We purchased our home in July of 2015. Our realtor tried to
convince us to look at houses that needed less work, but we really loved the
neighborhood and felt that we were up for a complete renovation, so we went for
it. Over the next year and a half, neighbors shared stories of the history of
the house. It was last purchased as a fixer-upper in the 1970’s but was never
actually fixed up. Ten dumpsters of hoarded “stuff” were discarded before we
ever set foot in the house. We removed another 10 dumpsters worth in the
demolition process.
We completed the majority of the renovation work ourselves,
while hiring out a few of the larger jobs to local contractors. Nate discovered a passion for construction
and woodworking at West High School, and from day one, balanced his desire to
do all the work himself with a full-time job as an engineer designing bikes at
Trek.
It’s probably easier to say which parts of the house we
didn’t replace. Like all major renovations, the to-do list got longer and
longer the farther we went. We retained the footprint of the house, with the
exception of the back deck, which we made smaller. All of the windows, except
one intricate diamond shaped window in the attic landing, have been replaced.
The wood floors needed some minor patching and repairs, but sanded out
beautifully. The electrical work was all knob and tube and needed to be
replaced, and the plumbing needed to be updated as well. So we decided as long
as we were opening up all the walls, we would put in a modern HVAC system with central
air. We made a drafty, old house airtight with spray foam on the interior and
rigid foam on the exterior of the original shiplap sheathing. For many months
we debated whether to repair and paint the original cedar siding, but in the
end decided that it made more sense economically to replace it with LP
Smartside.
We painstakingly removed, de-nailed and refinished all of
the trim in the house. We’ve re-installed
some of it, but much of it is waiting patiently in the newly finished walk-up
attic, ready to adorn a window or cover the ragged ends of the hardwood floors
where they meet the walls. For a modern family of 5, it made more sense to have
two full bathrooms upstairs and a half bath downstairs, so we transformed the
upstairs study into a bathroom. We also shortened the upstairs hallway,
creating a master bedroom/bathroom. The house had a second staircase that was
charming and historic, but by removing it we made room for the half bath
downstairs, a closet in the playroom, a main floor laundry room, and a pantry.
The basement remains unfinished and is a wonderful workshop for the general
contractor, my husband.
As you can see from the pictures of the kitchen, we removed
the wall between the living room and kitchen. This required removing the
chimney that ran from the basement boiler through the roof, brick by brick. The
house lacked an original fireplace, so we added a gas fireplace that vents directly
out the side of the house.
The main things that still need to be done include a railing
in the attic, lots of trim, fireplace mantle/tile, kitchen backsplash tile, cabinet
doors and fronts, siding on the new 2 car garage, and finishing touches on the
landscaping. All in all, it’s been a fun project and although we drained our
savings, we have no regrets!
