Starting On the Bedrooms & Main Bath

I had no idea when we'd start working on the rooms of the house, but it's suddenly happening!!  K and her bro did a bunch of work on the house today-- pulling off the painted, wrecked-up trim and starting to scrape off the popcorn ceiling in the nursery.
... Did I just say nursery?  That's right, I did!!  K and I are expecting a baby, due at the end of June.  We're over the moon about it.  And so, the spare bedroom is now being prepared to be the baby's room, just as we hoped it would be someday.

Popcorn ceiling on its way out

K had also spent a large part of her day in her office, so by the time the evening rolled around, she was itching to do some wrecking!  Getting rid of those things in the house that she's so sick of.
So... she took a jackhammer to the bathroom on the first floor.  She pulled off some of the tiles, and pulled down the storage above the bathtub. 

We have wanted to improve this bathroom since we bought the house.  I think that it may be original to the house...?  Or maybe it's a 70s remodel?  Not sure, but it's never been very functional for us.  The worst is how filthy it was.  After years of renters, we never could get it clean.  The bathtub, though iron, is a typical size, so a tall gal like me can't take a bath in it without my whole torso or all my legs sticking out of the water.  And with the storage above the shower, I'm too tall to take a shower in here!  The storage up there also wasn't necessary because there's a spacious cedar-lined closet in the bathroom already.

Our goals for remodeling this bathroom are to put in a deeper bathtub, make the shower usable for a tall lady like me, replace the worn-out vanity and maybe even put in two sinks.

I did make sure to keep those chrome pulls on the cabinets!

Again, I'm not sure if this bathroom is original or a remodel?  Once K started taking down some of the storage and tile, we could see that the walls under the storage used to be painted yellow.

So Ready For Spring!

We have such big things coming along right now, and I'm so excited for things to keep moving!
K started her own general contracting business in March.  It's been a lot of work, quite rushed, and so much studying and researching on K's part.  The month just flew by with everything that was going on.

K's new business!!  Yay!!

We have a home loan in progress to help us get the garage done as soon as possible.  Obviously, K is really going to need it once her business is really going, just to keep organized and work on projects.  We had an appraisal for the loan, and it came back better than we expected.  During our buying process, we had one terrible appraisal and one perfect one.  The first one came in at $58,000, which is INSANE!  The appraiser obviously couldn't see beyond the paint and murals on the walls, and wrote the report like the house should be a tear-down.  We had to switch lenders and get a new appraisal to actually get the house.

The appraiser this time clearly sees that this house is stable and has potential to be a very nice place.  It seems to us that we have a long way to go, but if we take a look back and take inventory of what we've done to the house so far, it's a pretty good list.  Lots to go, sure.  Lots done... absolutely.

Coming up...

1)  The curb.  We've asked the county to replace the curb in front of our house because it doesn't exist.  Along pretty much the whole front of the block, the ground just slopes down into the street.  It looks gross and the soil is just crumbling away.  There is nothing there to keep litter from blowing up into our yard, and there's not point in planting anything there while the soil is falling into the street.

How our "curb" looks now.

2)  The garage.  You better believe that pics will happen of this process.  Can't wait!

3)  Garden and stuff.  I won't be starting my garden SO late this year!  Since the bed is already built, I should be able to get my seedlings into the ground pretty soon.  I also have some plans for other flowers in the front, to dress the place up until we can do serious things like siding.  The nice thing about our front yard this year is that our lawn will be totally caught up from when we took out those huge bushes. 

Speedy Inspection

Yesterday when I got home from work, K had great news!  It had been pouring rain yesterday, so she had a rain day at work at around noon.  She called the inspector again about our concrete form, and said 'Hey, I know it's last-minute, but I'll be at home today if you can come by.'  And it turns out that the inspector could!

It was also a good thing that K was home when the inspector came by because she (the inspector), had questions about our lot.  Since it's such a weird shape, she wasn't expecting the markers to be where they are.  But K was there to point them all out to her and they got the inspection done quick and easy!

So now back to bids from concrete crews.  A few months back, when we were optimistic about the project going quickly, K had posted an ad on Craigslist and got a handful of good responses.  This was a few months back, however, and concrete companies are busier in the summer.  Now that it's late fall, her new ad got a flood of responses and the bids were much lower!  She'll probably save at least a couple hundred dollars having the slab poured now, versus in the summer.  That's comforting, considering how frustrated and apprehensive this project has made her feel. 

She's hoping to line someone up for Friday, so we very well could have a slab done by next week!

Concrete Form Day 2

Late start on the concrete form today, because it rained again.  Quite a bit, actually, in the early afternoon.  Eventually, we ran over to Home Depot to get some more wood for the remaining sides of the form.  As soon as we got back home we started working on the back side of the form.  One of the boards that looked pretty straight in the store was actually giving us quite a bit of trouble -- too much bowing and twisting.  We worked until it was dark, and then K brought a work light outside so we could keep going.

The lights behind the trees are a train going by  

It was actually kind of fun once I got a sweatshirt on to keep warm.  We had the radio on, lots of good tunes, and I was dancing around whenever I needed to warm up.  K was determined to get that side done tonight, and we did it!  Eventually got things all straight and square.  Should make the other two sides easier to complete.

So... one side of the form per week, so far.  Plus leveling some of the dirt and adding the gravel and rock after that...   Means we'll be ready to pour the concrete in, like, November?  

Garage - Change of Plans

Well, our initial plan for a large 3-stall garage has been changed.  Last week, K brought her amazing plan and documents to the Minneapolis permit office to get them approved and to purchase the permit.

Since our lot is quite large, we figured that we could also go big with the garage.  And actually, we can.... But since it's larger than standard size, it require some special considerations.

1)  The permit would cost $200-300 more than a standard permit.
2)  A variance would be requested, meaning that an inspector would come out to our property within 2 weeks to make sure our plans were done properly.  Construction could only start after we got approval.
3)  The roof pitch would need to be the same as our house.  So our garage would be as tall as our house, and have a very high ceiling.  Yes, it would be cool to make a 2nd floor and have a studio or maybe even a guest room above the garage, but in reality, we'd just be heating a bunch of unused space for a very long time, until we could someday get to that project.
4)  The roof needs to face the same way as the roof of the house.  So, the shingles would be facing the street, same as the house.  We couldn't put the gabled side on the front, which would be better if we wanted to put up a basketball hoop someday.
5)  The siding has to match the house.  Right away.  We'd either need to side our garage in pale-yellow aluminum siding (not going to happen), or re-side our house at the same time as our garage.  Yes, that would be amazing!  But I can't imagine that we'll be able to afford all of that at once.

Plan B for building the garages, according to the permit office, is to build a standard 2-stall garage and then build another 1-stall garage next to it.  ....Really??  I mean, we get that a large 3-stall garage is a more complicated structure, as far as building goes.  It was certainly going to cost a lot of money and require more specialized supplies.  But, we can build our 2-stall, and then build a 1-stall a couple feet away from it, if we want to. 

And for a standard 2-stall, there were no special restrictions.  Once the plans are approved, a permit is handed to you and you can begin building immediately.  Your roof can be whatever pitch and face whatever way you prefer.  Your siding can be whatever you like.  If we wanted our garage to be bright pink, we could do it. 

So, 2-stall it is.  K had to come home, completely re-draw all of her plans to show the 2-stall garage, and go back to the permit office the next day.  Permit in hand, we could start building.

Design Plans - Update

I've been meaning to post these for a week or so...  I asked K to send me the sketches she made on Google Sketch-Up of her ideas for replacing the siding.

These pictures also include her idea for dormers on the front of the house.  With a flat roof on each dormer to give them a more modern look, rather than the traditional   ^  peak.  Though traditional to a Cape Cod style house, I thought that type of peak looked older and much less modern than we'd like to go for.

If we do end up going with the cement-board that we've looked at, our siding colors will be more gray and less blue than these pictures.  But it's easier to see the variation in these sketches, since they aren't all gray.

The palette, so far...

Lots of new siding, and lots of variation in the siding.  This will allow us to use up the little bit of un-returnable scrap that K has accumulated, and also play a bit with the color and design.  We're also considering rock for the bottom section.  And there's my Neptune Green door!

Her plan includes a small new porch off the front of the house, and off to the right side.  Since we took off the awning over the front door, we don't have a roof covering the door, and we are definitely missing that when it's raining or snowing.

Keeping the privacy fence on the right side of the house is a must.  Some bedroom windows face this side, and the fence provides privacy from the street.  The yard is also out of view of the busy streets, which makes it really comfortable back there.

Doesn't the house look awake and cute with those dormers??  K also widened the triple window in the front.  We will replace these windows someday, and we could make the side windows wider when we do so, creating a larger panel of windows.  The other window in the front is also larger than we currently have-- I think she wants to center the window in that bedroom.

Annnnnnd...  K gets her white picket fence.  It sounds like she's wanted one of these for a while, or maybe just for this house.  But I think it will look great.  And, it will do much better at keeping litter out of our yard than our current fence, since the boards are much closer together.

This side roof over the mudroom is about the only thing we could do to make a "Mod 50's" roof on our house, without drastically changing our second level (not that we're totally opposed to changing that.)

Currently, the peak of this roof is right in the middle, and there is a metal awning extending out past the door.  If we remove the awning, and if K builds out the step in front of the door, we can also extend the roof out at that sort of low "modern" pitch.

It's a possibility!  Not sure how or when we'll get to the outside of the house, but it's really fun to think about.

Pulling Numbers and Stringing Lines

Been a while since my last post, because we have been BUSY!  Lots going on these past couple weekends, including a wedding, and PRIDE in Minneapolis!  Busy, fun, tiring.  Lots of good people and good memories.  Since July 4th fell on a Thursday this year, we both took a long weekend and are hoping to get some things done around the house.

#1 is the garage.  The dang garage!  We need to get going on this!

Today, K and I "pulled numbers."  It was... an all-day process.  First, K needed to finish taking out the chain link fence that ran around where our big elm used to be.

The problem with this section of fence was all the bushes and little trees that had grown through the links throughout the years.
Check this one out!  --------->
Ouch, looks like that hurts!
































So K had to clip the ends of a bunch of the links by hand-- links that were too buried in the ground or too entwined with branches.  Then she used her towline and her truck to pull the sections of links free.  Some of the fence will be reusable, but some parts are too bent or already damaged.  We plan to run another chain-link fence along the back property line, once the garage is built.

Since she had found the property markers and run string lines to connect them, a couple months ago, we just needed to set up the strings again to get started.

And then it got more complicated-- measuring angles and lengths and trying to get everything to match the plans K had drawn up on Google Sketch-Up.  But, she is good!  Just a couple adjustments to the plans and lots of measuring, and we had our garage drawn out in our yard in neon yellow string.

My job was to hold the ends of the measuring tapes, while K walked along the string and measured. 

My job had me standing at the corner of our lot quite a bit, which was nice.  Not often that I need to stand at the very end of our alley, ducking under trees.  But the view from there is our whole yard!  Pretty nice view, and it will be even better someday.

 

And here is our garage plan, in yellow string.  The string's really thin, so hopefully you can see it.  It's going to be a really nice-sized garage! 

It's at an angle that follows our property line, in the back, and that will allow K to pull her work trucks into the garage really easily from the alley.  No sharp turns.  And since it's off to the side and close to the alley, it means we get the whole rest of the yard to use for everything else.

 

Cape Cod Style?

Our little house is a pretty traditional Cape Cod style, which was popular in the 1950s.

Picture from About.com

K is thinking of putting a couple of dormer windows out the front of the house, to make it a little more interesting.  And that would still fit with keeping the style authentic to the time period.  It would also change how the roof is vented, so we wouldn't need those square vents on top anymore.  The ones that are on there now are rusting, and I wish we didn't need them because they interrupt that long, continuous roof.

Picture from About.com

But in doing dormers, I thought it looked a little too traditional, considering that we are going for mid-century modern on the inside.  We can do whatever we want to this little place, let's make it fun! 

I pulled out my newspaper and magazine clippings and showed K a few houses that really caught my eye.  The difference between most of these houses and our house, is that they are ranches with long, low roofs, where ours is a 1.5 story with a totally different roof line.  But K understood what I meant-- let's incorporate some of these lines where we can, and she hopped back on Google Sketch-Up and started altering her plans.

How can we mesh a look like this with our house?  We're working on it..

We plan to do cement-board when we replace our siding, and so we started looking at our color options for that.  There isn't a huge color selection, so it was pretty easy to come up with our "palette." 

Cement board palette + door paint

I can't wait to paint the front door something bright!!  I'm leaning towards a turquoise or teal, right now.  I had been thinking about an intense green, but once I saw these siding colors, I think that something with blue in it will be better.