Our home is listed as a 2 bedroom. For all their lives excepting the year in Hungary, the girls have shared a room with each other, and that's worked out well enough. But Stephanie has long tracked the aches and pains of our house, and had more reasons than room apportionment for pursuing a home renovation.
We're not good homeowners. I like happy neglect. But a couple disasters and opportunities finally lined up enough to initiate the full project--not just adding rooms above the kitchen's flat roof and not just renovating the kitchen and not just replacing the siding but all of it--new bedrooms, new kitchen, new siding. The piecemeal cost of staging different projects over time was ridiculous if we could do all of it at one go; and we could do it in one go with the guidance of a philosophy our contractor has taken to heart: Do it "good enough." I'm still most comfortable in a happy neglect, but this is hopefully enough to appease Hestia for the next bunch of years.
The permitting process took a month longer than we expected it to, giving us time to pack up the first couple floors and move them to the basement. Below are pictures of loose stuff now in our office, and of the bookcases and mattresses against the wall adjoining.
The first week of the project is now over, and after four days, there's no going back. Here are a series of pictures taken over the course of a these few days, starting in what was once our library (and half a century ago, a kitchen for the half century before than) and what will become a hallway abutting a larger dining room.
Below is the view from our living room through the dining room and into the kitchen.
And here's how the kitchen ended up by the end of the week.
Upstairs, our bathroom will evolve from open chambers to a room divided by two dividing doors into a washroom, a water closet, and bathing room. The architect strongly recommended two bathrooms upstairs instead, but this plan will help the five of us share without multiplying costs.
Finally, here is the girls' room. We once had the tower of girls--a bunk bed for two and a trundle that squirted out for the third. Later we pulled off the bunk and built a bed for Sophie behind a curtain on the other side of the room. The window you see in each of these three pictures is the same.
And here is the view from our attic/sky stage right now.
We're not good homeowners. I like happy neglect. But a couple disasters and opportunities finally lined up enough to initiate the full project--not just adding rooms above the kitchen's flat roof and not just renovating the kitchen and not just replacing the siding but all of it--new bedrooms, new kitchen, new siding. The piecemeal cost of staging different projects over time was ridiculous if we could do all of it at one go; and we could do it in one go with the guidance of a philosophy our contractor has taken to heart: Do it "good enough." I'm still most comfortable in a happy neglect, but this is hopefully enough to appease Hestia for the next bunch of years.
The permitting process took a month longer than we expected it to, giving us time to pack up the first couple floors and move them to the basement. Below are pictures of loose stuff now in our office, and of the bookcases and mattresses against the wall adjoining.
The first week of the project is now over, and after four days, there's no going back. Here are a series of pictures taken over the course of a these few days, starting in what was once our library (and half a century ago, a kitchen for the half century before than) and what will become a hallway abutting a larger dining room.
Below is the view from our living room through the dining room and into the kitchen.
And here's how the kitchen ended up by the end of the week.
Upstairs, our bathroom will evolve from open chambers to a room divided by two dividing doors into a washroom, a water closet, and bathing room. The architect strongly recommended two bathrooms upstairs instead, but this plan will help the five of us share without multiplying costs.
Finally, here is the girls' room. We once had the tower of girls--a bunk bed for two and a trundle that squirted out for the third. Later we pulled off the bunk and built a bed for Sophie behind a curtain on the other side of the room. The window you see in each of these three pictures is the same.
And here is the view from our attic/sky stage right now.
Dad and Wendy have been tremendous. They anticipated this for a long time, renovating their basement to make it a comfortable space for the girls. It's no exaggeration to say we could not do this project without their help. And now we've taken over their house, and they've given us carte blanche to make ourselves at home there. Dad and Wendy still come in from Vashon for their work-week, but they're sleeping on Stephanie and my much smaller bed stuffed into their office.
Maybe we'll dedicate a tile to their great help in the new kitchen.
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