Thursday, June 20, 2013

the house :: 1st floor "before"

Well, I am finally getting around to posting some "before" pictures of the house.  For today we will just "explore" the first floor since there is a lot to talk about.  Demolition on the inside of the house is pretty much complete and so I hope to get those pictures posted over the next week or so.


This picture was taken from the entryway of the house, the dining room is right ahead (with the linoleum floor), and then the living room through the archway (with cream carpet).  The plan is for this wall to come down to have an open floor plan.


This blurry picture (sorry) was taken standing in the doorway to the kitchen and looking into the dining room.  I love the windows in the house; they are huge!  The larger registers will be removed & will be replaced with regular floor registers. 


This picture was taken standing in the corner of the dining room previously shown, and looking into the kitchen.  Another nice, large window.  The wall straight ahead will also be coming down and the plan is for a peninsula to be there. 


This picture was taken while standing in the archway between the dining room and living room, looking toward the entryway of the house.  The entryway was added onto the house when the porch was removed.  The plan is to put the porch back onto the front & side of the house, so this bump out will be removed in order to do that. 


Just another picture standing in the corner of the dining room, looking into the living room & kitchen.


The family checking out the house.  Standing in the living room, looking toward the dining room.  Again, this wall is coming down to open up the floor plan.


Standing in the archway to the living room.  Again, I love the large windows.  Just a reminder, the house is a Foursquare, built in 1905.  Most Foursquares have the typical window placement of one window centered on each exterior wall of a room, and our house is no different.


The kitchen.  Was remodeled in the 50's, most likely.  This will all be going.  The wall with the fridge is the wall between the kitchen & dining room & will be coming down and hopefully replaced with a peninsula.


Another picture taken from the kitchen, looking into the dining room.  I don't think the archways are original to the house, but I'm not sure why they would have been changed to that style, which is more of a 40's or early 50's style.


Another view of the kitchen, this time looking back into the half bathroom.  The wall with the stove and oven will also be coming out and the kitchen will be extended an additional 5' in that direction, with a mudroom and laundry room beyond that, and then the garage past that.


One last look at the kitchen.  I should mention that the house has 9' ceilings on the first floor, but the kitchen ceiling is only 8'.  This is because a 2nd floor bathroom was added above the kitchen in the 50's and the plumbing runs through the ceiling.  Unfortunately, it will be remaining that way, with the kitchen having an 8' ceiling.  However, the soffit will be coming out, so that may help a bit.


This is the "spare bedroom" on the 1st floor.  It isn't a huge room, but it isn't tiny either.  This half will become the master bedroom's closet, with the window becoming the doorway to the master bedroom.


This is the other half of the "spare bedroom".  The closet will be taken out and that space will become part of the living room, which is on the other side of that wall.  The remaining room will become the powder room, with a wall going up just to the right of that window.


One more look at the 1st floor spare bedroom.  Closet will become part of the living room, window will be in the new powder room, and where I was standing to take the picture will become the master bedroom closet. 


Just down the hall past the spare bedroom is the current mudroom, which is quite small, and the appliances blocked the pathway of the door, as you can see in this picture.  This room will be coming off and the master bedroom will be added on instead.


Another look at the mudroom.  Yeah right, we are all looking at that adorable little girl there - my niece Ella, 4 years old, and making a funny face.  Again, the mudroom is coming off and the master bedroom will be going on.


This picture is somewhat out of order since it is the half bathroom that is currently off the back of the kitchen, but this room sits just around the corner from the mudroom.  Again, this room & the mudroom are both part of a small addition on the back of the house (8' x 10' I believe) and this addition will be coming off to make way for a larger addition that will contain the additional kitchen space, mudroom, laundry room, and master bedroom.


Lastly, the stairs to go up to the 2nd floor.  If you are trying to get an idea of the overall floor plan of the house, I was standing in the doorway to the 1st floor spare bedroom when I took this picture, so that is right behind me.  Then the mudroom is to the left down that little bit of hallway and if you were to turn right at the end of that short hallway to the left, that is the entrance to the kitchen and then to the left of that is the current half bathroom.  The living room is to the right of where I was standing, through a doorway.  If you could walk straight ahead, through that glorious flocked wallpaper, that is where the kitchen is.  And what is flocked wallpaper, you ask?  Oh yeah, no big deal.  It's just wallpaper that feels like velvet.  Yep, the green design is all a velvet type material.  Reviews are mixed on the wallpaper.  About half the people that see it love it, and the other half absolutely hate it.  I'm kind of "meh" on the whole thing.  If it wasn't green - like maybe grey - I would be a bit more likely to embrace it, but the green.  I just can't get into the green.  So it will be coming down.  Plus it isn't in the best shape, there are tears here and there.  It will just be best for it to come down so little fingers aren't picking at it. 

Well, there you have the 1st floor "before" pictures.  Hopefully I haven't completely lost you with the floor plan.  I should see if I can upload a picture of the floor plan to help visualize it.  Coming soon are "before" pictures of the 2nd floor, and then demolition pictures, since that has actually been completed.

Thanks for reading!
-V

Here is the original post about the house, for those interested...

Before pictures of the 2nd floor are posted here!

1 comment:

  1. Recreating the porch is a great idea; a porch can become the favorite room in the house :-) You have an ambitious project! Good luck ... post lots of pictures!

    ReplyDelete