Always expect the unexpected

I’ve been avoiding writing this post because I needed several days to digest and process my thoughts. I still don’t think I can accurately communicate the gravity of the situation we’re faced with currently but I'll do my best.

The title of this post is advice that we should have taken to heart when we began this kitchen/mudroom renovation. We’ve been down this road before and we know that plans can change in an instant when you're dealing with an old house. When we bought the house, we had started out thinking that we could do the work ourselves, stripping wallpaper and making upgrades. Once we got in and realized how time-intensive it would be and how damaged the walls really were, we hired professionals to come in and replace the walls and ceilings entirely throughout the house. It altered all of our plans and became a more extensive renovation than we had anticipated.

So when we began this next renovation phase, removing part of the house, expanding the kitchen, etc., we should have kept that experience in mind. We should have known to expect the unexpected. Because you never know what you’re going to encounter when you start digging into things. But we didn’t remember. And we were blindsided by what we are now faced with.

When our contractor began this project earlier this week,  his crew pulled down the mudroom the first day. As they began removing the structure and pulling down the siding, he encountered an enormous problem. A huge, devastating problem.

Our house is rotting.

Years of poor drainage and hidden water damage have caused the support beams in the back of the house to deteriorate. The wood is literally crumbling to dust.

The sill, which is a thick beam that the entire house rests on, is rotting away.

Here is a closer view of the vertical beam that supports the right corner of the house:

We were told our house could collapse. That it is unsafe and could literally fall down around us. We will need to remove the entire back of the house and replace everything. The house will be jacked up several inches so that the sill can be removed and replaced. Our contractor, who has been doing this for years and years, told us that it is the worst he has ever seen.

You can see more of the damage here, where the siding was removed beneath the rear window:

We don't know for sure how far across the back of the house the damage spreads, or how high up to the second floor it goes either. But given that the patio extends the full length of the house, we are all assuming that everything is going to need to be replaced from end to end.

Once we heard the extent of the damage, we instantly began looking into legal action. After speaking with lawyers, we found out that unless we could somehow prove that the previous owners knew of the problem, there was nothing that could be done. Proving that they sold the house to us knowing of the problem is near impossible. The original owner is dead and the owner’s family, who sold the house to us, did not live there.

The damage is not visible from the basement. Hell, our basement looks great! The outside of the house does not show the damage either. It was not until the siding was removed that the problem was able to be seen.

The source of the problem is the concrete patio. It was never properly graded, so water has been pooling against the house and getting trapped for years. And since it happened over a long period of time, our homeowners insurance won't cover any of it. Basically, we're royally screwed.

I feel simultaneously devastated, overwhelmed, angry, relieved, and hopeful. I know that's a lot of things to feel at once, so I'll explain. Devastated, obviously, because of the shock that something that we've put so much time and energy into is crumbling. Overwhelmed thinking of the cost (time, money, sanity) that is going to go into fixing this problem. Angry because I feel like we've been duped. Relieved because this problem was caught before our house came tumbling down. And hopeful because the one good about this whole situation is that it will give us the opportunity to make this house into the house we really want it to be.

See, since we’ll have to remove and rebuild the entire back of the house, jacking the house up to replace the bottom sill and replacing all of the supports, we have kind of a golden opportunity here. With the house opened up—and it’s not going to be opened up like this ever again—we can build outward and expand the square footage of the entire downstairs. We started making a wish list of things we’ve wished this house had, and we created a floor plan.

So that is the completely new direction that we're going in. We will expand the house backwards an additional 12 feet. The rooms in the above plan that are highlighted in yellow are new.

We will create an additional bonus/music/sitting room off of the end of the living room. We’ll have an 8 or 9-foot wide opening so the two rooms will be connected and open but still separated. This way we won’t have a 40-foot long living room. In this new bonus room we’ll install a gas fireplace (I’ve often discussed our sad lack of one in this house) and French doors to the backyard. Outside of these doors is where our new patio will eventually be built (a project we’ll likely tackle ourselves down the road).

The bonus room will be connected to a tiled mudroom, where we’ll install a coat closet (something we don’t have in the house either). It will be a great place to put Lucy’s dishes (she spills an insane amount of water on the floor when she drinks) so they will be out the way. Plus the tile will make her puddles easy to clean. This mudroom will have another door out to the backyard. There will be a covered walkway leading to this back door, so water will run off and completely away from the house.
Off of the mudroom, in the back of the house, will be a bathroom. With the expanded size, we’ll be able to install hookups for our washer and dryer and won’t need to have them in the basement. We’ll have room just for a sink, toilet, and the laundry, which will hopefully (size permitting) be behind closet doors.

Straight ahead from the mudroom will be the kitchen. This is the only part that we’re iffy on. It turns out that the existing rear wall supports too much weight from the upstairs to be moved. So we won't be able to remove much of it. Because it won't have a door in the middle any longer, though, we'll be able to extend the cabinets all along this wall, which will give us lots of prep and storage space. We may be able to fit a small breakfast bar/eat-in area as well.

The entire backyard is also going to be leveled and properly graded to ensure that no water gets trapped up against the house anywhere. Some tubes will be installed underground to help drain the water as well.

Our contractor estimates that construction will be finished by the end of October. They’ll build the addition first and then break down the exterior walls, so we won’t be left with gaping holes in the house.

We are forging ahead with this new plan on Tuesday.  It's going to be an incredibly difficult couple of months ahead, financially and emotionally. While it will be tight, I am so unbelievably thankful that we have family support to help us through it. You never know what you're going to encounter, but I'm getting a little more excited about what may lay ahead for us.

Upside-down!

*So, this post was supposed to go up last night, but just as I was finishing it, we lost our internet connection and the power soon followed! We still don’t have power today (though many others fared worse in Irene) but luckily our construction crew arrived with a generator this morning so they can work!*

The crew arrived early this morning, ready to go. They’re starting with demolishing the mudroom and plan on having the addition framed and sided by the end of the day. Depending on how quickly the work goes, they may be able to bring down the wall between the mudroom and kitchen today as well!

The rest of the house has been turned pretty much upside-down in preparation for this huge project.

The kitchen cabinets were completely emptied.

Bins and bins of dishes, baking pans, pots, glasses, food, spices, etc. were stacked in the dining room.

The dining room table was moved into the corner of the room, with the microwave plunked onto it. This surface is being used as a makeshift kitchen counter for the time being.

A 30-foot long dumpster was dropped off in the driveway.

The dryer, which once sat in the mudroom, was pushed out into the kitchen and will soon be hauled down the basement stairs. The dryer will hang out for several weeks before a hookup is installed in the basement next to the washer. The mudroom was also completely emptied out.

We’ve done as much prep as we can do, so now we leave the next phase to the professionals. After being here for a year, I had just begun to feel like our house had finally gotten to a place where things were settled. Everything was put away and situated in a way that worked. And now we’ve gone and completely thrown it all up into chaos again. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that this renovation goes smoothly and painlessly!!

With so much happening, I’m going to try to get back into the habit of updating frequently. I should have another update on where we’re at later today!

It's happening!!!

Huge news!
The time has come for us to officially move forward with our huge kitchen renovation project!! Things are moving quickly, and our contractor begins work next Monday!

We decided to officially move forward with option number two, which I had discussed here, and are adding a half bathroom to a section of the current kitchen. We felt like this was the best move not only for convenience, but also because it will add big value back into the house. A one-bathroom, 3-bedroom house just doesn't cut it these days, after all!

So here's where we're at:
In the last couple of weeks, we got bids from three contractors and chose one to move forward with. We liked this contractor the most and his bid just happened to be about $10,000 lower than the others. Lucky! What will be a bit different about this job is that it will be two phases. The first phase will involve demolishing the mudroom off of the kitchen, building a new addition in its place, new windows, lighting, and building the half bathroom. The second phase will be installing the cabinets, countertops, hardwood floors (both in the kitchen and dining room), and finish details.

However, before any of that stuff can be done we need to demolish the entire kitchen.

Like, right off the bat. We had thought that we'd be able to keep at least some of the kitchen functioning (like our stove plugged in or some cabinets) while the addition was built, but nope. In order for the electrical to be brought up to code (with an outlet every 3 feet) every single thing in here must go from the very beginning. So, it looks like we'll be completely without a kitchen for a while. A long while.

Here is one half of the (horrible, unusable, hideous, blindingly yellow, etc.) kitchen as it stands:

I don't think I need to go into detail about why we're doing this renovation! The kitchen is completely unusable in its current configuration. On the opposite end of the kitchen is the fridge, and the stove sits between two doorways to the left of this photo.

To the right is a wall between the kitchen and mudroom. (For a visual reference, check out the current floor plan here.)

This entire wall is coming down. The mudroom is also being demolished (it leaks in places and was never properly insulated). An 11' x 8' addition is going up in its place so the kitchen will be expanded. We'll put in all new windows and an exterior door to the patio.

The corner to the right of the current mudroom door, where our fridge currently sits, will become the new half bathroom.

Oh, and those holes in the ceiling and window frame? Carpenter ants. We had an exterminator in and found that they had eaten away the whole window frame. Bastards! This whole window is coming out and a smaller one is going in its place to allow for some privacy in the loo.

The area where the stove currently is will essentially be a hallway to the living room. The bathroom door will be on the left, across from the existing basement door on the right.

I'm so excited to get rid of the last of these crazy paneled ceilings! I can't believe that these used to be throughout the entire house. Awful.

Lighting is also going to be a huge upgrade in the kitchen. Currently, the only light in the whole room is this one exposed bulb in the ceiling. It's kiiiind of like a crack den.

Here's an exterior view of the existing mudroom that will be taken completely down, with a slightly larger addition built in its place:

We plan on adding a glass door to let lots of light in.

So, that's where we're at. It's going to be an incredibly chaotic next couple of months! We picked up some storage bins so we can start packing all of our dishes, pots, pans, and pantry stuff in the next couple of days. We plan on plugging the fridge in the dining room, the stove will be shoved someplace collecting dust, and it will be general chaos. It's an enormous project, but it's going to be so worth it in the end!

Welcome to Lucy's House, where things get kinda crazy.

kitchen planning

As I mentioned earlier, we've started planning our kitchen renovation in earnest now. Before we start demolishing the current kitchen, we need to finish the laundry room in our basement and reroute the hookup for our dryer (which currently lives in the mudroom off of the kitchen). The laundry room is almost completely finished now--we just have to prime and paint one more wall and install some partition doors--and the electrician will be coming next week to set up the dryer. After that we'll be all set and ready to get moving on this new kitchen!

Here is the floorplan of the kitchen, as it currently stands:



It functions very poorly. The stove is situated between two doorways, with no countertop on either side. The fridge is on the other side of the room, again with no nearby countertop for setting things down.

Our plan is to knock down the wall between the kitchen and mudroom and expand the kitchen into that whole space.

We've come up with two options so far for the kitchen layout.

Option #1:



In this option, the area where the fridge currently is will become a breakfast nook. We'd love to have a built-in banquette here, which is what those benches represent in the floor plan.

Here are some more views of Option #1:







I would love to have a vintage farmhouse table that can also be used as extra prep space. Option #1 would be the most open and airy.

Option #2, however, would include adding a half bathroom. Our house only has one bathroom currently, and it's located upstairs. Adding a second bathroom, on the main floor, would be so much more convenient and would definitely add value.

Here's the floorplan for Option #2:



The half bathroom would be added in place of the breakfast nook in Option #1.

Some alternate views of Option #2:





This option would make the kitchen less open, but having a half bathroom on the main floor would be a huge improvement.

Both options have their benefits, so we have a tough choice ahead! I'll post some pictures of the finished laundry room soon!

Welcome to Lucy's House!

We bought our first house!!

It's a 1920, 2-story bungalow in seacoast Dover, New Hampshire -- our first real home. Coming from countless apartments in various towns for years, we're excited to be planting some permanent roots. And with our 95-pound (and still growing!) Saint Bernard puppy Lucy, we needed to give her some major room to roam.

In apartments, we've never had the freedom to paint, nevermind renovate, and have had to just live with whatever the place is like, regardless of style or function. But no more! Now, as makers of our own destinies, we are free to transform our 1,500 square foot "character home" into what ever we want. No more living with ugly paint colors, unusable kitchen layouts, dingy floors, and old bathroom fixtures!

I thought I would create this blog to document our struggles and (hopefully) victories when it comes to decorating and remodeling our very first home on a limited budget.

Here is our (ambitious) game plan for the house:

INTERIOR:
-Strip wallpaper throughout the house and paint -- the old, dingy wallpaper is a theme that runs through most of the house and hasn't been changed in probably 50 years. After the paper is off, we'll likely have to do lots of patching, sanding, priming, and finally painting.

-Major kitchen renovation -- this will be a major investment and likely the biggest project that we take on. Our plan involves knocking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, opening it up into one big space. Then we'll add a breakfast bar, new cabinets, countertops, lighting, and hardwood floors, and install a dishwasher (!!!), since the kitchen currently doesn't have one.

-Reroute washer hookup -- the washing machine is currently hooked up in the basement, but the dryer hookup is in the mudroom off of the kitchen. Don't ask me why! We plan on redirecting the plumbing so that the washer can claim its rightful place in the first floor mudroom.

-Refinish upstairs hardwood floors -- the three upstairs bedrooms have original hardwood floors, but they've seen better days. All they need is some refinishing and they'll shine again.

-Add a half bathroom -- our second biggest renovation would involve adding a half bathroom on the first floor. By expanding the kitchen/dining area, there will be a perfect spot left over to add the bathroom. The only bathroom is currently on the second floor, so adding a half bath will increase the home's value and be super convenient!

EXTERIOR:
-Fence in the backyard -- this is priority #1. Lucy needs a safe place to roam, bark, and eat sticks. We plan on completing the backyard fencing before we even move in our furniture. Plus, we'll be adding a kiddie pool in a nice shady spot for Lucy to cool down this summer, so stay tuned for that.

-Replace patio -- the current patio is poured concrete, and it's in rough shape. Our plan is to build a wooden platform deck over the existing concrete slab. Nothing too big, so we can maximize the green space, but big enough to fit a table and chairs and a grill.

-Remove or re-purpose oversized shed -- the existing backyard shed is about twice the size of our detached garage. It's a monster! One idea is to remove it completely to free up some more yard space. The other idea is to open it up into a covered patio space.


This "laundry list" is just the start of our plans, and I'm sure that things will change once we get in and start living in the house. It's a huge amount of work to take on, but we plan on picking away at everything one piece at a time, and keeping this blog up to date while we do it!