this old house

"This house has a lot of potential... it will be fun to remodel", I said several years ago, as I tried to convince my wife we should buy our current home. In fact, though, it's not really fun, it's taken a lot longer than originally thought, it's turned into a bigger project than originally planned, and I should have listened to my wife's intuition!

The house had been duplexed, so we live in the back part while I work on the front. The plan was originally to start with a bath remodel, followed by a kitchen/dining remodel (removing the wall between the two), and basically sprucing up the rest with paint and carpet. That has turned into completely gutting and rebuilding the bath, kitchen, dining, living, foyer, and two bedrooms. I did the demo and framing work myself, and contracted the HVAC, plumbing, and electric. I plan to finish the insulation, drywall, painting, cabinets, and trim.

Although the current floor plan is similar to the original, I have done fairly extensive structural and framing work. This included: replacing or adding most of the headers in the internal and external walls, replacing several floor joists that were severely carved by past plumbers or heating contractors, eliminating the wall between kitchen and dining, completely removing a masonry chimney from the center of the house to improve the layout, eliminating a fireplace, moving a bedroom closet to enlarge and redesign the bathroom, shifting two internal walls in Dylan and Zachary's room to even out the sizes of both Lily and Ben's rooms, eliminating the sloped ceiling in the stairway and reframing Lily's closet over the stairway to increase headroom and create a gallery stairway, adding a small pantry and a small coat closet, and a plethora of other piddly repairs and alterations.

While it has been a lot of work, it really doesn't seem that it should have taken this long. But, it has... and I've learned a lot the hard way about remodeling (like NEVER do this again!)

Not many people have seen the inside of the house. Never having done something on this scale, there have been many, many times I have lacked confidence in my abilities or my work. I have tended to keep it locked up and the windows covered, and what went on inside was my own private struggle... Man vs. House. I still have a long way to go, but I did get a big boost of confidence this week, when a nervous remodeler opened the doors to the county Building Inspector for framing approval. I passed on the first visit! I can begin insulating and drywalling!

With this confidence building milestone under my belt, I guess it's a good time to offer a tour of my insanity! It is hard to capture in pictures...

The county Building Inspector approves!

Kitchen, toward the dining room

Dining room, toward the kitchen

Living room, toward the dining room

Dining room, toward the living room

Kitchen, toward the foyer

Foyer, toward the kitchen

Living room, toward the foyer

Foyer, toward the living room

Top of the stairs, toward the foyer and front door

Lily's future bedroom

Dylan and Zachary's future bedroom

Upstairs hallway, toward the stairs and bathroom

Bathroom tub and vanity