The $2,800 Light Fixture!

Now, I'm a serious bargain shopper.  I'm always looking for a great 'deal'.  But I might have outdone myself on this one!

I stop by our local ReStore (sponsored by Habitat for Humanity) on a pretty frequent basis.  I love to see if they have anything new, or to drop off some donations from our projects. And I love that all their revenue goes towards Habitat for Humanity projects.  

On one recent trip, I discovered they had a big selection of brand new light fixtures, all donated from  a local lighting store's floor samples.  

Source:  Morton Furniture

It was like hitting the jackpot.  I bought 7 of them!  But the one I was most excited about was this beautiful Craftsman style fixture.  It's large, made of cherry wood and bronze, and is exquisite.  I knew it would be perfect in the breakfast room of our latest project!  

But I was curious what company made it and how much it cost originally.  I paid $250 and thought it was a good deal, but when you're a bargain hunter, you want to quantify how good the deal is!  So I started hunting on the internet and after lots of searching, I finally found it.  It's made by a company called Cherry Tree Design in Bozeman, Montana.  And while it seems to have been discontinued, it's MSRP is $2,844.00.  Gulp!  That's like my lighting budget for an entire house!  

So, it now has a special place of honor in the guest room, until we're ready for fixture installation.  I don't want to take a chance with it in the storage facility.  Now that I know how much it's worth, I'm taking extra good care of it.   I can't wait to see what it looks like installed!

Don't you love a great bargain??

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Why We Love Craftsman Style

Richard and I LOVE Craftsman style.  And I thought it might be helpful to give you a little background on how that came to be (but fair warning, this was before we had a digital camera, so you won't be wowed by the photography!).

We used to live in a small town called Mountain Lakes - which, we were told, has one of the biggest  collections of true Arts & Crafts homes in America (that might not be true anymore, because sadly many of them have been torn down).  That's not surprising, possibly, because it is only a short distance from Craftsman Farms, the home and workshop of Gustav Stickley, one of the greatest influences on Arts and Crafts style in America.

The houses were built in the early 20th century by a man named Herbert Hapgood.  He did a lot to create the beautiful town that it is today.  He drained the swamps, developed a series of manmade lakes (remember, this was the early 1900's, so this was back breaking work), and created a 'haven' from city life.  Ultimately, he built 500 Craftsman style homes in this small, 4 square mile town.  But he was a bit of a wheeler and dealer.  We've all heard about crooked contractors today, but Hapgood is a good example that they've existed for a long time.  He did multiple financing on these homes, by driving the bankers in circles and bringing them through the front door one time and the back door the next - making them think they were seeing two different properties and allowing him to get double loans! (he ultimately went bankrupt and fled the country, but that's another story!)  For more on Hapgood and to see many original photos of his homes, check out the town website - Mountain Lakes History

Puddingstone fireplace, with lots of rubble!

These are large homes, built before energy efficiency was important.  The house we owned had started life in 1918 with 8 bedrooms (thankfully it had been pared back to 6 by the time we bought it) a tiny kitchen and bathrooms that had seen few updates since it was first built.  There were two furnaces in the basement (with little insulation, we needed them!) and we got 6 inches of water in the garage every time it rained.  Most of the rooms were painted cantaloupe orange - walls, ceiling and trim.  The kitchen floor was stick-on vinyl brick pattern and the back porch was falling off (our carpenter said the only thing holding it up was 'habit'!)……so as you can imagine, we got a pretty good deal on the place.  And we loved that house and all its craftsman details - the deep eaves, the covered porches, the dormers and puddingstone foundation & fireplace.

Over the years, we tackled lots of projects in that house.  We completely renovated the kitchen (twice in 6 years - so now you know why Richard is so glad I can update other people's homes, instead of driving him crazy tearing our house apart!).  We also updated the bathrooms.  We revived the perennial gardens in the back yard.  But one of the biggest projects -removing a dilapidated old sun porch with its subterranean garage and adding a new garage and family room.  And with all the updates, we worked hard to maintain the Craftsman character of the home - including rebuilding portions of the original 'pudding stone' fireplace in the back of the family room.

Since then, we've lived in other beautiful old homes.  But there is something about the Craftsman style that has stayed with us and will always be one of our favorites.   I can't wait to take some of that Craftsman aesthetic and use it on our bungalow!

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Bungalow Reconstruction

With the demo phase behind us, now we can focus on rebuilding the house with our new floor plan.  The Waterhouse Builders team got to work!

First up:  Installing the new structural support beam to open up the living room.  

Next step:  The staircase gets going. Of course that meant we had to relocate the window....you can't have one in the middle of the staircase.  So we moved it forward a few feet, which still provides plenty of light into the space.

View from Staircase into Foyer/Living Room

Now, you all know I'm easily amused, so I couldn't resist doing this 30 second video on the day that we had both the old staircase and the new staircase in place (just ignore the demo/crashing sounds in the background!).  So here's for your entertainment: 

Ghost of the Old Staircase!

(ps.  they tore out the old staircase about 15 minutes after I filmed this)

Upstairs gets lots of focus as well.  Check out the master bedroom, it's starting to take shape!

And I'm loving the loft!  The sunlight from the new skylight streams through the space and down the staircase.  It's so light and bright!

To get everything ready for rough-in inspection, the Elldee Electric Associates team ran all of our wiring.  They found these turn-of-the-last-century wire nuts on all the old electrical lines - ceramic/made in Holland!  But that's all been upgraded to new, safe electrical.  

And Dominic from Succhini Heating and Plumbing moved the heat pipes and replumbed the downstairs bathroom - see how much bigger it got!!!

The Bathroom is almost 2 feet wider!

Once we complete inspections, we can finish the insulation and then we're on to drywall!!  Lots of milestones!

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Project Curb Appeal

You've probably already guessed that a top priority is to improve the curb appeal of the Bungalow. It might not look like much now, but there's real potential here!  We have lots of options, but need to figure out what makes the most sense.  So we've identified a couple of goals we're trying to achieve, while balancing some limitations.

1)  Add architectural interest - BUT we can't add any sort of porch that would touch the ground, because that would violate city setback requirements.

2)  Pick a new color for siding that ties to Craftsman ideals (natural color palette - greens, browns, golds, etc), but still ties in the pale yellow/almond of the garage and back of house.

3)  Replace the front door with something more interesting.

So, with that in mind, I sketched up lots of options, to try and figure out what we would like the best.  

Starting Point

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

And after weighing all the pros and cons (i.e. structural feasibility - yeah, the guys were kind of insistent about that - angle orientation - etc), we chose Option 3.  It lets us create an overhang above the front door to keep guests dry, while adding some Craftsman architectural interest with exposed rafter tails and custom support brackets.  We can also highlight the wonderful enclosed porch, by using the siding colors from the garage to set it off, distinct from the rest of the house.

And you see that white rectangle to the right of the front door?  I've ordered a custom-made house number out of copper/bronze in a Craftsman style font.  I'm so excited about it!  Can't wait till it gets here!

With that decision made, we needed some better weather!   We were anxious to get started on Project Curb Appeal.  So, on the first semi-warm day, the guys started phase 1: Porch Overhang.  They quickly stripped off the old shingles and started building.

Kyle got to load test the new roof, as he swung back and forth on the support beam!

And they got it finished just in time - because winter decided to return with lots of fresh snow (as a reminder, we started this project in January)!  It looks like the rest of the updates will have to wait for some thawing!

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The Beach Cottage - Reinventing a 1940's Cape Cod

It took 4 long months, during the coldest winter we can remember here in Maine.  But it was worth all the hard work and freezing fingers!  We've gone from a 1940's time warp to a bright, open floor plan, ready for this century  And as we get the last few items finished for the new owners, it seemed like a good time to share all the before and after photos.

The Exterior:

We went from a typical 1940's cape cod, with low ceilings and cramped spaces, to a light bright 2 story house.  It required a variance, raising the roof, and lots of hard work.  But oh, what a difference!

Exterior Before

Exterior During

After:  Raising Roof on Cape Cod

View from Front Door - Before

The Open Floor Plan:

By removing 3 walls, we were able to have a floor plan that works beautifully for today's lifestyle.

View from Front Door - During

View from Front Door - After

After

Dining Room Before (behind the wall)

The Dining Room:


The dining room was originally a bedroom, hiding behind that wall next to the hallway.  And the cool phone nook?  We moved it to the new kitchen!

Dining Room After

The first question I get when people ask about the new owners?  Are they keeping the striped wall in the dining room?  And the answer is an enthusiastic yes!!!

The Kitchen:

Kitchen - Before

The kitchen was a small, cramped dark space.  It had the stove and fridge crammed into one corner and the only eating area was in a 6x6 space on the other side of the room.

Kitchen - After

We had to eliminate a window in the kitchen to make room for the new appliances, but with the new, open concept floor plan, we have so much light in the space, you don't even notice it's gone!

Kitchen - Before

 The Master Bedroom:

Master Bedroom - Before

Of course the 2nd floor is brand new, so it's hard to compare 'before and after' photos.   But here are a few pics, to give you an idea how much it's changed.  The biggest difference?  Headroom!  We had to get a variance to raise the roof height, but that was the key to making this space livable.  For tall people like me, the low ceiling height just didn't work.

With the new higher ceiling, we were able to reclaim lots of floor space (we didn't change the footprint of the house at all). The new, large shed dormers and windows transform this room.  It's hard to believe these before and after photos were taken from the same angle, but they were!

Master Bath & Laundry

Kids Room Before

The Kids Rooms & Bath:

We had a similar amount of change on the other side of the house.  And saw the same amount of benefits:  with the new roof height and shed dormers, we were able to include 2 bedrooms and a hall bath.

Additional Bedroom on 2nd Floor

Kids Room - After

New Hall Bath

The Rest of the House:


And finally, we were able to make additional updates on the first floor.  Here's the very blue first floor bath that we started with.

The first floor bedroom didn't see a major change, but just brightening it up with new paint, windows, refinished floor and lighting made a big difference:

Bedroom Before

Bedroom/Office - After

Last, but not least, we added a mudroom off of the garage

I hope you've enjoyed following our progress on this great project.  If you'd like to see more, you can click here to go back to the beginning and see how it was done.  And be sure and 'like' us on Facebook to see our new project - the transformation of the Craftsman Bungalow!

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