The Hard Truth of Home Renovations

Folks, I have to tell you something, the hard truth of home renovations: I’m scared. This staying up way too late, simply because you know that going to sleep and waking up, is being one day closer to a new reality. Yea, it’s a bit terrifying.

I told Matt earlier, “I haven’t felt this way since the day before I left for Ireland for a weeks long {4 weeks actually} study abroad session: Scared, anxious, worried, and out of my mind, and completely excited”.

This isn’t just a home renovation. This is years of my yearning to unleash my inner architect and designer. Years of kicking off the same base molding, and not so gently nudging it back in place. Years of seeing what our house is and know what it could be. Years of putting aside my greatest form of creativity….HOME.

And I’m just a bit terrified.

I’m RIPPING OFF HALF OF MY FREAKIN’ HOUSE! {Don’t get me started on what can go wrong…like the entire house imploding when we start to dig the new foundation!}

And supposedly when it all gets patched back together, it’s going to be a home…again.

THE home, that I have had in my mind for the past 20 years of wanting to be an architect, of loving buildings for their bones and their stories. Of recreating myself through nails and sheetrock, 2x4s and power tools. I am the girl, who before HGTV was popular I did renovations; who went to her local lumberyard and was told “You’re like one of those girls on HGTV! You do everything!” and was completely elated at such a compliment and a man’s world that accepted me and helped me on the journey.

To me, this home renovation is very personal.

Every single decision that I have hashed out for this space is being brought to life. After hours and years of before pinterest pin-boards, of graph paper sketches, of lists of dreams and wishes, of tearing out magazine pictures, of storing away all the little details that spoke to me.

This isn’t just a renovation, it’s my being able to get my hands dirty, my shins bruised, and bring the home that has existed only in my mind to life. This isn’t just replacing a foundation and having a kitchen to eat in: This is creating the literal foundation of our family, the kitchen.

I’m sure there are going to be tears. I’m sure there are going to be hurt feelings {mostly mine}. I’m sure there are going to be disappointments. Because those things are no less a part of life.

I am {almost} 32. This home, God willing, is our forever. This home, has seen some of the darkest fears and greatest joys in my life. It holds the people I love most. It’s the home I will create for the next 20 years of kids still living at home, and then {hopefully} visiting grandchildren. And this home, has really nothing to do with what HOME truly is, but it is a labor of love. And I don’t want to miss that.

I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to do this kind of renovation in my life again…so I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to soak up the sweat and blood and curse words and tears that I know are coming. I’m going to stand my ground and know when to concede. I’m going to build the literal home, and the figurative home, that I want to bless my family with.

That’s part of the thrill of home renovations and designs, that somehow all of these little things work together and becoming something good. And I know God is in the details, working it all out….somehow.

White House Renovations 2014–The Look

Last week I shared all of the lovely before pictures of our house. This week I’m sharing what we hope the space ends up looking like. Hoping…because with an old house we’re not quite sure just how all of it is going to come together yet. One of the things we are trying to do is reuse and repurpose a lot of the existing parts of the house: Plumbing and light fixtures being two of the biggest. We’re trying to save wherever we can and this is a place we can save.

We’ll start on the outside.

We’ve struggled a LOT with the outside of the house. I’m very particular about old houses, unfortunately I don’t have the budget to do all that I would LOVE to do on the outside, and what I do want to do, and insist on, is much to the chagrin of my workers. They almost had me convinced to go with vinyl siding on the whole house…almost.

While I almost didn’t mind the vinyl siding, I was worried about how they would handle some of the trim on the house, particularly the windows. It wasn’t until I went to take this picture that I decided no way was I OK with vinyl siding the house. My fear is that the detailing on the windows would be lost, because it would just be boxed in with a vinyl rectangle. I was NOT OK with that.

One of the things that I love about our house is the old windows. We had originally had some of them replaced, but stopped because I hated how they came out {you can see the window, above, bottom right}. We’ve replaced a lot of the panes of  glass and they are good windows, they just need a decent amount of love.

The windows that existed in the part of the house that is getting removed, will be replacing the replacement windows…so I don’t have to look at this anymore. It does mean we won’t have windows that open easily, but I’m ok with that. At least until we can spend the time restoring and repairing all of the windows.

So what is going to happen with windows in the addition?

We are doing all that we can to keep them similar to the original windows. They won’t have the curved glass on the top, but we are using a grille that will make them look the same {the trim down the middle}. We’re also staying with windows that are the same dimensions, 36x60, which will give us wonderful, huge windows with lots of natural light.

In the kitchen alone there are 9 windows, plus a 6’ gliding door: Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of any of them.

Back to the outside.

After talking to several people we found this wood composite siding called SmartSide, which looks like clapboard, can be painted liked clapboard, but holds up better than plain wood. That’s what we’re going with for the siding. For right now the house will be staying yellow, because I honestly am not sure what color direction I want to go in next. The other big apprehension I had with vinyl was being stuck with a color. I LOVE COLOR!

Shall we go inside?

I’ve been planning this renovation for at least 5 years, which means that Matt had a lot of catching up to do in the designing and planning area. And unfortunately we weren’t aware of all the structural particulars of our house yet. Because of the original-original of our house {the current kitchen was a poorly built addition}, there is an exterior supporting wall, that cannot be moved {in yellow, below}. We’re having to add in extra supports, which of course cut into my layout a bit.

The Mudroom/Laundry Room

In my mind the wall in the mudroom {top left} didn’t exist, so we had to reconfigure how that room was laid out. There needs to be supports/wall there to support the upper story of the original house, which makes for a kind of awkward situation. I’m not quite sure yet how this is going to be dealt with, but hopefully it works out. Part of the existing wall will be open to a closet of sorts, that will store the washer and dryer, which will still give you a decent amount of floor space in the mudroom.

The Kitchen

The big issue for us in the kitchen was having a staircase access to the basement, an island that looked out on the yard, room for a huge kitchen table, a woodstove, and good flow. I’ve been playing with this for ages between HomeStyler.com and Ikea.com’s kitchen planner.

We started with the stairs, because it was the non-negotiable as far as placement was concerned. We knew we could only make the addition so many feet bigger {I’ve been told that each foot longer the addition was would cost an extra $1000+}, so we had to make it work.

The rest of the kitchen layout is based off of that. We had basically 8’ feet to work with on the right wall, so we did what we had to. The general layout of the kitchen is staying: We like it and it works for us, it just needed to be bigger {my dream was to have a kitchen table in my kitchen}.

The island I can only credit to one person: The Nester. She had shared on her blog about how she made that one kitchen job she hated easier, through one simple thing…putting the daily dishes next to the washer…HALLELUJAH AND AMEN! At that point I pretty much just decided to mimic her island.

The sink will be an undermount apron front white cast iron enameled sink {which arrive yesterday…eek! So awesome!}. It was our other non-negotiable in the kitchen, everything else flows from this sink. In all ridiculousness it reminds me of the old Kohler commercial when a woman walks in, in a business suit, sits down at a table full of architects and says, “Design a house around this” and puts a faucet on the table.

The cabinets are Ikea cabinets, with the Lixtorp fronts. I wanted the Lidingo {gray}, but Matt felt strongly about having more of the warmth of wood…it wasn’t a non-negotiable for me, so I gave in. I figure if in a few years if I’m tired of them, I can always paint the cabinets.

The countertop we’re going with is Quartz. Since our sink being an undermount was a non-negotiable, we were limited in what our countertop could be. We looked into the laminate, but it looked horrible with an undermount. Quartz looked like our best bet: It’s solid surface, low-no maintenance, and looks beautiful. Lowes quoted us around $81 sqf. We found a local company that does everything from start to finish for $65 sqf: AWESOME! Matt stopped this week and looked at some of their samples, we’re going with a glossy-ish black that has some grey/white flecking in it. Gorgeous with the wood countertops and sinks!

We have’t quite figured out the backsplash yet, most likely we’re going to go with a white subway tile, but I’m not convinced of that. I probably won’t make a final decision until the kitchen is done. The backsplash can really be done last.

All of our appliances are staying for now. They’re all less than 5 years old, still work, and quite frankly I’d rather than spend my budget on appliances. The one big thing we are splurging on is an exhaust hood from Ikea, for above the stove. We do need to buy a new countertop microwave and toaster oven {both of our’s are shot}, and both, with the coffee station, will go in the large appliance garage {above} next to the fridge.

The floor is going to be the same as the rest of the house…Southern Yellow Pine, wide planks. We’ll install them and finish them ourselves. They will look very similar to the original floors in the house, just in a lot better shape.

You can find all of my kitchen design ideas on my pinterest board for Kitchen.

Heading upstairs.

The Master Bedroom Suite

That phrase sounds so pretentious to me, but that is what it is called. At first I was really overwhelmed at the idea of a bedroom that would be 20’x30’. Then Matt decided to cut the room in quarters, giving us a closet, storage area {since there will be no attic space above the original house or the new construction}, and I’m going to eek out a section for a small studio {or in all actuality…where I plan on doing the Christmas wrapping}. All the doors up here will be pocket doors, so that the flow of the area isn’t chopped up.

The windows in this room pretty much match up with the ones downstairs, there are a few less, but I really wanted to be able to create a sitting area {bottom left} where we can chill and enjoy the view. We’re not getting any new bedroom furniture other than some bookcases and chairs. Everything else will just come from our old room {bottom of linked page} and the variety of things I’ve picked up for décor over the past few years.

The Bathroom

Our bathroom was supposed to be a bit wider, but with the issue of the stairs and the hallway, we decided it was better to cut the room and move the door, we did add a little more to the depth {top to bottom in the picture above} to make it not feel so small. My big dream for this room was to have a second washer and dryer in here. We had originally planned a swap with my SIL, but since Matt’s grandparents’ washer/dryer were lost in the fire, that’s not happening. Eventually we will buy a top/bottom single unit.

This is kind of the feel we’re going for in the room {you can see more in my pinterest board for the bathroom}.

We’re bought the sink/cabinet from Ikea {it’s on sale right now – Hemnes and Rattviken} in the dark brown. I was originally OK with just an inset fiberglass shower, but I would really like a bathtub that you can BATHE in. This is one of the last projects to be finished, so it isn’t pressing to decide. We may end up going with a soaking tub, then tiling the walls and installing two shower heads {like we have downstairs—which we love! The downstairs bathroom is going to get a new coat of paint, too}.

I think for now that’s a lot of the design ideas we have regarding the additional space. I’ve tried to have ideas, but nothing fixed, so that if changes happen I can kind of go with them. Be sure to check out my pinterest boards to get more of a feel for what we’re thinking.

Kitchen :: Laundry/Mudroom :: Master Bathroom :: Master Bedroom :: Outside

White House Renovations 2014–Before

You can all thank TheNester for this post; for giving me permission to post the crazy before pictures. I’ve been wanting to share some pictures of what’s going on in our house now, but haven’t wanted to share all of the mess with you. Then I realized that I wasn’t being truthful with you. I can show you perfectly staged “Before Pictures” that show everything all neat and tidy, or I can be real.

I’m choosing to be real.

Hold on to your seats! This may get ugly.

This is the current view of the living room, kitchen, pantry, laundry room, and breakfast nook {from left to right}. This is the standing point I will use for all of the panoramic pictures I will show of the kitchen, that way you always have a fixed point to see the difference in.

Here it is with a bit more detail.

You can see the chaos we’ve been living in for the past few months, and how there is JUST NO ROOM in this kitchen for anything anymore.

We’ll move into the laundry room now {the door on the right in the pano picture above}. This room currently measures 6’9” by 6’10”: It’s not very big. It is our only access to the backyard. It originally looked like this when we bought the house.

The other door {on the left in the pano picture} opens to our pantry. It used to be the pantry/office, until I needed to be more visually in line with the trio, then I got downgraded to the kitchen {which is a lot warmer than this office is}.

This room has pretty much become a dumping ground for everything: I so can’t wait to get it cleaned out. That’s the dog crate underneath all that stuff on the right, poor creatures {and yes, that is still snow on the ground…a fresh dusting}.

We’ll move on to our current stairs in to the basement…We’re ready if we’re ever invaded by aliens. This…will…actually…become…our….wait for it….PANTRY! My FIL had the brilliant, and I am saying that will all sincerity, idea to convert this into a walk in, dropped floor pantry. I can’t even tell you how excited I am by that. {The existing basement will be accessed through the new basement}.

The living room will also be getting a makeover…particularly the floors.

The dining room will be staying as is, but will be getting new floors.

Then we’ll move upstairs….

This is what our hallway looks like right now. The door on the left goes into the attic, the window on the right looks out on the kitchen roof and a small portion of our yard. I do love this little window, because it has a stunning view of our apple trees and the mountain. The view that will soon be visible from ALL of our new windows!

The door will be removed and re-sheetrocked, the window will be removed and the door into our bedroom will go there. It means a smaller master bathroom that way, but it resolves the issue of having to step down from our doorway on to the landing and up into the hallway {yes, I can see me falling down the stairs in the middle of the night}. The top of the stairs will have a gate that continues out of the railing, so that no one can go down the stairs if it is closed.

This is my attic….isn’t it lovely?!

There use to be insulation on the ceiling, until they weatherized our home and ripped all of it out and insulated the floor, which resulted in a WONDERFUL moisture issue, since there were icicles hanging {and then dripping} from each of the nails that poked through. We had several things that were destroyed by the mold and numerous things that took a lot of work to get cleaned again. I was so angry, and yet this is how every one tells me attics are insulated. Fortunately we won’t have this issue in the new attic. What you’re looking at now, will soon be our new master bedroom, with closet/studio/storage and full bathroom…oh yea!

Shall we move outside now?

This whole back off-shoot is what is being removed. The originally windows are being salvaged and will be replacing the replacement windows in the living room {since I can’t stand them}. The addition will be the full width of the remaining house and the full two stories that the rest of the house is.

I think that’s all the before pictures. I’m showing you all of this so that you can see just what WON’T be there in a few weeks. Everything here, every inch of it, is going to be gone. It will cease to exist and all there will be is a huge hole in the back of my house and a crater in the backyard. Oh yea!

I’m not sure yet how I’m going to keep you guys up to date. What do you think? Once a week? As projects are finished? Let me know how you want to keep up with the #WhiteHouseReno2014 {I will be posting frequently on Instagram under this hash-tag, if you want to keep up with the every day goings on}.

Next week I’ll show you what will be replacing all of this loveliness….

Let it snow!

I’ve missed blogging…the whole just sitting down and sharing with you {or over-sharing as the case may sometimes be}. This post will be chock full of all the fun things we’ve been up to!

Yesterday we drove to NJ to visit Ikea {one of my FAVORITE stores!} We’re still planning to go ahead with our big house repair/renovation for next spring and wanted to start looking at cabinetry and all those other things we’re going to need for the new kitchen. I LOVE doing this! I don’t love the prices though…why is everything so expensive?!

We picked out two finishes that we really liked on the cabinetry, and then lucked out with getting doors in those finishes in the As-Is section for $15. At least we’ll have them on hand when we look at other cabinets online or locally. They’re 2 completely different looks, but both lend themselves to a more traditional country/cottage feel.

Then this morning was a big surprise…we got snow last night. And not only did it snow, but at 3:15 this afternoon, there was still snow on the ground! Avelyn was outside promptly this morning to play in the snow, unfortunately it’s not the best packing snow, but she had fun. {You can visit my friend Natasha’s post for 25 things to do on snowy days}.

When I brought the trio downstairs, we were sure to have them look outside…

they didn’t quite know what to make of it. They made even less of it when I took them outside for a few minutes…

they lasted about a half hour before everyone had enough, besides Avelyn, and wanted to come in. Hopefully we get a good snow soon…there’s nothing quite as depressing, for me, as getting ones Christmas tree in mud.

What things are you looking forward to this time of year?

"To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” – Jane Austen

I posted this picture the other day on Instagram, showing our impromptu little haven and so many people were asking how we’d made it, that a blog post was in order. 

Although, this isn’t going to be a very lengthy post, because honestly it wasn’t that much work to do.

Supplies Needed

*Sheer Curtain Panels – Enough to gather across the distance of space. We used 4 for a little over 7’ of space. We got our’s at The Christmas Tree Shoppe.

*Thin Rope or Wire – To string the curtains on. Twice the distance of the space you’re spanning with extra to attach.

*Nails, Screws, or Eye-Screws {think, hook and eye locks} – This is what you’re going to use to attach the rope/wire to.

Steps
1. String curtains on rope the way you would on a curtain rod. Put them aside.

2. Hammer nails, screw screws or whatever you’re using an 1” or so above the highest point {the wire/rope will sag a bit from the weight of the sheers}, at both ends of the span.

3. Tie rope to one of the nails/screws.

4. Pull rope very, VERY tight and tie to the other side. Matt is really good at knots. He does a taught line hitch knot so that he can tighten it like a cinch.

5. Repeat steps for the bottom of the curtains through the hem {this will keep them from flapping in the breeze}.

6. Sit back and enjoy your new found privacy.

This has worked really well for us. We enjoy our front porch, but don’t enjoy our neighbor across the way, seeing our every move. We’ve been able to easily pull these closed when we want privacy, and push them back when we want to be able to see out. They’re just enough weight and gather, without really obstructing our view. You can see onto the porch a little bit, but not in the afternoon, when the sun is shining.

Not a bad deal for $10 in curtains and some hardware that we already had on hand.

DIY in the Yard

This post contains affiliate links, please read here for my disclosure policy.

I posted a few weeks ago about our backyard project, and then life kind of happened, along with a wedding and it just never culminated in a post here.

What I was working on was a chalkboard for the backyard, per this pin on pinterest.

About a month ago I headed to Home Depot and was planning on buying my own black exterior paint, then added in the unsanded grout, and doing all the DIY things the way I was seeing online. The paint was $15, the bag of unsanded grout was $13 {for the 2tablespoons that I would need}, then the sheets of plywood were going to cost $50+. Time to rethink the project. I was not going to spend almost a $100.

I’m looking around and realized that they carried 2x4’ sheets of already done chalkboard {basically finished MDF board}. Should I do that? Then I noticed they had 2x4’ sheets of thin “luan” style boarding, but would that hold up outside. Back to the paint department.

They guy asked me what I was working on, explained I was going to DIY a chalkboard for our backyard. He suggested I forego the whole thing of making the paint myself and just buy the Rustoleum chalkboard paint, since it was a heck of a lot cheaper. So I did that. The stuff went on easily and washed off of me pretty well too.

Then I decided I wasn’t going to spend a ton of money on the 1/2” plywood and instead went with the smooth finished luan board that was 4x8, and just have them cut it to a 4x5, and 4x3 piece {which they did}. The whole shebang totaled around $40 or so, a little better. I figured the 4x3 piece I could turn into a chalkboard for in the house.

A few more weeks went by and it was finally nice enough to work outside without worrying about things getting wet. In about an afternoon, the whole thing was primed {on all sides} and painted {on the front}. We let it sit on the covered porch for about a week, before I finally got the board up in the yard.

It was an easy enough project: Didn’t cost a huge fortune: And we’ll see how well it holds up with the weather, since I didn’t use exterior paint and it isn’t sheltered. So far so good. I do think that I might, at some point, take the palm sander to it and really smooth out the surface and repaint it, because it’s a lot more textured than I would like.

I’ll keep you posted on how it holds up.

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers, to read my full disclosure policy, please click HERE.

DIY Entertainment Center Reveal

If you follow me on instagram (@Jess_LITWH), then you’ve probably seen a few of the #DIYIntheWhiteHouse glimpses that I’ve done. For about the past month or so we’ve been working on building a new entertainment center. We had bought our old one from Ikea 7 years ago, and it held up well, but was starting to get wobbly and honestly took up a ton of room, since it was built for the old tube televisions.

I’m always seeing Ikea-Hacks online: People purchase Ikea furniture then make something fantastic from it. There’s a whole website that is dedicated to Ikea hacks! I kept googling “Ikea Hack Entertainment Cabinet” and never found anything. I gave up and decided I would have to be a first.

We purchased 2 of the Billy Bookcases with the Billy Olsbo (1/2 door) for the fronts. We got them in the dark brown, which is more of a black, with brown undertones. I then took the door to Home Depot and had them color match the door into Behr’s Eggshell. The person was looking at me like I was crazy, but I worked at Home Depot’s paint department in college and new how the color matching would work. The easy part was then done.

Matt and I worked together on creating the measurements for the base and upper cabinets, that would fit between the two book case and be where the TV would go. We wanted the TV to mount on the wall, so that it was more secure and we didn’t have to worry about someone knocking it over.

The first attempt I gave Matt the wrong width measurement. Instead of the full width of the TV, plus a few inches, I told him the width of the actual screen, which left our base cabinet about 5” too short {the TV wouldn’t have fit between the bookcases}. The second time we got it right. Matt mirrored the bottoms of the Ikea cabinets so that it would be uniform between our’s and the Ikea ones. {He did a great job!}

Then it was my turn to sand, prime and paint the cabinets. I ended up putting a coat of poly-acrylic on the cabinets, because we knew the kids would be really rough on them.

While it isn’t as elaborate as some Ikea hacks, it does serve its purpose and didn’t cost us tons of money or time to build it. Without further ado…

We haven’t filled it all in yet, but that probably won’t take long :-) The colors match a lot better than they do in the picture. There is a very slight difference, but most people wouldn’t be able to notice it.

The base cabinet just sits there: It’s not anchored or attached to anything. The baskets are Ikea’s Drona, which are great, but I can already tell they’re going to get destroyed very quickly. They are soft sided, which means that they bend when the kids sit on them. We have discussed building wooden boxes to fit the space, which we probably will end up doing down the road. We now have more storage for some of the bigger toys, as well as for the kids’ books on the shelf above.

The upper cabinet is mounted to the wall {into studs} and then mounted to the side cabinets. The whole of it is then mounted to the wall, so that the monkeys can’t pull the thing over. We’ll probably get some baskets for this part too, but for right now it holds our surround sound/receiver, as well as the DVD player and wii…with lots of room to spare.

The nice thing about hacking the Ikea bookcases is that we got an adjustable shelf bookcase, with doors, for a lot less work than if we were to make them ourselves. It would have probably taken us months to get all of the pieces to fit together perfectly.

We did put locks on the side cabinets, since that’s where the off-limits stuff will be getting stashed. One side has our DVDs and cables and such, the other side will have some of Avie’s toys that we don’t want the kids getting into. I will say that diaper boxes fit perfectly in cabinet {I do plan on painting them, to at least look less tacky}.

It’s so nice to have my cookbooks back in reach again, rather than having them in the dining room. I will miss being able to put flowers on top and having pictures above, but just something I’ll have to get over :-)

And that would be our first Ikea Hack. Not too shabby, if I say so myself.