The great house update

Two years ago we found ourselves expecting a baby, living in an apartment, and realizing that the housing market had hit rock bottom. My husband, the planner and real estate agent, saw the silver lining, and one afternoon our house hunt began. Just like that.

We had known we wanted a house but we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves. After selling our first house, we spent two years living in an apartment, footloose and fancy free. And while we were there we began narrowing down just where we wanted to live. After securing the general areas we liked, within a week of his announcement we began actively searching. In a market such as the one we are in now, if you want to buy you have to be ready to jump. Houses are on and off in a matter of days and knowing exactly what you want will help things move quickly and far more smoothly.

We had a list of must haves: attached garage, 3 bedrooms on one level, an area for a home office, 2 bathrooms would be nice, a dining room and at least 2000 square feet. We didn’t care if it was updated or in it’s original state. In fact we preferred the latter; not wanting to pay for someone else’s updates. Knowing what we wanted allowed us to breeze through 10-15 homes in a matter of a week. We would walk in, look around, see what we could do and how the home flowed and either keep it on or knock it off the list. Obviously the fact that my husband is a remodeler helps in our ability to rehab something!

When we walked in the house we eventually bought, it was nice. There were definite features we liked: the big windows, layout of the bedrooms, amount of square footage and the fact that there were 3 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms. We looked at it once and came back within days for a second walk through and then made an offer. Just like that. We knew that what was missing was primarily cosmetic and would be easily fixed with some hard work and money. And the area was the perfect compromise for my city living desire and my husbands want of a suburban neighborhood. Although we don’t live in the most prestigious neighborhood or even where some would begin their search, we live on a street that has some history as almost every neighbor has been here for 10+ years.

Because of all the above logistics we were able to secure our house for a significant discount especially after it under appraised. Although deals like our house are very infrequent these days, knowing what you want and being able to act quickly is really important.

But back to the house. Our house is a 1965 split level. This house is NOT our style. We are farmhouse/cape cod/craftsman people. This was a huge compromise on our part. But given that our budget would only reach so far with our must-haves, it was a compromise we were willing to make. We have 4 bedrooms, 3 on one level, 3 baths, 1 full and 2 3/4, and 2300 square feet. Our bedrooms are on the smaller side but our living spaces are quite large. And we have a dining room. YAY! Compromise is usually the name of the game when it comes to house buying.

Before we even moved into our house we immediately entered the room dimensions in my husband’s design program and we began our own listy-mclisterson of updates. Let me tell you that list is mind-boggling and it’s to come…because if you are anything like me, you are curious!

And like every list, it will take time to knock our items off especially since we only pay cash for any updates we do. Not too mention that my husband does remodeling and investing as a full time job… but I’m ready to start writing about our house and the changes we’ve made and I’d love to have you along for the ride. Coming soon will include what we have done, what we hope to do, our kitchen reveal and more.

Are you buying a house soon or have you? What were your must have’s?

Kitchen update

We spent most of the morning on Saturday tweaking our cabinet plan and here’s the final revisions. I can’t wait for the transformation to take place although I’m not looking forward to being without a kitchen. But we’ll make do just fine.

This picture is an example of what I was trying to explain in the last post. The cabinet to the left of the refrigerator will have shelves in the blind corner and will be where we house cleaning supplies, brooms, etc. The hutch, on the left, will be our coffee/toaster station along with storage for dry goods in mason jars with storage in the drawers for other small appliances. But what to do above the hutch? Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This view illustrates the changes happening to the area where we now have cabinets. We’re opening up the wall so we’re losing some countertop space to the right foo the stove but the window is moving down so we’re making up for the lost space to the left of the stove. And the picture isn’t right as we’ve decided to go for symmetry over function but you get the idea!

 

 

 

 

 

The fact that our cabinets will now go to the ceiling has me giddy inside. That’s an extra foot and a half of storage space. And I am really excited to have more windows in the space. More light always makes things feel more open and spacious. And moving our refrigerator to the other wall allowed for far more countertop space as well.

The opening from the kitchen to our living spaces was moved and opened up as seen in the pictures below. Our square footage on our main level is not small but not huge either and we like having some separation from the kitchen to the living spaces. We are not the norm but to our defense we drew up the kitchen with the walls down and don’t even get me started on how little storage I had then. It just wasn’t going to work.

Overall the changes to the kitchen wall will make a huge impact on how our main level functions. Right now Alex pulls a chair into the kitchen so we can interact while I’m making dinner and now with the opening larger he’ll be able to play with Elizabeth in the living room and still be able to interact with me. I can’t wait!

Last final decisions were also made on the styling side…

-Door in the kitchen will be painted a fun blue color and be full glass for even more light

-Going with a one bowl sink so I can have a bridge faucet. We installed one at our second flip house and I didn’t want to leave it there. I love bridge faucets!

-White subway tile with pale grey grout for the backsplash

-Hefty polished nickel drawer pulls – Hickory Hardware Studio II

-Last and final decision will be for a light above the kitchen sink. When I have a few to choose from I’ll definitely be polling for opinions.

Seeing white

Yesterday morning we started really planning our kitchen remodel. I have to keep reminding myself that until the cabinets come down this isn’t a reality and yet it’s really fun to start making all the final decisions. We’re 99% sure demolition is a month or two away and if it’s any reassurance to my heart, we do have our new microwave and range sitting quietly in the garage awaiting their new home.

Until then, I’m dreaming in white. A white kitchen has been my dream for as long as I can remember with accents of pale robin’s egg blue. Classic with touches of beachy-Nantucket flair. I’m still gathering my thoughts but after our first design meeting over coffee, we’re that much closer to bringing my vision to reality. I can’t wait to see in white. We briefly considered doing grey or navy cabinetry but at the end of the day we want to do this once, as we’re hoping to live here for the long haul and I know I would tire of anything but white after awhile.

So, this morning we hashed out the layout one last time to make sure everything was in place so the plan could be forwarded on to our cabinet maker. There’s still some tweaking to do but we’re that much closer.

6 months ago when we started dreaming of our white kitchen we were certain we would be buying the off-white Adel cabinets from IKEA. Seriously I love IKEA cabinets and all their inner components. I love how this kitchen came together…gorgeous! In fact, we chose the same exact pulls for our cabinets. Now that our plan has changed slightly I even asked Alex if he would install the drawer components from IKEA in our new cabinets. I was denied but seriously their cabinet innards seem indestructible…something that my clumsy ways would find assuring.

Our budget for the kitchen is definitely not big and IKEA cabinets fit the cabinet budget perfectly. But being the wise people we are we sought out some second opinions as well. We checked with Alex’s cabinet specialist at a local lumberyard/cabinetry shop, Home Depot/Lowes semi-custom cabinetry, and with a cabinetmaker in a city south of us. Believe it or not we will be doing our entire kitchen for the price of semi-custom from Home Depot/Lowes. We knew what we thought their pricing would be, given we’ve utilized their services often with clients, but oh.my.goodness, it was really expensive. Triple our cabinet allowance expensive. Money we don’t have to spend on just cabinetry.

But there was a silver lining to our cabinet debacle. Alex is in a Christian men’s business group with other entrepreneurs/self-employed men and one of them happens to partner with a local cabinet shop. They offered him their friends and family discount which ended up being amazing and after a visit to their shop we were sold. So now we are able, blessed really, to have custom cabinets for our kitchen for just a little tiny bit more than IKEA pricing. Seriously, still pinching myself.

So with our cabinets now custom there are a few fun things we are able to accomplish that we would not have been able to with IKEA. One area we just changed is alongside an empty wall in our current kitchen. I love the idea of a built-in hutch with plate rails above for my mason jars and thankfully with our revised plan we are able to make something like that work. Full detail still to be developed but I’m ecstatic that there will be a place to show off their beauty filled with dry goods!

I can’t find a picture to do the idea justice but you can imagine shelves on the upper portion with a plate rail, an open counter area at counter height for our coffee maker/toaster, and drawers below. And the entire thing will look more like built in cabinetry. When we have a screen shot I’ll share;) Our current kitchen is neither big nor small but it is definitely lacking in storage. This will help things considerably as will removing our soffits, taking the cabinets to the ceiling, and adding some much needed storage including a place for mops/cleaning supplies. While I’m excited on how things are progressing we hit upon a design dilemma.

Here’s the render view of our kitchen:

I tend to like things visually symmetrical and if we line our cabinets up the above wall symmetrically we lose the ability to have a hinged door for the corner cabinet. Without the hinged door the upper cabinets to the right and the left of the sink will be almost identical in size but if we keep the hinged door and eliminate a blind corner (which would be ideal since everything always gets lost in those) the cabinets to the right of the sink will be smaller throwing off the symmetry. The render above illustrates the size difference of the top cabinets which allows for the hinged corner doors.

So here are my questions for you:

Honor symmetry or go for function?

Anyone have ideas for the dreaded corners?

And on another note, one bowl kitchen sink or two?