The Amazing New Kitchen

We don’t usually get to create a big kitchen, so I’m pretty excited about this one.  The goal?  Create a kitchen with some vintage styling, but with modern conveniences.  That means lots of cabinetry, convection stove, pantry storage and an island for quick meals or just chatting with the cook. 

 

Our starting point was a bit awkward, with the refrigerator sitting in front of the basement door. The cabinets were past their useful life, so it was important to start from scratch.  

I'm guessing the kitchen was last updated in the 1980's.  It's time for a change! 

 

We gutted the entire room – this makes it easier for new electrical and plumbing – as well as letting us pad out the walls a bit to improve the insulation factor.  And of course, we found an amazing additional 18” of ceiling height when we ripped out the old drop ceiling. That extra 18" has totally changed the look and feel of this room! 

The kitchen is a bit dark, so we replaced the original east facing window with a much larger casement window, while also cutting back a big tree that blocked much of the morning sun.  It makes such a difference! 

Here's the design.  Thanks to the tall ceilings, we have extra tall cabinetry throughout the room.

I love the tall glass cabinet on the right -it's made to look like furniture, in keeping with an old kitchen

 

On the other side of the kitchen, we are recessing the refrigerator and creating a pantry for storage. 

 

There will be a long, 8 foot island down the middle, with a recessed fridge and pantry

Here's how the layout changed.  As you can see, we closed off the original door to the sunporch.  Moving it a few feet to the left allows us to have more cabinetry in the new kitchen.  And with the wall to the dining room opened up, it's a big, fabulous space!

I know what you're really curious about.  What are the finishes we've selected?  The cabinets will be a neutral taupe.  And they will be accented with an amazing quartz that looks more like marble than any I've seen before.  Over the stove, we're going to install a tile inset that looks like a vintage tin ceiling.  I can't wait to get to that point in our project!

The kitchen cabinets are already completed and waiting in a warehouse - because we have a lot more work to do before we're ready for them!  But it's wonderful to have the plan ready!

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The Important Stuff Behind the Walls

When we’re updating a house for its next generation of owners, we take infrastructure improvements seriously.  So that means the boring stuff - electrical and plumbing - get updated.  It’s a big expensive job, but it's critical to do it now, while the house is opened up and everything can be accessed.

How many trades can work in one room?  3!  Carpentry, Plumbing and Electrical

 

First step is electrical updates.  I learned a long time ago that a house of this vintage will have some active knob and tube wiring hidden in the ceilings and walls.  That’s been totally removed and we’ve replaced it with new, code compliant wiring.   All these boxes of old wiring will get recycled.

We’ve upgraded the service to 200 amps, to support the heat pumps and all the electrical demands that the home is likely to have.  Things have changed a lot since this house was last updated!  

Look at all that new wiring going into the brand new panel! 

And while we’re at it, we’re moving the service on the outside of the house to the side – because having that electrical meter right on the front of the house makes me crazy!  This was a big job that involved installing a new electrical meter, masthead and multiple visits from the electrical company.

There is always a debate about installing recessed lighting in an old house, since they’re certainly not original.  But, I’m a big fan of the soft, consistent light that the provide across a room.   And with the smaller, 3” lights, they’re not as obvious as they used to be.  We will also have a central light in each of the main rooms.

 

The biggest challenge on starting electrical at this point in the project?  I  have to select all the lighting and where it goes.  Knowing that allows us to get the exact placement we want.  For example, we didn’t have a fireplace mantle in the original house, so we did a mockup of its placement and then Steve and I decided where we wanted the sconces to go.

We had to mockup the new mantle to get the sconces in the right spot!

My plumber prefers to cut out all the old plumbing and start fresh.  And since we are adding an additional full and half bath, that totally makes sense.  

 

I love seeing all those new electrical wires and plumbing lines running through the walls!  It will practically be a new house!

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What Fireplace?

 One of the many mysteries we haven't been able to figure out is where was the fireplace in this house?  A house built in 1880 would have to have a fireplace - right?  The house has two chimneys, but neither one has a fireplace attached to it (now that we've opened up the walls, it's obvious there wasn't one in the house)  So maybe they used some sort of pot belly stove for heating and cooking?

When we bought the house, one chimney was used for the boiler.  And the other one was for a pellet stove in the basement.  The pellet stove appears to have had little use.  Maybe it didn't work as well as they had hoped?  

To my mind, an old house has to have a fireplace.  It's a big cost, but I'm sure the new owners will appreciate it.  And since the house already has natural gas installed, we can add a nice gas unit.

There is a closet that was located between the living room and dining room that provides a great spot for the new fireplace.  

Once I had those dimensions figured out, I started my quest for a vintage fireplace mantle.  And I found the perfect one at Old House Parts in Kennebunk, ME.  Since this house doesn't have a lot of ornate Victorian flourishes, I wanted something a bit simple, that would work for both the wall location and the fireplace insert dimensions.  

It's tricky to find an antique mantle that has the right dimensions and style for this 1880 house

And while I love the mantle, I'm even more excited about the fireplace I found at Embers, our local stove shop.  It's a reproduction Victorian unit with a heavy, cast iron front.  The guys got it installed this week and it's pretty amazing!  

They briefly opened up the cast iron front so I could see what it will look like, but for now, they didn't add the rest of the firebox surround.  We will wrap it back up for safekeeping until we're doing final finishes. 

Of course it will be months from now before we can see it all finished, but I can't wait.  It's going to be a real 'wow' when you walk in the living room and it will create such a cozy space on a cold Maine winter day! 
 

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Curb Appeal for a Second Empire House

After driving around and seeing lots of second empire homes in the area, I was really excited to see what was hiding behind the aluminum and vinyl that cover our house.  Would we see fancy woodwork?  Would we see the shadow of antique corbels?  What would we find?

Kyle climbed out on the roof and started pulling everything back, while I waited impatiently to see what emerged.  

The answer.  Nothing.  Not one bit of fancy trim is on these windows - and it doesn't look like there ever was anything there.  Was the house always this plain?  Or did it get changed when the house was moved in 1960?  We've been unsuccessful in finding any good photos of the house, so it will probably remain a mystery.

As a reminder, this is the kind of window trim we have seen on other homes in the area.  Such gorgeous detail!

So how do we move forward?  Well, I'd like to give it a bit of Second Empire style, but don't want to go overboard, since it doesn't seem to have been an ornate home.  This sketch is a great overview of typical features found on Second Empire homes from the folks at Historic Salem.  

We have some of these things.  We have dormers (although not as fancy as most that we've seen).  We have deep eaves.  We have corner boards (thin vinyl ones) and remnants of sill boards - and our windows are nicely paired.  We don't have a portico on the front of the house, but we have a nice side porch.  

To make ours a bit more typical, I'd like to add some corbels on the dormer windows and also along the frieze board under the roof edge. We're going to use these corbels that are on the existing porch as inspiration for the new ones (however they need to be much slimmer, because there is far less space for them on the windows).

I had hoped to save the siding and just repaint it - but it's in really rough shape.  So we will be replacing the siding and trim.  I plan on using LP Smartside, which is an engineered wood siding that comes in a smooth finish to look like traditional clapboards.

 I've read that Second Empire homes typically use 3-4 paint colors.  The body of the house is accented with a trim in a darker shade of the same color.  The other color/s will be an accent color on the front door and we may use some of those accents to highlight the trim.  Many of the homes in this area don't use multiple colors - I don't know if that's a historic approach or they just wanted something simpler.  I'm trying to decide if I am brave enough to use additional accent colors, which it typical on Victorian homes of the era.  I'm going to agonize over that for a bit! 

I'm using a pre-finished, engineered wood clapboard siding from LP.  They've recently started making a smooth finish, which is more historically correct.  And it only needs to be painted every 5-10 years, rather than the typical 3-5 years with regular wood clapboards.   I've chosen 'Summit Blue' for the color and will paint the trim two shades darker.  

One very exciting add will be this double tombstone (named for the shape of the windows) front door that I found at Portland Architectural Salvage.  This is a perfect door to compliment the house (very similar to the one in the detailed sketch above).  And a much better style than the current colonial style door.  We hope to get it installed this week!

The door will hopefully go in this week.  Stay tuned as we get moving on this! 

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Renovation Plan for the Maison Mansard

On the one hand, we have big plans for this house.  On the other hand, we're keeping the basic layout and not making major changes.

Huh?  Let me explain.

Big picture, we're going to do all the stuff we usually do - update all the electrical, plumbing, insulation, add heat pumps, etc.  We will also create a brand new kitchen, renovate the existing bath and add fa irst floor half bath.  We'll also take the small 4th bedroom and turn it into a new bathroom and a walk in closet.  So many changes!  But the overall style and flow of this Second Empire home will remain the same as it has been for almost 150 years.  And we're keeping the character and architectural elements intact (the window and door moldings are gorgeous!)  

Here's the plan.  The first floor has very clear, compartmentalized rooms.  This was great when it was first built.  But we will be updating all of that, which will allow for a better flow between rooms.

The new plan removes a few key walls, to create a more cohesive floor plan. We'll share a lot more about the kitchen design later - but the new kitchen will be even larger with a central island and so much storage!

The rear bonus room is a great entrance from the driveway, so we'll create a mudroom entrance with closets and mud bench. And then the new owners can use the rest of this bright space however they would like. 

Upstairs, we have lots of plans as well.  Here's the existing plan with 4 bedrooms, a hall bath and a funky turret room (it's 8x8 feet, but with the sloped ceilings, it feels much smaller).  

The big change is creating a true primary suite.  The existing front bedroom will get larger and include the fun little turret room as a sitting area (and will include some additional closet space!).  The small bedroom will be incorporated and become a primary bath and a walk-in closet.

These changes will make the house work better for modern living, but we'll make sure we honor the antique styling as well.  

The guys have been hard at work and it's starting to take shape.  Here are a couple of sneak peeks.  The first thing you see as you walk in the front door is now a large open space to compliment the beautiful staircase  My guess is the foyer was cold and drafty in the past and that's why you see the plastic accordion door to the living room.  Once we finish air sealing and insulating the house, that won't be necessary.

The kitchen is the darkest room in the house, in large part because of large shrubs and trees outside the windows.  Our arborist is working on that.  And of course by opening up the walls, we allow light to flow from the rest of the windows.  

The dining room will be open to both the kitchen and living room.  It's not a true open floor plan, instead the spaces retain their own function, but flow seamlessly from one to the next.

What else do you notice?  Well in some rooms we gained as much as 18 inches of ceiling height!!!  And by opening the spaces, the house now feels so big!  It's a dramatic change.

The structural beams go in next and then it will really start to look like we're making progress!

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