remodel my house

We closed on the sale of the house this week. This goal is now officially abandoned. The new owners have undertaken a massive remodel. It’s in their hands now.

What a change of plans! As soon as we signed the contract with the builder and got him started, we found a different house and bought it!

We’re like the couples who try forever to have a baby, finally adopt, and then get pregnant!

We’ve already sold the fixer-upper house. Now we just have to wait for the deals to close, which won’t be finalized until July. Then we are going to do some stuff on the new house before we move in, but mostly just cosmetic work—nothing like the major remodel we had planned.

As soon as we get the last of the pre-closing paperwork done this week, I am going to officialy abandon this goal.

JB, our designer/builder, came over to our current house last weekend to take stock, measure shelves and closets, and generally get a feel for what we’ll need in the remodel. Then he and I met at the project house this morning where I left him to measure every inch of the place so he can start designing. Now it is getting exciting!

We met with the design builder to go over the design contract. We are going with the addition, even though the estimate for the whole project is way more expensive than we had thought it would be (based on nothing but our own wishful thinking).

We also went to see two houses that our guy has done and were very impressed. Both are similar in style to ours, so we got a good comparison. It was reassuring to see them, because the quality of the work and materials was what we want and the design elements were what we like. So when our guy says, “I understand what you want,” we think he really does. We seem to be on the same page.

It will take him about four months to get it all designed and the final building plans drawn up. Then the real fun will begin.

We met with our design/builder guy at the house this week. It got us excited, but also feeling a little daunted. It seems like every little thing needs to be fixed or replaced (see picture). And the house feels much smaller than I had remembered. Now we are back to thinking it may be worthwhile to bite the bullet and build the addition. I imagine we’ll be going back and forth on that one right up until they start work.

I met with the second architect today and think he’s great. He’s an architect and a general contractor, which is what we had hoped to find, but didn’t know if such creatures existed. Our neighbor, who is a commercial architect, recommended that we talk to this guy.

Fortunately, my husband was able to meet with him too and we both agreed the he is great and we’ll use him. We like the work he showed us, which is very similar to the kind of stuff we want to do. As an extra bonus, he lives in our neighborhood, so it will be very convenient to meet with him.

He’s going to draw up a rough budget broken down by the parts of our “grand scheme.” Then we can figure out what we can really afford to do. Although, after talking to him, it is clear we can’t do the big addition we had planned. I’m just hoping we can do the interior work we want AND turn the front porch into a wrap around porch. We’ll see.

I met with an architect yesterday. My plan is to talk to three architects and three general contractors, and then pick the people we will use for the house. This guy was the first. He was very nice and I like his work.

Finding professionals doesn’t worry me. But sitting there and actually listing the things we want to do on the house made me think we are taking on too big and too expensive a proposition. It is very likely we will have to stick with the renovation without any kind of addition.

We have a 1904 craftsman house we need to restore/remodel before we can move in. It still has the 1904 kitchen cabinets! And one bath that is the size of a bedroom but has prison cell fixtures. We need to re-do the kitchen, re-do the existing bath, restore all the woodwork, finish the third floor into a new master suit, add a half bath in addition to the new master bath, fix up the basement, etc., etc.

Hopefully, we will add an addition off the back of the house to give us a family room, an office on the 2d floor, and more room for the master. We also want to wrap the front porch around the side. We’ll see if we can afford all that. Otherwise, we will have to make do with the existing footprint.

This is such an enormous project, I don’t even like to think about it. But once it is finished, I will be thrilled.