than the usual 30". I wanted to actually sit on it, even if its proportions look odd. That's me, function over form.

But you know, it looks odd. And somehow, it ended up only 18" off the ground. And really, there's a major function I didn't think of: wall space. If it were 30" off the ground, a table would fit neatly in front of it. What an idyllic place for a sewing table, for instance. Being as low as it is, it's a lot of unusable wall space. And this house is very, very short on wall space!

However, for the split second that my sons weren't tearing around the house screaming their heads off today, they assured me that it's at the right height.

There are still countless details awaiting attention; a light fixture here, they ran out of flooring for the kitchen there, uneven floors wreaking havoc with the tall baseboard....but nothing that will hold up our schedule. The final construction cleaning is planned for the 12th and 13th, just in time for an open house -- and for us to move in!