Thursday, September 13, 2012

Ripping Apart.

Things are happening!! So much so that I've really not had a chance to update my blog. Hoping for at least weekly updates in the future though.

First thing's first. We sold our house. Yes, the house we currently live in that we built ourselves just 7 years ago and absolutely love. SOLD. I'm doing surprisingly ok about it. But that's probably because we don't have to be out until March 1st. So ask me again when that date is approaching. But, really, it's a big weight off our shoulders to know that it's sold, we got a decent price and we don't have to worry about it.

Secondly, the blueprints are done and are currently being sent off for approval. We had to go back to the drawing board at one point because it was proving to be very difficult to find a spot to put in the downstairs staircase. Currently, you have to go OUT of the house to get in the basement. Obviously we couldn't have that. So we had originally planned on putting the downstairs staircase under the upstairs staircase. But that didn't work as the stonewalls in the basement are so thick that you'd end up hitting the wall before you got to the floor. After A LOT of thought, discussion, and mad head scratching, we came up with the solution to have the stairs in the add on we're putting on the back.

Here are the pretty drawings of the outside. (I'll save the floor plans for another day.):



The top left corner is the front of the house. We're not changing anything. There will be new windows and siding and insulation (!!!) but they will have the exact same appearance as they have now. Here's the same view in real life. You can barely see the stained glass porch on the right side of the house. That will be the guest entrance.



And if you're wondering, NO, we will not be having blue trim around the windows. Everything will be white. Back to the drawings. Bottom left is the back of the house with the proposed build-on. Top right is looking at the house from the left side (the side without the stained glass porch) and bottom right is the right side of the house with the porch. So a decent sized, two story build-on. It will give us a small bathroom, laundry room, mud room and downstairs staircase on the main floor, and an extra bedroom and main bath on the 2nd floor.

Ok. So now that we now what it looks like on the outside and how we want it to look like when we're done.....how about some pictures of the inside.


This is in the kitchen looking towards what used to be a "kammers". Like a little bedroom. We've removed the wall you see here to open up it up completely to the window. We counted 5 different paint colours in the kitchen but that little patch of blue you see on the left is the original colour. 



 These are the 2 living rooms. Back in the day, you had your everyday room and your "nice" living room for company. We're tearing out the wall you see in the bottom picture to make one livingroom.


This is the original flooring in the entire house. Pine wood floors. Beautiful! It took removing layer after layer of vinyl flooring, oilcloth, plywood, and COUNTLESS rugs to find it. The next question is, do we just sand it and put lacquer on it OR do we paint them?? Right now I'm leaning towards painting. A beautiful, semi-glossy, very light grey. What do you think?

So far we've removed the entire contents of the house (it was full of furniture) and are now ripping out walls in the main floor, as well as the ceilings and outer layer of all the walls in the main floor. This way we'll be able to see with our own eyes if there's any rot behind the walls. We knew there would be on the front wall, and yes, there is. But everything else is looking pretty ok. And now that we've got it stripped to the bones, we can install all new electrics, put in spot lights in the ceilings, put in a central vacuum system and last, but certainly not least, we can insulate.  Here's a pic of how it looks ripped down to the bones.

  

And our rotten front wall. 

And since I realize that this is turning into an epic long blog post, I'm going to wrap it up here. Next time we'll take a tour of the upstairs. And we'll get to the stone basement too soon cause I'm really excited about that!! SO much to look forward too!!

 

6 comments:

  1. This is so exciting! Your plans look great and I am looking forward to following you along as you tackle each task. The original floors look like they're in pretty good shape don't they? I've never lived on painted floors before so I'm not sure how they stand up to traffic. Do you know? My first thought when I looked at the picture was "wouldn't they look great sanded down, oiled & varnished" but I sort of like the mix of rustic and modern together. I think the paint would be beautiful as well. All in what makes you feel the most like you. :)
    I'll be awaiting the next tour!

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  2. Ohhh! It's over already! I was thoroughly enjoying the 'tour'! I'm so excited for you all! It's going to be beautiful. I guess I was thinking the same thing about the floors - how they stand up to traffic with the paint. I thought the exact same thing as Kim...about sanded, oiled and varnished. But... I've never seen painted floors, and you have excellent taste, Alicia, so I'm sure whatever you choose will be perfect. I can't wait to take the 'tour' to the upstairs and the basement too! Looking forward to future blogs!

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  3. Glad you liked the tour girls! It inspired me so I'm really looking forward to doing the upstairs tour really soon. :D I'm still torn about the floors. They're in pretty decent shape and we'll be able to use them in the whole house with exception of maybe one bedroom. I really like the sanded, oiled, varnished look but there's something so charming about painted floors. And so bright and light. They make excellent floor paint so I'm not too worried about wear and tear. And even if it did start to wear in spots, I like the "weathered" look. I'm trying to keep everything "old fashioned" with all of today's modern conveniences...like insulation. HEHE! Anyway, I'm thinking maybe the next post should be about floors. Hmmmm. Fun to have inspiration!

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  4. Kanskje du kan male de nede og lakke de oppe :)Eller omvendt :)

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  5. Ikke anonymous, men CHRISTINA! hihi

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  6. Det her jeg tenkt på Christina! Jeg synes faktisk det er en kjempe god ide. :D Da får jeg begge deler!

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