house stuff

house renovation – 1st floor before

April 7, 2015

The first floor! After posting the second floor, I feel much less weird about posting these spaces. Mostly because these are the spaces that so many people have already seen anyway. The first floor is pretty simple in terms of layout: Living room, kitchen, and laundry/half bath, but it’s definitely not as open as it could be. But we’ll get to that soon enough, first let’s check out the floor plan before:

You can see on the floor plan how that laundry room totally cuts in to the kitchen and makes it a weird L shape. And in theory that “open” area by the kitchen sink is a good idea, but really all you see while washing the dishes is the wall in that little awkward hallway. Anyway, on with the photos…

Since we started with the upstairs, let’s keep the flow going like we just came from the upstairs. In this view I’m standing at the back door with the steps to right and the half bath to the left. Everything feels really tight between that half bath and the fridge.

Walking through the kitchen now with the living room to my back. You can see that cabinet over the microwave they had to replace when we noticed the microwave was falling off the wall. It’s a different door style than all the other cabinets and it’s a different white, which isn’t too obvious in this photo, but trust me, definitely sporting two different whites here.

One more view of the kitchen and how that half bath is just a wart sticking out into the space. (are you figuring out what we’re planning to do with that room yet?) That bump-out next to the shelves is a duct that goes up to the office. Unfortunately, that bump serves a purpose is not just a superfluous detail some contractor decided to add.

You might also notice that there’s screen duct taped to all of our registers. That’s just part of our anti-mouse regimen we implemented ever since we had the mouse issue back in 2011. Dang, that was seriously over 3 years ago??

Let’s back pedal a bit back to the laundry/half bath.  This is the warmest room in the winter, the coolest in the summer and the brightest all year round, yet we really only go in here to do laundry and keep the door closed all the time because it opens right into one of the main traffic zones of the kitchen. Plus it’s just full of stuff that you don’t really want to see. (hello giant pack of toilet paper and ironing board)

I know B’s gonna say something about me posting this photo with all those dirty rags hanging from that shelf. But like I said before, there was no improvement staging performed before this photo shoot. But really, those are just dirty dish and cleaning rags, nothing too embarrassing. Oh, and since I’m sure you’re wondering that pink fabric tube in the foreground holds plastic bags, hence the label “Old Bags.” But like the bathroom upstairs, everything is just out in the open and feels cluttered and messy.

On to the living room. You’ve maybe seen this space before.

I don’t have too much to say about this room. It’s a living room. It’s cluttered. There’s too much furniture in it. We’ll make it better.

All those boxes on the desk against the brick wall was the beginning of our material gathering / things to sell and were normally not there. You get a nice view of my diy anthro pillow in action here, too.

One more view for good measure. Here is our “entry way.” Our front door is so old that it doubles as a window because daylight (and outside air) pours through the wood. One of our goals is to seal up the house so that its warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer without having to crank up the furnace or a/c. Our house is cold in the winter. And I’m not just being a wimp about it, I mean, its freezing. But the only way to make that first floor comfortable in the frigid temps would be to crank up the heat so much that our heat bills would be astronomical. Let’s just fix it the right by sealing up all those gaping holes to the outside. Plus it will keep those unwanted critters outside, too.

Alright, that concludes the official “before” tour of the inside. Next up: the plans for the big renovation!

 

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1 Comment

  • em April 7, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    I am so excited to see the transformation! I think its going to be so close to our new house! I love the open concept so much, it makes our living area so fresh and spacious even though it is small.

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