On Porches

Our very first "small project" will start next week! We decided to tackle the porch first for many reasons. The porch represents probably 80% of the first impression of the home, we do spend a great deal of time out there in the summer, and the front steps are simply unsafe.

We're busy scrambling to pull together details for the reconstruction. Our goal is to match the original architecture as much as possible. One change we are considering is a different combination of railing/shingled surface.

You'll note that our current porch has a solid shingled wall:














This is the original porch, we are fairly certain. The only missing element is probably a widow's walk above the porch. We know this based on the old photos and this drawing from the local newspaper, published in 1901:


Here are some examples from our neighborhood of what we may do instead of the solid wall (the first two being from the same architect, and probably the third as well):



































The railing adds a nice detail that would improve the overall look of the porch, but something about changing a design that has existed for 109 years seems... wrong. Using the architect's own design from another building feels slightly better. We would love to rebuild the widow's walk, but we're not touching the roof of the porch in this project, so maybe later.

I will have to get out there this weekend and take extensive "before" photos before the demolition starts. That should be a good show for the kids!

Plan B

If you're wondering what the heck is going on with The Project, well, join the club. The whole thing got held up at the appraisal stage and... as we expected... things did not pan out. The numbers don't make sense. Why would you build if you can buy for 75% of the cost? Home prices are coming down, building costs are not. Bla bla bla.

But this is a renovation journal, not a finance blog so long story short, we're still moving ahead. We're just going to do it in a more financial cautious manner.

We've prioritized smaller projects to tackle while we watch the market and re-evaluate The Project in another six month.

The smaller projects we want to tackle now are:

*Re-build front porch
*Re-shingle
*Repair a rotten rear deck
*Long
***List
*****of
******Money
*******Sucking
*********Projects!

We met with Bob the Builder, yesterday (his name really is Bob). Understandably, he's disappointment that the whole thing is not happening as planned. However, he was more than happy to help us get started on smaller projects.

He was so happy, in fact, that he stopped by unannounced today to scope out the porch project. He left a sample of ceder shingles which made us inordinately happy. Something tangible, colors to choose! We're really getting something done after almost two years of planning!

So, as for color...we're thinking of a traditional grayish shingle color, and an overall color scheme along the lines of this:













Originally we had admired some color schemes with more contrast, like this (sorry for the tiny pic):







But that was nearly two years ago when we first started all of this planning, and now we're thinking the dark trim with beige is going to look too 2005...

So our current choice is Seacoast Gray, which will look roughly like the first photo above. We hope to see Bob back here next week for porch demo, otherwise known as Phase I of Plan B

Yard Work

Slow going here on "The Project," as we call it. Still in a holding pattern. Gas line is flagged, builder is ready, and now we wait, and wait.

So while we're waiting, I can share some more "before" shots.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, our yard is woefully underutilized. Before we moved in we tore off a rotting deck in the rear of the house. Now the post holes and debris left behind make the yard a bit of a hazard for the kids.


The front yard, while level and large, is a bit wild and woolly. The driveway exits onto a busy street.

The backyard is a great sunny spot in spring and summer, but there's no access from the rear of the house and its too muddy in March and April to really enjoy.

Part of our plan is to do some landscaping, add a hedge or wall along the busy road, and move the driveway to exit onto the quieter side street.

The drawing below shows the plan for the yard, with the driveway relocated.

The color drawing is one option for the backyard. With a little thought, this not-so-large space could be quite pleasant at least 6 months out of the year.

Its nice to look at the drawings and imagine the yard in a year or two... in the meantime we wait.

Kitchens and Gardens

This past weekend we met with the kitchen designer and a landscape architect. Despite all of the anxiety around a project of this magnitude, when we think about the end result in the kitchen and the yard, it is hard not to be excited to get started.

The kitchen is already the hub of the house. The more time I spend there, the more I can see how great the new kitchen will be. The new kitchen will also be the connecting point between the old and new portions of the house. Our inspiration for the kitchen is this:

This is very close to the look we're going for - perhaps a less stark-white for the cabinets. These are nice but we want a more historic look. The pendant lights over the island are very close to what we want. Soapstone counters, drawer pulls (oiled bronze).

In contrast, the yard is one part of our property that is drastically underutilized. Mud, ruts and valleys, chipped paint and debris from shingles and who knows what, and a driveway that runs out to a busy street, makes it very unappealing especially with 3 small children. Part of the landscape plan is to move the driveway to lead out to the quiet side street, and place a hedge or wall along the busy street, creating a safer front yard for the kids. We'll also clean up the back yard and add a deck off of the new family room which will make use of the yard that much more appealing.

We're still looking at an 8-10 month outside estimate for project completion. Our current estimate to break ground is mid to late April. But after this weekend we just want to get started!

A Little about Lighting

I wish I had some great ground breaking photos to share, but we're not there yet. We're currently in the painful process of sharing every minute detail of our financial history with the bank. We hope to break ground by the end of March, but that is still just a hope.

In the meantime, we have plenty of time to stew over our plans, and work on the one hundred zillion decisions to be made. If you think about all the decisions at once it is overwhelming, the stuff of 3 am anxiety. So we are taking all this time to make decisions at our own pace. This week its lighting and kitchen layout.

You cannot underestimate the importance of good lighting. Once you start paying attention, you'll notice three types of lighting in a warm, well-lit home:

Ambient lighting: provides the overall glow that lets you get from point A to point B without stubbing your toe; but if you have a wardrobe of black like I do, it is useless to help you make heads or tails of the sea of black within a dresser drawer. Typically recessed lights in modern homes, or the single overhead light in older homes.

Task lighting: designed to help with a specific task like cooking or reading. Usually a recessed light or under cabinet light in the kitchen. Our current kitchen is quite dark, with most task lighting frustratingly placed behind our heads, casting a shadow right where we work.

Accent lighting: lighting used to illuminate art or a plant or some other focal point. Since we have no major artwork, we're leaving any accent lighting for a future project.

When these three types of lighting are layered well, it can make an empty box look warm and inviting.

For ambient light we know we'll need some hanging lights over the kitchen island. We like the look of the one shown here - somewhat period appropriate, simple.

There's really only four other places that require special light fixtures: stairway wall sconces, bathroom wall mounts, and the family room overhead light. Lots of decisions...but we're chipping away.

Location Location Location

As I mentioned in the last post, when we first purchased the home we thought it needed major work. The basement had such a mold issue you could smell it immediately upon entering the house. We imagined massive renovations would have to happen even before we moved in. Replacing windows, sandblasting doors...

Luckily after some research we realized that we really didn't want to replace the windows, we wanted to restore them. But the guy we wanted to use had about a 6 month backlog. So we opted to just seal the entire house in a coat of fresh paint, and hope for the best until we could get around to the restoration. Here are some before and after shots from that initial paint job, completed before we ever moved in. Efficiency and cost dictated that we actually paint over the wallpaper! Actually a builder told us the plaster might not survive removal of the wallpaper, so until we were ready for a major renovation he advised we just paint over the flowers. And that is what we did. Its amazing what a coat of paint in the right color can do for a home. As you can see the windows are amazing. Two thirds of the home gets southern sun exposure. Like I said the house also has pretty much every original detail intact. Some stained glass in the foyer, an interesting double staircase. Here is an interesting set of windows in a gable on the third floor.

After our initial paint job and drying out the basement, we moved in and immediately started work with the architects. Since moving in we've grown to love the house, and the neighborhood. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in town, with smaller plot sizes. Our plot is about a half acre, which is larger than most nearby.

We can see about ten different neighbors' homes from our house, and we like it this way. There is a sense of community that is hard to come by.

As I mentioned, we've agonized over the scale of our project. We've wondered if we wouldn't rather just put our money into a home that already meets our needs. We even went so far as to visit another home - just for a sanity check. Turns out even if it saved us some money and the hassle of construction, we would rather be here. Hopefully we still feel this way in 5 or 10 years.

We're close to town and less than a mile from Fort Williams. Down the street is a quiet beach. There's even a sliver of a view of the channel from our yard and from the front rooms of the house.

So that's why we're doing this. Why we're willing to go through eight to ten months of construction. We like this spot and we're going to make the most of it.

Before

Here is our beloved home as it stands today. It is a five bedroom, 1.5 bath home. It's actually quite comfortable for the way we live today, given that it was built 100 years ago.

When we toured the house as potential buyers, however, we had a list of "cons" including:

1. Detached garage - difficult to get to in the snow or while lugging car seats/sleeping toddlers.

2. Zero closet space. This is not an exaggeration. I guess closets were an afterthought in 1901. Maybe they had less clothes, or people were just smaller?

3. One full bath. Not a big problem now, but with two daughters, this would not work long term.

4. Small kitchen.

5. No "great room."

As potential buyers we wondered how much work was required before we could even move in. We painted the interior top to bottom, gutted a moldy basement, and immediately contacted an architect.

But now, after living in the home for over a year, we've grown used to its quirks. Only one outlet in many rooms. A single wall sconce for light in our bedroom. These used to be deal breakers for us, and now we barely notice them.

Perhaps this is why, during the planning phase we've agonized over this burning question: how much space do we really need?

We've gone back and forth and ultimately we decided that yes, we will want that larger family room eventually. Having a third child, and hosting a couple 15+ holiday dinners during the planning stage also solidified this opinion. When the kids get bigger, we will need more space.

After a few meetings with the architects to discuss our needs, they came back with the initial drawing.

Either we picked the right architects or we are incredibly easy to please, but we went with the first thing they came up with. Or the plan is just that obvious. In fact it was our idea to pop out the back and connect to the garage. They just drew a very life like picture of it.

This is not a new idea, people have built connectors for ages. You can see these rambling ells and old barns-connected-to-home structures all over New England.

So that is the plan, to connect the home to the garage. This gets us our attached garage, a family room, a mud room up front, a master bath and closet on the second story.... and also some extra living space above the garage.

When this project is complete, we will have a home that can serve us for the next 50 years if we want.

While the size of the project gives us heartburn, there are other factors that make us confident this is the right thing to do. Three words: Location, location, location.