updated plans

a little more accurate...

(click on the image for it to get bigger)

it's our house now

as of about 12:25 pm yesterday, we are officially home owners!






we were instantly amazed at how welcoming people are when you buy a house. we already met all of our immediate neighbors and a few from down the street. our across the street neighbor, Henry Dodson, is a total charmer. he is 82 and was a carpenter his whole life. he did work for some of the most well known architects in all of raleigh during his time (milton small and henry kamphoefner to name two). we had a lovely conversation with him about architecture and building... clearly we will all get along quite well.


here are some photos of the existing interior....

view from front door towards back of house/dining room:


view from dining room into existing kitchen:



existing kitchen:


view from dining room into living room/front door:



from living room down hall into bathroom:



existing bathroom:



future master bedroom: (add 10' beyond that window)



office/second bedroom:



back of the house... future addition goes here:




the shed out back:






we already made some improvements... basically this house is the largest toy we've ever had. and we've already realized how much fun this is going to be. (and how much work!)

robby couldn't wait to take down the plastic front porch decoration:




then susanna and i got in on the action in our own way:





the fireplace had been closed up for about 15-20 years... not any more:



robby taking down the trim around the door into the kitchen... some of the cabinets are gone now. the wall is next...




and of course, robby put up the new house numbers:



we spent the morning doing accurate measurements, so i have worked on more updated plans. i'll post those later.... gotta get dinner and be ready for the carolina game tonight. GO HEELS!

$25.57

our first real purchase for the new house! the quintessential "modern" house numbers. thankfully home depot has a cheap knock off of the real neutra numbers... otherwise we'd be out of luck. it was a fun and cheap little purchase that gives a great sense of ownership. only 5 more days!





robby also wanted fair coverage of his new air compressor... sears had a huge sale on it yesterday, so it's hanging out now in the basement, ready to be used!

if we build it, they will come

when i was a kid, i saw Field of Dreams no less than 20 times. robby says he saw it probably 6 times. maybe 20 is a stretch, but either way, i saw it a lot. the point is, that the whole premise of the movie (believe! have faith!) is coming into play in the future of our house project.

as everyone is well aware (well, except perhaps our country's leader), our economy is in a state of major uncertainty. the mortage crisis is obviously a major part of this uncertainty. robby and i secured a great rate for our mortgage. and we thought we had everything worked out to get the money for our addition project. ... this is where Field of Dreams comes in. it turns out everyone has tightened their lending standards and will no longer allow equity to come out of a house based on its future value. (i.e. after the addition is complete) so we are having to go back to the drawing board on how to pay for it all!? this is a little stressful, but we are going to use what we have to get the addition framed and dried in, and then hope and pray that if we build it, the money to finish it will come.

progress

robby and i sat down over pizza and dr. pepper tonight and finalized a few things, including the floorplan and what the new roof over the addition will be like. sketches to explain...

this combo hard line/hand sketch drawing shows the 10' addition off the back that contains the kitchen and master bath. also shown here is my idea for the deck to have a wall of louvers on the south side that will be planted (vine-ish greenery) to provide privacy and protect that side of the house from the hot raleigh summer sun. (CLICK IMAGE TO MAKE LARGER)

this one shows my newest idea for the roof of the addition. originally we had planned a traditional shed roof... but then i thought : why not pitch it up and make a little butterfly roof so we can get added height and light into the kitchen? i pitched it to robby (no pun intended) and he said sure. (he actually really likes it).

for those of you worried about water (that valley we just made with a quick little sketch can be a big problem if it's not detailed right) the solution is pretty simple... a "cricket" will be built up between the old and the new roof and provide a tiny new little roof that the water will drain off of and into two rain barrels (one on either side, we hope. see top right corner of sketch) so we can water our yard this summer. more details on that to come...

so the new roof idea will provide a nice 10' (10'6") height to the far end of the kitchen and the master bath. we will put a clerestory of windows at the top to flood the space with natural light as much as possible (east light... we should be okay because there are some nice big trees in the backyard). here is an idea of what the kitchen will look like... elevation/section combo.




the other new idea came from this month's DWELL (thanks susanna!). they show an addition to a bungalow that has a kitchen with the exact color/cabinet combo we're using (lacquer white IKEA flat front cabinets with matte black quartz stone counter tops) and it has this wonderful warm wooden box accenting the space. so i decided i wanted the same feel! so the plan is to wrap the walls surrounding the fridge/pantry/laundry with a horizontal wood to provide a little more interest to the space. budget might not allow for this, but for now, it's in the plan.

* this view is from the dining room looking back out through the kitchen. the wood going across the top over the bar is already history.

so that's it for tonight.... we're feeling better about a few things. now i just have to do REAL drawings and probably make a physical model to try out a few of the roof pitches for the back. please let us know what you think... or if anything doesn't make sense.

original sketches

here are two of the first quick and dirty sketches i did... these are both prior to measurements, but are pretty accurate. (small houses don't give too many options when it comes to the floor plan). i scanned these in a few weeks ago, but it gives an idea of what we have to begin with and where we're going....

below shows two original ideas... the sideways version is the closest to what we're planning to do: a 10' addition across the entire back of the house that will house a new kitchen and master bath. and i am showing too many closets in that sketch... wishful thinking for an 1100 sf house! my mom should make fun of me for not showing any doors in the sketch on the left... it fits in well with my childhood portfolio... mom, i swear i have a masters degree in architecture.

...and so it began

so 2008 was going to be the year we relaxed. i was finally done with school, robby was happy and settled in his job, i finally had an income..... but that would be too easy. about 2 weeks into this new year, we decided we should look for a house to buy. we knew what we wanted: a fixer-upper in or near the same neighborhood we were already in. we want a house that is more modern than traditional, and that is often hard to find. "flipping" houses has become so popular that it seems every house you walk into has the same granite counter tops, fancy tile, and a lot of other "features" we didn't want.... it's just not our style. with a tight budget and very specific requirements, we quickly thought our search was hopeless.

but then... we pulled out of our driveway and saw it. 1110 Watauga St. just what we were looking for: a little post-war box ready to be modernized... and on our favorite street! (watauga... mere coincidence? we didn't think so.) we called our realtor and asked him to find out how much it was. as it turned out, we could afford it. the rest is a bit of a blur... on a sunday morning we went and looked at it. we knew right away what we had to do. but then came the nausea from that knowledge.... were we really going to buy a house? and with this house came a renovation and addition.... all the work we would do ourselves. again, just what we wanted, but oh the anxiety. so on monday february 18, we saw it again and put in an offer. (happy birthday to me!) the next day the offer was accepted, and it was official; we were under contract. set to close on march 28.

so now, we have a lot of decisions to make... i have a lot of drawings to do... robby has to study for his LEED exam for work! we have taken on a huge project that is going to take a lot of our energy, time, and money, but in the end it will hopefully be a project we can be extraordinarily proud of. we know it will not be easy, but we will both learn a lot in the process. and for us, that is the most exciting part of it all...

1110 watauga, the photo from the realtor site:

there will be more to come... i have done no less that 50 sketches of ideas for the addition. it evolves daily, it seems, and continues to grow outside our budget. (shocking, i know). we're running out of time to make decisions before this becomes a build-redesign-rebuild project.... which will really blow the budget. i hope this blog will hold me accountable and help me get some drawings done for our friends and family to see (and hopefully comment on!) so i can nail some things down. or it could just be yet one more distraction...