Raise the Roof...literally

I like to think of myself as an optimist.  Generally a positive person. 

Late last week we got some not so great news from our architect, Joe (e-mail me if you want his contact info as he is awesome at what he does and owns a gorgeous bungalow).  He took some "hypothetical" questions down to the city about ceiling height and dormer additions/existing staircases to double check that everything would be good for inspections down the line.  We already knew we were cutting the whole head height issue close at many places but thought we would be ok being that the staircase to access upstairs is existing. 

Long story short, Joe ended up showing the city the plans and he found out that the head height issue was an issue.  BOOOO!

 

But everything has a silver lining, right?

Joe was able to quickly put together some new options for our addition.  Yes, they cost a little more but very little in the end as we are going to be getting much more bang for our buck.  As in 7' head height everywhere and a real bedroom for both kids instead of the tiny office that we were planning on putting Quinn in. I might even get a little craft room!

We were obviously playing around with the layout.  We are in the very early stages of finalizing.

Steve and I are interested in making the second bath a bit wider so that there is some storage space (may not be an issue now but I am envisioning two teenagers many moons from now-mainly a girl teenager-the lotions and sprays I had as a teenager was epic :)

We are thinking of maybe making the closet in bedroom 1 bigger (push into bedroom 2 hence the blue lines) and making bedroom 2 my craft locker/storage room (which makes me giddy as it is a pain to clean up all my crafts each time we have a guest stay at our house).  The playroom space would become bedroom 2.  

The little x by the bathroom is for the laundry chute-considering maybe putting a mini linen closet above it.  Not really sure if we need it but storage is always great.  

The unmarked room off the master bedroom?  Master closet.  Glorious master closet.  I can't wait to have a place for all my clothes in one place.  Two other rooms off of that-true storage.  Yes, a place for all my Christmas decor!  

Oh, and cracks me up, the master bath is going to be as big as our kitchen.  Never imagined a big master bath (nor do I need one), but it is the way that plumbing lined up.  So I'll take it.

This is a general sketch (again, these were quickly put together so we could move ahead) of what the outside may look like.  We are going to play around with the cut out dormer thing above and maybe make it more triangular/gabled.  Basically the house is just going to get much taller but as Joe explained, this addition option would allow proper head height everywhere and be the most historically accurate from the exterior.  I was skeptical of this plan at first, but once explained, it made complete sense.  Loving it more each day (being that it's been all of 2 days since we met with him).

Steve really liked this option.  I wasn't crazy about it.  Just a shed dormer tacked on the back.  And then we saw the price tag.  No and thank you very much. 

Another super pricey option.  Nice but it definitely looks like a new addition.  Not what we are going for.  and pricey too.  

Last option.  The least expensive.  But gives the least square footage.  Not a huge difference in price from the option we chose considering how much less you get.  Other thing we weren't crazy about is how small both of the kids' bedrooms would be.  Fine for when they are little but would be hard to every use as a guest room or even possibly put a double bed in when they are teenagers. 

I would love any input on our choice shown at the top of the post.  Are we silly to be closing off the "playroom" space and making that into a bedroom (we plan to use one of the bedrooms (Ben's) on the main floor as a playroom)?  Anything else we need to consider?  I can't wait to start (Ok, already have) researching finishes! 

Bungalow Upstairs Attic Remodel-Interior Inspiration

Steve and I think that we have figured out our finances enough to go through with starting to remodel our upstairs before the new baby comes.  So of course, this means that the research begins.  Of course, I have been "researching"/dabbling in pictures/dreaming about this remodel for the past 6 years.  However, now it is crunch time and I have spent a considerable amount of time researching interior and exterior pictures over the last few weeks.
Now I really need to start calling contractors/architects/figuring out the process so if any of you have any advice, I would love it.  This is all a new frontier for me.  It is scary.  For some reason the bathroom and kitchen weren't a big deal to me as they just involved interior work and one room.  A dormer addition just seems like a lot to take on.
Anyways, here are a bunch of pinterest pictures I have gathered.  They all are gorgeous to me and help me form ideas in my head as to how I would like our upstairs interior to look. 

 Love the use of space!  We surely have enough books to fill a wall!

Love all the beds tucked into little nooks and crannies, the built-ins and use of window space!  I hope we can make something like on of these work somewhere upstairs.

Such a great way to add storage/safety rail at the top of a staircase.  Although I do love the open look of most bungalow railings.

Lusting for a murphy bed!

Storage! Need lots of this.  What a great way to make the most of the small spaces and interesting ceiling lines.

Just love these ceiling lines and the decorating

Probably all of these built-ins would have to be added far after the actual remodel due to cost, I would love to have them planned into the initial design!

Wrap it up

Happy 2012!  

getting serious over his first candy cane

While we were pretty darn lazy over our almost 10 days total of no work/time to together, we did manage a great trip to Los Angeles to visit my fam for x-mas as well a bit o' clean up around the casa.  Steve decided to take on vacuuming out the entire attic area just after I finished packing up the Christmas decor.  and boy did it need it! 

gorgeous sunny LA

And of course, he then tackled the other two attic spaces we have.  Which of course set me off on realizing what a beautiful disaster of stuff we had stuffed in the attic. 

We pulled out some old crap that is not even worthy of Goodwill, 9 GIANT file boxes of Steve's dad's old files that now can be shredded since it's been 10 years (he was an attorney for people with disabilities so we had to keep 'em but are so glad to see them go-we started off with probably over 30 file boxes 4 years ago), and, of course, don't forget the worthless box of baseball cards from Steve's childhood that Steve is finally ready to give over to Goodwill.  Next, working on him giving up his Garfield collection.  I told him he could keep one.  He already let me sell all the Garfield books to Powells-and we made enough to buy him a couple pairs of socks from there (naturally, I put them in his stocking).  I parted with all but four (of 13-I know, excessive) of my Cabbage Patch Kids and found out that Oxy Clean is awesome at removing 25 year old dirt stains.

But I did come across my baby memory box and pulled out a cool plush carrot.  Inside, there is a  plush bunny family that my grandma made for me almost 30 years ago-still in perfect condition and Ben loves it!  Also, found a picture (the kind that looks metal-ish-can't think of what they are called right now) from 1925 of my grandma and her family that I hope to frame soon.

Anywho, onto the real project...organizing the two tons of wrapping paper, ribbon and tissue that we had.

yup, that's allll wrapping supplies

I have been meaning to do this for awhile but saved it for when Steve was traveling.  I wanted to be able to organize while catching up on juicy trash shows on TLC and avoid having Steve make fun of my episode choice the whole time. 

an old theatre trunk

My friend Sarah told me that she used a storage trunk to organize all of her wrapping supplies. 
Steve and I picked up the beauty to use as our coffee table (now used as our side table) several years back at an estate sale for $50.  And I love it. 

all decorated & personalized; it also has that old musty smell, not bad, just old

I think it belonged to John, a dancing comedian!

So after several hours of rotting my brain while catching up on Hoarders and the Kardashians, I was all set and ready to load up the trunk with all of my non-Christmas supplies.  I even color coded the tissue into one ziplock! 

the top portion has the ribbon & boxes & some super cool old fabric

the bottom section holds the tissue (note that color coding-boo-ya), bags and wrap paper

It feels so great to be getting organized and more cleared out in prep for the kitchen/stair remodel.
Tonight I wrangled all the Christmas supplies into one big box and plan to leave that in the attic. 

And this is funny because I think that the pic below is the best we got of the three of us while we were at my parents, cross your fingers my sister got some better ones with her nice camera.

Week 2 of Challenge

It's already been a week and I managed to work on at least a project a day-enter pat on back. If you recall back to 8 days ago, I challenged myself to work on a house project for at least a few minutes a day to get myself back in the mood of working on the house and get some of those little projects crossed off the list. 

this wall above the toilet is screaming "adorn me"

Day 8: nothing, remember, I told myself I only needed to get things done 5/7 days.  ok, well I should say nothing to show.  I have been wanting to get some art for above the toilet in the bathroom and have wanted to pull some blue (gasp!-I generally use no blue in my house and have pretty much avoided it at all costs to this day) into the bano.  I am thinking something peacock-y and have been doin' some lookin' on etsy and ebay.  Have some ideas in mind but would like to hit up some local shops first-I will keep you updated.  Hope to get blue towels to match.  Mix it up a bit.  Add in something unexpected.  Our home is a bit to predictable at the moment. 

Day 9: Tuesday.  My friend Chris, lighting extraordinaire came by and helped me hang the awesome light that I bought off of him last month when we were selling things together at a little antique/salvage rummage sale in front of Old Portland Hardware here in Portland. 

Well, I love the light, but it has a few issues and most will be able to be fixed pretty easily.  

laundry chute

another view of laundry chute

hangs so low that Steve, being 6'2", almost hits his head on it each time he walks by

1. move hideous make-shift "bathroom" cabinet.  This requires building a built-in to go in front of the laundry chute in the bathroom-hopefully will get this done in the next 6 months, that will be almost 2 years since we started the bathroom remodel.  Timely, right? (enter sarcasm, which I try to use often)
2. raise up light several inches and adjust wiring accordingly.  Chris is able to help with this but needs to bring over the right tool to do so
3. get 40 watt bulbs, easy, just a trip up the street to the local home do-it store.  All I had at home was 60 watt and I need sunglasses to use the light right now...got some!  way better
4. possibly get new shades for the light.  The ones on there were free from Chris and are pretty but not quite my style.  Thinking of getting ones to match the ones in the bathroom.  Harmony is bliss.  
5. this is the tricky part, it appears that this fixture still has knob and tube wiring and is therefore whonky as is the bathroom light.  Needs a new box and wiring.  This project will have to wait until we demo our upstairs. 

But none-the-less, I heart this light and really think it is pretty.  I hope to re-use the previous light upstairs at some point...maybe in the stairwell.  However, I don't think the stairwell is equipped to handle any sort of light fixture right now, do you? 

light fixture that previously hung in the hallway and below the shade, ignore dust, I will blame it on constant construction instead of lack of dusting :)

looking up our stairs to the attic.  check out the hot ceiling work and lovely 80s wallpaper

more hotness

from Rejuvenation

 Also, I love how the new light in our hallway goes so well with the one in our bathroom (yes, feel free to scroll up to check out the way the new light looks again:).  It will look even better once it has square shades to go along with the other square shades.