Official Progress Update

We are just shy of six months into this project, and were finally ready to have Kristen of K. Holly Studios come capture our new home in the "during" phase last weekend. I've been sharing lots of demo photos on the Facebook page, but here are the professional images that capture the home in its best light.

There are some photos that are going to be hard to understand, since we took down a few walls and rearranged things (mostly in the bathroom area...) but I will do my best to explain! You can see the full BEFORE TOUR here if you have missed it in the past.

We are 8-12 weeks out from our move in date, and still have a ton to do. Drywall actually went up last week, right after these images were captured. It looks SO different already! Our current home has been on the market for two weeks with no offers yet, but showings, which makes us happy. We are thankful we still have a place to live, but nervous it won't sell before we move.

On to the photos!


This is the dining room on the left, and what it looks like now. You will now walk in the front door and instead of walking down and awkward little hallway with a non-original wall in your face, you will walk right into the dining room.



When we decided to have the entire home re-drywalled down, we were taking down the drywall around the stairs, and I had the idea of opening them up instead of replacing the drywall. On the left you see the old "entryway", with the icky little bathroom on the right. In the photo on the right, you see that you will now enter the front door, and instead of a bathroom, there will be a little landing to take off shoes/hang coats. There, of course, will be a railing around the stairs!



I am assuming this will be the biggest change of the house. On the left you see the old office area, which was right past the entry hallway. And on the left of the images, you will see the galley style kitchen. We have taken down the wall in between the kitchen and office area, and will have a much larger kitchen, with an island under the beam. Plenty of work space for both Greg and I, and a counter-height island for informal meals (most of them, I am sure!), homework, and chatting. I know we are going to spend tons of time in here.



The kitchen looks out onto the patio. This isn't changing much - same lights, same sliders, same floor. Right now, as you see on the right, it is our "clean" storage area, as the rest of the house is covered in dust & debris!



Our garage is attached to the house, which is a huge upgrade from our current home. Because we needed to move the laundry area out of the bathrooms, we decided to take up 42" of the garage and move it out there. I love the thought of main floor laundry! So, in the photo on the left, you see the old built in workbench? That is where the new laundry/mudroom is in the photo on the right (taken from the kitchen inside). We will be stacking our washer & dryer to make this room work, but we are just happy to have everything right in one spot.



The Bedroom with One Window is what we call this one. Nothing crazy - just a pretty standard bedroom. This will be our guest room for now (and another child's room if we ever have more kids), and also our office. The closet will contain all of my work files, linen samples, etc. and I'm hoping my desk will work perfectly under the window, as it looks out into our backyard!



And this is the bedroom we call The Bedroom with Two Windows, also known as Eames' new room. Slightly smaller than The Bedroom with One Window, but the corner windows are awesome, and his vintage MCM bedroom set we purchased from friends of ours will be perfect in here! His little full-sized bed has a headboard that doubles as a bookshelf - ooh, I LOVE IT!



And the master bedroom? Ooh, the yellow is GONE! (except that door...which will be gone soon, promise!) We actually made this room a few feet narrower to allow us to have a (small...) walk in closet. We are "less is more" when it comes to furniture in our bedroom, so we will literally have just our bed in our room - nightstands don't fit, so we ended up picking out sconces for reading lamps.



The bathroom is where we went a little crazy moving around walls. The bathroom originally was a laundry room (with exterior door) and a bathroom at one time. The owners before us, made it one giant room and it was awful. We decided to make it into two bathrooms - hall/kid bath and master bath - plus a little space for our new closet, and then we popped the laundry into the garage. In the top photo you see the washer & dryer. That is exactly where the hall/kid bath vanity will be (across from the tub). The master bath is actually smaller than the hall/kid bath, but that is okay with us, since we're not huge bath/spa people. We would have rather had a walk in closet to eliminate furniture that will collect crap & dust, than a giant soaker tub!



And I LOVE that Kristen captured some of the details here! There are many things going on at the house - here's the old thermostat on the left. We will be replacing it with an energy efficient NEST, which we are so excited about. We splurged on the NEST, but know it will save us tons of money as it learns your patterns and keeps your home toasty when you're home, but cooler when you're away. With us trying to make this home more energy efficient since heat is not free for us, this made the most sense. The new windows will help with this as well - as well as the insulation!

Since we ended up taking down all of the old drywall, all new electrical had to go in. In the top right photo, you can see lots of new cords going thru the 2x4 walls. We are SO thankful we decided to do this - I am not sure how the house hadn't burned to the ground in the past 50+ years - the wires were an absolute mess and unsafe!

The bottom right photo is the new plumbing in our bathroom. Since we had limited space in the bathrooms, our vanities are only 18" deep. We opted for wall mounted faucets to keep the countertops clear of extra items.



If you have been following along with me on Instagram or Facebook, you know that Eames has been with us this entire time. Every weekend we have spent at the house, he's been there. We are thankful for our new neighbors for letting us use their bathroom, but for also letting us play with them! Eames usually lasts a couple of hours, but then we head over to play with their Thomas the Train, Legos, and Playdoh while Greg works alone for a bit.

Kristen captured him helping a bit while she was there. He's sweeping up some debris - takes after his dad for sure!



Last fall, we spent the first two weekends at the house raking the massive amounts of leaves that were in the yard. Then, my dad gifted us a ton of his time to take out the way-too-overgrown shrubs and start thinking up a plan for our yard for spring.

This spring, Greg will be working alongside him to turn the much-too-large beds of plants into grass and more "play area" for Eames. My dad has also been working on getting a ton of "scrub" trees out of the backyard, which will then become more usable for our family. Greg and my dad will start working on the grass when it gets just a touch warmer - we are SO excited for our much larger yard, and with a little boy who LOVES to be outside, it's going to be perfect for him!



Same side of the house, different views. This is outside the Bedroom with Two Windows, and the master bedroom. The before on the left shows the GIANT overgrown shrub at the corner of the house, and all the random plants the former owners had outside the master bedroom windows. We removed that all last fall and the plan is to plant grass. The exterior door in the right photo goes into our master bedroom - I imagine coming out this door a lot while Eames is playing in the yard. We found a great little patio set for out here - and if we don't have a ton of mosquitoes on lovely summer nights, I assume we will be out here often before Eames' bedtime!

The BEFORE Tour

Our appointment to view the home was at 6pm on Thursday, September 20th, 2012. We made an offer the next morning, headed to Chicago that afternoon for a wedding of a friend and accepted their counter on Tuesday the 25th. Easy!

When we turned onto the street, we could see the northwest corner of the house, and I'm pretty sure when I stepped out of our realtor's car, I wanted it no matter what the inside looked like. The slanted roofline was the first thing that caught my eye, as well as the slats that created the overhang. The Roman brickwork around the entire house, plus the stone fireplace set on an angle were also eye-catching.

Here is the official BEFORE photo tour taken by my friend Kristen at K. Holly Studios on Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, the day after we closed on the house. See each caption below the photo.

The northwest corner of the home, which is the garage. We heard from the previous owners and also our current neighbors that the original owners built the garage first, and then lived in it while they finished the rest of the home.

A couple more views of the garage, with the original wooden garage door and glass panes. I am quite certain that the hedges were planted right away. We tore them out, and they were so overgrown, they caused the raised planter they were in to bow out. What a shame!

The front door (which will eventually be replaced with a period-appropriate Crestview Door) with a small, tall planter directly to the left, and a large low planter in front, which holds a tulip tree. I am excited to see that bloom this spring! 

The road view from directly across the street. You will notice we have the Grand Haven bike path in our yard. Awesome!

This is my favorite part of the exterior - the covered patio portion and the GIANT tree to the left. We plan to have our outdoor dining room table and chairs on the patio. You can't tell how large it is, but when you see the AFTER photos with furniture, I think you'll get a better idea. Those large windows in the bottom left photo are in the living room, and you can just see the three-season porch in the back.

These photos would be the rest of the backyard. Here you have the southeast corner, the back of the three season porch, the little patio off the master bedroom, the back of the garage. You will notice they used brick around most of the exterior of the house, everywhere except where there's a window. And the patio goes around the entire house, except for where the crawlspace entrance is behind the garage. Yes, I said crawlspace. There is only a partial basement on the house, then the bedroom & bathroom portion is on a crawlspace.

And now we're back to the northside of the house. You with me? 

Now we step inside the house. Remember when I said I wanted the house no matter WHAT the inside looked like? Well, be prepared to be underwhelmed. It is NOT our dream house in this state of randomness. We are currently tearing everything out, to make way for a modern renovation, with the original midcentury elements left in place. Let me explain...

Hello! Welcome to our new house. Do you need to use the bathroom? If so, you are in luck, because it's RIGHT HERE...right at the FRONT DOOR.

No, seriously. The first thing you see when you enter our new house is a giant mirror (and by giant, I mean over 7' tall and 7' wide) to the right, and this tiny, gross, little bathroom to the left. The wall (not original to the house) with the mirror is already gone, and this bathroom is becoming a small entryway. WELCOME! Who puts a toilet by the front door? Terrible idea.

You round the corner past the strange little wall (the little yellow wall in the top right photo) and you see this odd little area to the right of the fireplace. Based on old photos, it's always been the dining area. We were encouraged to use it as a sitting room, but we didn't think we'd actually sit in it, so lo and behold, we're going to be using it as our dining room. 

Past the dining area, you see the fireplace. It's pretty awesome, and it's wood burning, which makes for some rip-roaring fires. We've had two already, and Greg cannot wait to use it more. This is not changing too much - we have talked about adding a floating wood mantel so I can hang Christmas stockings, but we haven't decided on this yet. Trying to find a photo for inspiration so I can make it look as if it were original. 

The main living area is past the fire place. It is about 15'x16', so MUCH larger than we have on Louise Street, but not too big we will have trouble filling it with furniture, which we have already. We ordered an amazing sectional sofa & giant ottoman to use in here and it's PERFECT! I will share more on that soon and I talk about filling this house up with mostly secondhand finds! 

Directly behind the living room is the three season porch. This room is made of seven sliders and two windows that look into our kitchen. It is FREEZING out there right now, so it won't be a year-round place to hang out, but we do plan on finding a sweet retro freestanding fireplace to pop out there and hope to use it for at least three seasons.

It has THEE most amazing light fixtures - the giant globes - and based on old photos of the home, it looks to us like there was actually one of these outside on the dining patio as well. Seeing as it was outside, it most likely was broken and never replaced. We LOVE these!

We have already purchased (off Craig's List) an outdoor teak patio set - a sofa, love seat and two chairs plus one ottoman. The cushions need to be recovered, but it was the perfect find and the wood is in great shape! 

Head back inside and you will see the tiny little galley kitchen. This is directly across from the fireplace, and next to the patio. It really wasn't is terrible shape, and we've actually given the cabinets to one of our neighbor's cousins who was in need of them. It feels wonderful to know they didn't end up in the dump.

To the left of the kitchen, is a built in office/desk area. This was the very first "room" you saw when you walked in the front door and past the strange wall, and I have NO idea why no one else ever opened that up to be a nice, big kitchen area, but we did, and all of this is gone already. I cannot wait to show you the AFTER on this shot! It's going to be the biggest change, I believe. 

Now we head down to the bedroom area. Here is the hallway. It is staying a hallway, however, it will not have any closets, no crazy wavy lights inside the skylights, and new drywall, paint, trim, etc. Plus new wood floors that will be throughout the whole house except the bathrooms.

Welcome to the two nondescript bedrooms. They are basically the same size. One has two windows, and the other has one. Drywall is coming down, and I've already ripped the sticky-tile out of each room. The one with two windows will be Eames' room, and the other will be the guest room and have a little desk for our desktop computer. 

The master bedroom isn't anything to write home about yet.  The floor to ceiling windows are awesome, and we love the three little tilt-out windows on the north wall. Having an exterior door in our room is strange, but it will be replaced with a lovely Crestview Door soon. Lots of changes happening here, including ripping out those mirrored closet doors and making a walk in closet instead. 

The bathroom deserves a post all to itself. What a wreck! Icky old acrylic tub, laundry in the room (which is not allowed anymore, per code), and a double sink - but not side-by-side, the sinks FACE EACH OTHER. WHO wants to brush their teeth looking at their spouse? NOT ME! I'm a messy tooth-brusher. YIKES! 

This will become a kid bath and a master bath, and since we're getting rid of the toilet BY THE FRONT DOOR, the kid bath is also the guest bath. And the laundry room is moving to the garage. Yep, the garage. 

So that top photo, where the little sink is, that will be a small, enclosed laundry/mudroom. It will make our garage a few few smaller, but we'd rather have it here than in our basement. Schlepping laundry up and down the stairs isn't my idea of fun. We will be stacking our washer & dryer to use the space best. The two stall, attached garage will feel like HEAVEN compared to what we have now. 

And the last space is the basement. Originally, it seemed like a storage-only basement. The stairway was closed off and dark. We are opening this up to be an open staircase to the basement. It will flow much better from the upstairs!

The basement will be another living area - the mechanical room will be a little shut off room, but the rest will be a living room with a lot of storage for toys, games and a big sofa and our television! The back room (the bottom right photo) will have laminate floors (reused from the old kitchen/dining/office area upstairs) and all shelving for storage. I think I have got to get rid of all the yellow paint too. 

So, there you have it, the BEFORE TOUR of our new home!