Demo Changes Everything - Excitement and Trepidation

I'm always excited about demo day. Why?  Well, it's the start of a new project, we get a preview of how the new floorpan will look (because we're always tearing out a few walls!) and there are always some discoveries.  But unfortunately, those discoveries can also be bad news - so I approach it with a bit of trepidation.  It's that nervous feeling you get in the pit of your stomach.....just waiting to see what's wrong.




















But we had a lot of work to do to prepare for the big day.  As usual, before we got started, we donated everything we could.  I love it when someone can give a second life to  materials from these houses.

Next, I had to mark up what needed to be demo'd.  And that includes lots of notations about what needs to be saved (aka antique trim) and what needs to go.  The demo guys don't take out any load bearing walls, that will be done later, when we have temporary support in place.  They just focus on removing the plaster and non-load bearing walls and ceilings.

The team from Rainbow International Restorations had their work cut out for them, because this job had some challenges.  The ceilings in the house look really good - no cracks after 80 years.  I assumed that was because they had been replaced at some point in time.  But turns out, there is a layer of metal lath under all the ceilings, covered by a layer of drywall and then two coats of plaster on top of that.  That's great for a high quality job, but I can tell you the demo guys had a huge challenge getting that kitchen ceiling down!

Farewell old kitchen!!

And what did we discover?  Should I start with the good news, or the bad news?

Let's start with the good.  First of all - removing the 3 main walls on the first floor makes a HUGE difference!!  Suddenly the house feels much more open and bright and well.... just better connected.  I had a note from a reader who lives in a similar house, she said she loves the house, but always feels isolated in the kitchen.  That's not the case in this house anymore!

The kitchen is now open to the Dining Room and Living Room

Yup - it's a long, narrow kitchen!

You can easily move between living, dining and kitchen space and see from one room into another.

Can you believe how much nicer the foyer is, now that it's open to the Dining Room?  I can already envision the new owners entertaining with this circular layout.  It's a great party house!!  The house feels so much bigger!  And do you notice how clean everything is - so unusual after demolition.  That's because the Rainbow team brought in a giant HEPA air filter that took all the dust out of the air!

Hidden under that glue is nice original fir flooring!!

Next bit of good news, we have wood floors in the kitchen.  Woo hoo!!!  This is pretty rare - usually we find 4-5 layers of various tile and then the subfloor below.  But this time, there was only one layer of vinyl and then the wood floor.  Oh, and it's fir - not oak like the rest of the house.  That's not super surprising - remember back when this house was built, the kitchen was the domain of the cook - not guests, so you wouldn't spend as much on flooring in that room.  And I love how fir cleans up, so I'm hoping it will be pretty sweet when we get it refinished.

Dining Room with wall opened up to Kitchen

You can see from the living room through to the kitchen and dining room now!!!

Upstairs, I can start to see how the new bathroom will fit in the upstairs hall.  And remember the wall I wanted to remove in the front bedroom - to unify the two center windows?  Look at what a nice change that is!!

Finally, the demo crew said they usually find a dime above the kitchen doorway in many of the houses they do.  Sure enough, they found this mercury head dime!  Pretty cool, don't you think?  But there's a bit of a mystery.  You see, the city records show the house was built in 1938.  But this dime is 1943.  How could they have put the dime in later?  And was this house really built during World War II?  I need to do a deed search, to see if the records are wrong.  In the meantime, I've saved the dime.  It will be nice for the future homeowners.

And as usual, we also had some not-so-good discoveries.

First - the house has NO insulation in the walls.  We saw evidence when we bought it that insulation had been blown in the walls of the attic stairwell - so we assumed it was throughout the house  Bad assumption.

No insulation in the walls!!!  Yikes!!

And since this is a cold climate, we need to figure out how to get this place insulated for the future owners.  It's the kind of behind the wall work, that will really make a difference for energy efficiency and overall comfort of the home.  It wasn't in the original budget, so we need to figure out where to make some other changes to get this done.

There is also a big hole in the wall between the kitchen and the garage.  There was a shelving unit against that wall in the garage, so we never noticed the hole.  Not sure why it's there!!  But once the kitchen cabinets came out, it got really breezy in there and with the crazy cold temperatures we are having, it's an issue.   I've temporarily stuffed some insulation in there, but we need to fix that soon.

And then there are the fireplaces and the flues.  My fireplace expert came out and delivered the bad news.  For heating, they need a lining.  That's particularly important when we'll be installing a new boiler.

The No's have it by a huge margin!!!!

This is good and bad news - because at the Open House, the vast majority of people thought we should get rid of the current wood burning insert.  But I think they wanted it to be just a wood burning fireplace.  Now we need to figure out the best go forward path and the budget for an insert and liner - or other approach.  (On a side note, with the crazy cold temperatures we've been having, a wood burning insert would be nice, even if the current one isn't very pretty).

And then there is the issue with the second floor ceilings.  Although the first floor ceilings look great, the second floor has this 'pillowed' effect.  Evidently, since the house didn't have insulation for decades, the plaster expanded and contracted and created this effect.  It's really solid, so no danger of falling down or cracking, but looks odd.  I'm getting a quote to have it replastered, to see if we can even it out.


So there you have it.  I've got a lot of number crunching to do, to figure out how to do some of these critical infrastructure projects.  But somehow we will make it work and still ensure a safe, energy efficient home for the new owners!!!

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Vintage Colonial: The Go Forward Plan

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how to plan a whole house renovation.  I still use the same criteria on every house.  It starts with looking at all the elements that involve safety and security - and ends with the fun stuff, like fancy fixtures, kitchens, baths and custom carpentry.   And while it’s tempting to start with the fun stuff, getting the fundamentals in place is critical for a quality renovation. 

So here’s the list for the Vintage Colonial - at least as we know it now (we will probably have some discoveries during demo).  You’ll notice there are some big issues at the top of the list, that require big budgets.   And this is work that in most cases is behind the walls, so you can’t even admire how it looks when it's done J 

Safety & Security

First priority - properly abating the asbestos that’s all over the basement, followed closely by getting the electrical updated.  Most of the electrical outlets are only two prong – and some rooms only have one or two outlets.  Try that in a house full of teenagers!  That means a nightmare of extension cords all over the place and 3 prong adaptors.  In other words, an issue waiting to happen. 

I’m also worried about the chimneys in the house – we have two fireplaces and an oil fired boiler using the chimney.  I’m waiting for my chimney expert to come tell me what shape we’re in.  This has the potential to be a big issue.

Energy Efficiency

We knew from the moment we walked in the basement that the boiler needed updating to something much more energy efficient.  But that’s not going to be enough to improve the ‘Green’ factor for this home.

When you buy a house that has curtains hanging in the foyer doorway and draft dodgers next to bedroom doors, you can guess that it’s not very tight.  The good news is the attic has blown in insulation and there’s evidence in the attic stairwell that the walls were done as well.  That means the windows and doors are a problem – which is no surprise.  The windows are all original, many lack locks and storm windows and of course with old-fashioned sash weights, they’re going to be cold and leaky (and then there are the spots that looks like a dog ate the mullions!!).   And it does feel breezy in the foyer, which makes me suspect the front door could use replacing or some serious weatherstripping
.

Floor Plan & Traffic Flow

This wall opens up the living room to the kitchen

Since this is a center hall colonial, we can’t get a full open floor plan – but we can do a lot to make it more open and modern family friendly.  A lot of that comes down to traffic flow.  By taking out a few walls, we can dramatically improve the livability of the house.

So here is the initial plan for the first floor.  I’ve learned from experience that this is preliminary, until we get the demo done.  We typically get a few surprises!

Style

Okay, now we can talk about the fun stuff.  As you can see from the before photos – we desperately need a new kitchen.  Since it’s only 8 ½ feet wide, opening up the wall to the dining room will make it feel much bigger.  We also want to open the wall to the living room (see photo below). Of course we need to more the refrigerator, once that wall is gone. So that's something we need to address in our kitchen design. 

I want to install a powder room, but am still noodling over how to make that happen.  I’ve spoken with several neighbors that have the same floor plan and no one seems to have come up with a good, easy solution.  It’s a challenge!

Upstairs, we have an excellent layout to create a master suite.  By moving the sink/vanity to the other wall with a new doorway, we can have a private master bath.  That means moving plumbing, but it's worth the cost to create the suite.  We will leave the existing closet and add two more, for lots of storage space.  One thing I've learned renovating these old houses is that you can never create too many closets!!

Once the current bath becomes the master bath, there is room in the upstairs hall to install a family bath.  It will require us to steal a foot of so from the back bedroom, but won't dramatically change that bedroom. 

So now that we’ve got a preliminary plan, it’s time for permits and a demo crew.  We know from past projects that there will be some surprises once we get the walls opened up,  that might require changes and adaptations.  So stay tuned for updates!

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The Vintage Colonial: Before Photos

Well, we've owned the house for 5 days now, have done some major clean up, had a leaky pipe in the basement (less than 24 hours after we bought the place) and held a fun 'Before' Open House over the weekend (thanks so much to everyone that came!!  So great to see you!).   And after that whirlwind of activity, I was able to capture some 'before' photos, to let everyone who couldn't attend the Open House see what we've bought.

On the exterior, the house has some lovely curb appeal - kind of a classic, don't you think?

Photo:  Hooked on Houses

It reminds me of the house in Father of the Bride, but on a smaller scale..

Photo:  I am not a stalker.com

And one of our readers thought it looked like the house from Eight is Enough (this is a quiz to see if you're old enough to remember that show!!!)

Inside the front door, we have a tight foyer.  Like most center hall colonials, you can access both the living room









and dining room from this point.

See the sun streaming in through the big bay windows?  It makes the whole dining room nice and cheerful.

And the original corner cabinet adds a nice touch to the space.

The kitchen appears to be original.

It's tight - only 8.5 feet side - so a  galley style.

And lots of doors - one that goes directly into the attached garage (a really nice feature for a Maine winter!), another to the basement, one to the backyard (which doesn't seem to have been used in years, judging by the bookcase in front of it) and the door to the dining room.

The living room is a large, gracious room.  It also has a big bay window across the front, bringing lots of sunlight into the room.

There's a stone fireplace that is a real statement piece.  It has a wood burning insert, but whether it's still in working order is a mystery until my chimney expert comes to take a look.

A feature I love about this house is the office, off of the living room.  This one room has 6 windows, so it should always be nice and bright.  It's perfect for a home office - a nice spot to get away from the rest of the household.

6 windows in one room!!!  How cool is that???

The back of the house has a screened in porch.  It doesn't look too appealing with snow in there, but once the weather warms up we'll do some updates and it should be a really fabulous space.  (I've been shopping for outdoor ceiling fans and there are some amazing options out there!!)

Upstairs, there are three bedrooms and one bath.  (And a quick word about hallways.  I always like to minimize hallways in a small home - they take precious square footage away from living areas.  This house has mastered that - the hallways are just big enough to get from room to room - without any wasted space.  They're perfect!)

Upstairs Hall - Before

The master bedroom is really generous and with lots of windows for summer breezes.  See what a bright, inviting room it is?

The front bedroom is also large.

And it includes a small space (which I guess was supposed to be a closet, since it looks like there used to be hooks on the wall) with a window and a door to the attic stairway.  I keep wondering if we should open it up to the rest of the room???  Of course the room already has 3 windows, but a little extra light is always nice.

The back bedroom is a bit smaller - but is really charming with the curved ceiling,

The bathroom is tight, but functional.  As you can imagine, I'd like to make a few changes :-)  One that I won't change is that bathtub......it's got so much more style than a modern tub and if we get it restored, it will be a thing of beauty.

And last, but not least - at least from a budget perspective - is the basement.  

I love the copper hot water tank!!!  Need to come up with a plan to repurpose it!

All that white wrapping you see around the heating pipes?  That's asbestos.  All those  9" square tiles on the floor?  You guessed it, asbestos.  And the 1952 boiler?  Full of asbestos insulation.  So a big budget item is to have that properly removed.

And it comes with a basement 'throne' - a basement toilet that's surely original.  I know it's odd, but I love old toilets and we're going to do our best to get this one in working order again.  

But it's kind of cool to have a basement fireplace.  And while we won't make this a fancy space, the previous owner said it's always been a dry basement.  So it could be some additional living space - perhaps a playroom for the kids or a craft space?

So that's the tour!!  It's a nice, solid house that with some updates can be pretty fabulous.  What do you think??  

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