12 Months: An In-Progress House Tour

I’m shocked and appalled at the lack of interior “before” pictures that I have, but this is shot-for-shot as close as I can get to a before-and-in-progress tour.

Exterior

If you’ve been around here a while you’ve seen quite a bit of the exterior. Here’s the front of the house from the West side prior to the revamp:

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And here it is in its current state, awaiting the rest of the siding:

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You can see that the front door was moved to the other side of the house and replaced with a window, and the triple window was split into a single window and a double for furniture placement inside and a more symmetrical exterior. The covered patio or “veranda” as the fancy folks say was added on to the north side of the house.

Here’s a shot from the right where the new front entry is visible along with our cedar beams:

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If you continue around the house counter-clockwise you’ll see the south side of the house, which used to look like this:

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While we bumped out the entire wall you’re looking at four feet, plus an additional eight feet for the kitchen which is from the right side of the middle window over, the bulk of the “addition” was added on to the back (or right side, from this vantage.)

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You can see we’re working our way back to front with the siding.

The back of the house is often neglected with picture taking. This wall on the old back of the house is actually an interior wall that leads down the basement stairs now.

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And here’s the addition:

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Interior

Before the front door was relocated, when you used to come into the house and turn right, you’d be looking at the long rectangular living room:

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It was attached to the (rather large) dining room with this arched opening.

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This image is close to the same spot and angle as the last one. The far wall has been pushed out four feet, the wall between the living and dining rooms was removed, and we vaulted the ceiling. The new entryway (seen on the left of this picture) is where we extended the kitchen out even farther.

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Here’s a look straight through from the far living room wall, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. The small arch to the left went into the bathroom and two bedrooms.

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From a similar spot,  this image shows the current disaster of the new rooms. If you look closely at the floor on the right side you can see where the original subfloor ends, which used to be the side wall of the house. The sliding doors are located in the same spot as that far window in the before image.

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Here’s a look from the opposite direction (from the kitchen looking through the dining room to the living room):

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And here we are from the same spot now. The distance to the far wall is exactly the same in these images, which just goes to show how vaulting a ceiling and adding width to a room can affect how long it seems.

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This opening through to the “office” is where the archway to the bathroom and bedrooms was previously located.

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Previously if you walked through that hallway, this is what you’d see, with a bedroom straight ahead and the one bathroom to the left.

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That one might actually look better in the before picture…

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If you were to turn left into the full bath, here’s what it looked like pre-demo. Part of the room was taken up by a closet, just inside the door.

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The dimensions of the room are the same, but we removed the closet and reconfigured the bathroom so the tub was on the back wall and the toilet and sink are on one side wall. (Not that I have a toilet and sink yet, but I’m working on it.)

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If we head back out to the kitchen, it used to be your standard galley kitchen.

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Here’s a look at the six whole cabinets this kitchen boasted:

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And here we are with the eight foot addition. We basically just pushed the far wall out, and again if you look closely at where the old sub-floor ends and the OSB begins, you can see where we’ve expanded.

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This was the other corner of the old kitchen, where the fridge and stove used to live…

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And essentially the same corner now:

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Which brings us to the end of the existing house. If you take a right out of the kitchen, previously you would have ended up in the back yard.

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Now there is a mudroom which has the open stairs to the basement, laundry room, and leads into the master bedroom.

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Which actually looks like it could be a bedroom now.

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Here’s the master bath:

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And that big, glorious closet that isn’t taken up with a water heater.

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And that’s a pretty accurate look at what we’ve accomplished in the last year. I’m a little disappointed that we aren’t moved in yet, but I have high hopes that a few more weeks of tiling and we’ll be able to make the big move. Having the bedroom and bathrooms in a more finished state will make it totally worth the wait.

16 Responses

  1. What an incredible amount of work you two have done in a year! I’ve watched your progress but it amazes to see everything together. Great vision and excellent execution… you’ve created a beautiful home. Hope you get to enjoy it real soon!

  2. Impressive before and after photos. I work for Mohawk Flooring – don’t you love that green carpet? 🙂 Maybe that shade of green will be trendy again some day, but I hope not.

  3. Wow, I am totally amazed at the amount of work you and MysteryMan have been able to do in a year. I am also very glad for this particular blog because you have written several other retrospective items, and I had a lot of difficulty in comparing the old to the new. I wanted something like this that would lay out the whole thing start to finish. The only missing detail is to compare the size. What was the old square footage, and what is it now? But, man, what a difference! You have totally changed this house!

  4. Boy, it sure seems like a lot more than that. Our house is 1900 square feet, and it’s just me and the wife. It has always been all the room we need. But the kitchen and baths are very small. You really did a wonderful job of making those rooms large. I’m anxious to see the finished rooms. But you’re more anxious, right?

    1. I think maybe the high ceilings and the fact that we don’t have a dining room helped open the space up a bit. You’re right, we’re getting very anxious to get in there!

  5. What – no before & after of the donkey pasture? That was quite a bit of work also! And we haven’t seen much of them lately.

    You both should be so proud – it really looks amazing when it is all put in one place like this.

  6. Your reno is looking sooo pretty. I’m preparing for an upcoming bath remodel, & love river rock…I love how you incorporated it into your bathroom in that one particular section – so unique. Can you please tell me what tile you used on the bathtub/shower walls? Brand/color/size? It’s awesome. Thanks so much!

    1. Hi Pamela. The tile I used was handmade tile from The Winchester Tile Company. I used 4″ field tiles in “Canvas” (Which doesn’t look anything like the picture on their website.) After a lot of searching I found that most tile companies have some sort of hand glazed tile that has the slightly irregular shape. They’re a little pricey, but I love the look of them!

      1. Okay, great – thank you for the tile info. I definitely love the look of them, too…the color & style is fabulous! I dig unique, creative items. Oh, by the way, I think you are super funny, with the sharpest wit. You kinda remind me of myself in that way – Ha. I believe you are a Gemini like me, so that explains everything on this blog. 🙂 Your construction skills absolutely blow my mind!

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