Demo Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.....well you get the idea.....

Now that the planning is complete, we're ready to go!  The guys arrived bright and early with pry bars, sledge hammers and lots of sawz all blades!  Summer time is really busy for the crew, so they are squeezing us in when they have some availability.  So we'll be doing this in stages.

I started by marking all the walls throughout both units.  With a crew of 5 guys with sledgehammers working at once - it's important to have everything clearly marked!

Living Room & Dining Room Before

So here are the pictures of the Owners Unit - hopefully you'll start to see the floor plan turn into reality, as we start eliminating walls.

Now the living room is a big space, with half a dozen windows flooding the room with light.  Can you believe how big it is???  And we were able to keep the original china cabinet!

The new dining room was created as we removed the walls from the old bedroom.  Once the new LVL beams are installed for structural support, we will be able to remove the rest of the wall (on the left) to the kitchen.

After lots of thought, we decided to completely redo this kitchen.   The old cabinets couldn't be easily configured to accommodate a dishwasher and still have a logical set of upper cabinets in place.  So we decided to start from scratch and create a beautiful new kitchen.  That means this room will get a total gut job.  And of course it will use a big chunk of our budget.  But in the long run, we think this is a good place to spend the money (remember the old adage - kitchens and bathrooms sell houses)

And good news - that's original hardwood flooring (we think red birch) under all that linoleum!!!

The bathroom needed a significant upgrade, so we pulled out all the old fixtures.  I can't wait to get rid of that dark green paint.  With no windows, this bathroom feels like a cave.

And while the master bedroom didn't see a lot of changes, the master bath seems so much larger, now that we've removed the extra wall.  Once we install the new larger skylight, it will be lighter and brighter as well.   

In the master bedroom, now that the old carpet has been removed, the musty smell is gone and the space seems much fresher!

Next up - The Tenant's Unit!

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The Old House Trifecta - Asbestos, Mold & Lead Paint

Winterized in 2010!

My husband says I hit the jackpot on this house.....he calls it the old house trifecta:  Asbestos, Mold & Lead Paint.  And since the house has been vacant for several years, it seems particularly stuffy and unlived in.


Here's what we know so far:






Asbestos - The Owners Unit has asbestos wrapped pipes coming out of the old furnace and covering all the heat pipes in the basement.  And we suspect that underneath the cover, the furnace is wrapped in asbestos as well.  So that will need to be taken care of by a licensed asbestos removal company.  Cha ching cha ching.....that will be pricey!



Mold - We heard from the neighbor that she heard the house had mold.  Yeah, I know, not very definitive and we haven't seen anything that looks like a problem.  But the bathrooms are pretty nasty with mildew all around the bathtubs.  Good thing we're just tearing all this out for new tubs and bright, white tile!

Lead Paint - Any house built before 1978 has lead paint (My father always told me the higher the lead content, the higher quality of paint!!).  But of course, now we know that it isn't safe and needs to be handled carefully, particularly if you have peeling paint.  The good news is we don't seem to have peeling paint anywhere in the building, except for some of the ceilings, and they'll get covered with new drywall.  Want to know more about how to do a lead safe job?  Click here to see a project we did last year.

Of course we'll deal with all of this appropriately - once we really know what we really have.  Stay tuned as we start demo and learn what other surprises we have in store!

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The Duplex Floor Plan - 'Before' and 'To Be' Plan

The Demo Team is ready to go, so that put some pressure on us to finalize the floor plan.

So, here's the starting point.  As you probably noticed from the 'before' photos, the first floor units are mirror images of one another.  And these are big units!  The first floor of the building is almost 2000 square feet, so we have lots of space to work with.

Figuring out the 'to-be' design has been a challenge!  Thanks so much for all the input from a rental viewpoint.  I've also spoken with many landlords & tenants in the neighborhood to get their perspective.  And here's what we've decided:

The City records show the Owners Unit with 3 bedrooms.  And the Tenants Unit with 2 bedrooms.  But in reality, they each have one more bedroom than that.  So that's the challenge.  Should we have more bedrooms?  Or not?  

Some of the most helpful advice came from a local landlord who reminded me that more bedrooms is perfect for renting to college students.  Ah.....I used to be a college student and I wouldn't call myself an ideal tenant.  Unless you like the idea of loud parties, no yard upkeep and poor housekeeping.  So, after mulling that over for awhile and taking into account our unique mix of 1st and 2nd floor bedrooms, we decided to stay with the number reflected in the City documents.

But, and this might seem crazy, I hate the idea of keeping these units identical.  The needs of the residents will be different, depending on the number of bedrooms.  With the changes we're making, it gives us the opportunity to make each one unique!   We just want to meet our primary design criteria: create an open floor plan, while integrating the kitchen with the living space as much as possible.

So, see what you think of this plan for the first floor:

Now, there are some key differences between the two units!

Let's start with the Owners Suite - it will have a very large living room, since it has more bedrooms (and in theory) more people.  The new living room will be 24' x 12.5'!  We took the extra bedroom and used it for the dining room - which is open to both the living room and kitchen.  Don't you think it will be great once these walls are removed?

Owners Suite - Eliminate walls in Living Room & Dining Room

We will also made some big changes in the Tenants Unit.  I hated to do it, but we plan to eliminate one of the vintage built ins. We will move the other one to a more central location, which will create a feature point as you come from the living room.  These changes will allow us to open up line of sight from the kitchen to the living room and dining room, making the space feel much larger and friendlier. No more being stuck alone in the back of the house while you're cooking!

We will also eliminate the narrow closet between the two small bedrooms and create one large bedroom.  So, although we'll only have 2 bedrooms in this unit, they will both be large with their own bath!  And again, this will now be a big room - 23' x 11'.

And while there were a lot of similarities on the first floor,  there are a lot of differences on the 2nd floor.

 The Owners Unit has 2 bedrooms - one a large Master Suite with its own bath and a door to the back stairway.  The Tenants Unit also has a bedroom, but there wasn't much else on the 2nd floor.

In the Tenants Unit, we're going to change all that!  We are taking more knee wall space and dramatically enlarging the space to create a true Master Suite on the 2nd floor.  The bedroom gets much bigger, with a large closet.  And a full bath will complete the space.

  Won't it be great to eliminate this wall and open up this space?   And we're adding two new skylights to flood the rooms with light.

The biggest change for the Owners Unit?  We are adding a large walk in closet, opening up the existing bathroom to make it feel more spacious (with a nice big new skylight)  and adding a private deck off of the back door.  It's going to be a beautiful, large suite!

What do you think?  We can't wait to get started!

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Before Pictures - The Owners Unit

So here's what the rest of the duplex looks like!  The Owners Unit has a lot of space - 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths.  And like the Tenants Unit, we're trying to figure out how to best utilize the space.  The floor plan of the first floor is a mirror image to the unit next door, but there are some key differences upstairs.

Living Room and Dining Room

Good sized rooms with lots of light.  Oh, and we have beautiful hardwood floors hidden under all that old carpeting!  

I really love the built ins, there is one in the Dining Room and the other is in the Back Hallway.

Hallway leads to the basement and 2nd floor staircase

Kitchen - hmmmm......I guess I'll be dragging out the wallpaper steamer!  And the maple cabinets are nice, but I'm trying to figure out how to add a dishwasher.

In this unit - like the one next door, we also have 2 small bedrooms on the first floor.

And we have a dark bathroom on the 1st floor.  My plumber keeps reminding me that we'll need to keep this same footprint for the fixtures.  There isn't enough space to move things around!

Upstairs, there is a lot of space!  The long hallway connects two large bedrooms.

The front bedroom is a nice room with a large closet.  But that ceiling fan makes me laugh every time I see it!  Isn't that the saddest fan you've ever seen?  I think the one in the garage was nicer!

At the other end of the hallway, we have a large Master Bedroom with its own Master Bath.  It also has a door to the back stairway (you know, the one to nowhere, with the 6 foot last step!). 

And there is potential for a big walk in closet, we just need to build some walls!

There is a master bathroom with light flooding through the skylight (which appears to leak, as evidenced by the brown paper towels wedged in the corners).  See the holes in the bathroom drywall?  We have a feeling someone was looking for leaks.  We haven't gotten brave enough to turn on the water yet!  That promises to be exciting!

Like the Tenants Unit, the City has one less bedroom on the books than we have in this unit.  So again, I'm grappling with whether to stay with a 4 bedroom unit, or match the city records and have 3.  It's a big unit, but it might be nice to have more living space on the first floor.  Stay tuned as we finalize the floor plans!

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Lucky Number 7 - The Tenants Unit, Before Pics

I keep trying to figure out how to share this property with you, since it's 2 units that are similar - but different!  While we're working in the house we keep getting confused and I can see that happening in these posts as well.  And the easiest approach I've come up with is to give them names.  So from now on, Unit 1 is the 'Owners Unit'.  It's the bigger unit and I keep thinking when we sell the house, the owners will live in that side and rent the other.   And you guessed it, Unit 2 is the 'Tenants Unit', which is a bit smaller.

So, for today's post, here are the Before Pictures of the Tenants Unit.  It has some lovely features, but some challenges as well:

There is a nice sized Living Room.  The walls and molding are in great shape.  It's obvious the house has been well cared for in the past, but sitting empty for 4 years is never good for a house.....which leads us to some of the surprises we've found.

Here is the very red Dining Room.....with a mysterious hole in the ceiling.  There isn't any plumbing above that spot, so we're not exactly sure what caused it!  But I'm sure we figure it out during the course of the project.  It's a great room with lots of windows.  And don't you love the built in china cabinet?

The kitchen.....well, let's just say it's a bit tired...... and it's hidden in the back of the house.  It would be better if we could tie it to the rest of the living space with a more open concept.

Right now, it's down the hall from the dining room.

Bedroom 1

There are two small bedrooms off of the kitchen.

And I know the one room looks gold in this photo, but it's really a very odd green/gold.  Don't get too attached to these colors - they will change!

Bedroom 2

As you can see, the bathroom needs some updating

The second floor has a wide hallway and a bedroom with cool angled ceilings and a large closet.  But that's all that's up there.  So if you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night - you guessed it!  Dash downstairs.  So.....  I'd like to add a bathroom.  It looks like there is space to do it.  But we need to decide if that's affordable.

There is only one window upstairs, which translates into dark spaces!  It would be so much nicer to get more light in there.

For now, I'm working hard to figure out how to update the Tenants Unit.  According to the City records, this is a 2 bedroom unit, with one bath.  And yet we really have 3 bedrooms.  Should we keep all 3?  Or consolidate the two tiny rooms into one large bedroom?  For those of you that are renters, I'd love to hear your thoughts!  What do you think we should do?

Want to see the Owner's Unit Before pictures?  Click here!

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