We hit a milestone of sorts last weekend. We finally finished the major part of the demolition of our project house. There are still a few saggy ceilings left to go and some other odds and ends like removing the siding from the interior of the kitchen(!), but the walls are finished. We spent some time this weekend remeasuring all of the spaces so we can draw out the plans to get our building permit. We'll be adjusting the existing floor plan to make it work better for the way people live today and to correct some changes that were badly made in the past (e.g., closing up a window to create a bathroom in an awkward place).
The house will probably have 4-5 bedrooms and 3.5 baths when we're done. None of the rooms currently have closets, so we'll have to make space for them, preferably without making the bedrooms any smaller. The laundry room will be moved from the unheated back porch to the second floor where it is close to the bedrooms. We'll open up the kitchen so that it flows into the rest of the house rather than being closed off as it is now. The 2 front rooms will likely become one large livingroom. And we'll have to figure out how to handle a couple of oddly shaped spaces.
Drawing the plans will help us make some of those decisions as well as determining where the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC should go. The house was obviously cobbled together and expanded over the years and really had no character-defining features on the interior, but it has good bones. We can definitely create a warm, livable home for the 21st century while maintaining the house's street presence and improving the neighborhood.
It's neat that you both have architectural backgrounds so you can bounce ideas off each other. I can see where restoration can be (as well as hard work)with lots of satisfaction when you are done.
ReplyDelete