House Tour: The Second Floor Bathroom

So we have actual reno news this week, but I haven't had time to blog about it yet. Instead, you get a "house tour" of our second floor bathroom and if all goes to plan you will get to see a current photo of the bathroom this week!

I spent a lot of time taking pictures of the kitchen and our living room, which - despite the worn floors and holes in the walls - photograph well and are at their core beautifully structured spaces. The second floor bathroom, on the other hand, has almost no redeeming qualities.  (I limited my photos here - no one really needs to see this).

So, get ready to be a little bit horrified - this is the bathroom we have been living with for the last year:

Not much needs to be said (or seen) on this "tour". The room is poorly organized, it has no storage, it is not conducive to sharing, it is tight on space, never looks clean (those tiles are designed to look dirty - I swear they're clean!) and, above all, it is terribly ugly.  To make it worse, our door may or may not have ripped off the wall about 9 months ago (who can say, really?) and during our last week in the house, as if the house sensed the impending reno, the toilet started leaking.

There is only one thing that I like about the bathroom - it has a window to the interior hallway that is original to the home. There is some plastic sheeting on the window so you can't see directly into it but, evidently, there was no frosting back in the day. Both the second and third floor bathrooms have windows and the best guess we have is that the windows were used to help circulate air throughout the house. We are planning to keep the window in the updated house (with frosted glass of course), but otherwise we have big plans to improve this space.

House Tour: The Office

Welcome to my office! While we have a basement and third floor, Kyle and I have been living primarily on the first and second floors of the house for the past year. This room, functions as both my office and my closet. 

We don't have crazy plans for the room and it will remain an office after the reno - we plan to clean up the plaster, replace the windows and add moulding. (Our architects and contractor don't know this but we have also been considering adding built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace and tiling in the space between the mantle since we will not be adding a fireplace in there. What do you think?)

Not much to tour on this side of the room - welcome to my closet! (I know, lots of black.) I look forward to having a real closet in the master suite after the reno (and a mirror that doesn't cut off my head).

2018 - The Year of the Reno!

Happy New Year, Happy New Year! It has been a few months (read: 6 months!) since we were last posted to let you know about our summer suffering without AC. A lot has happened since then, but not much that is visible in the house yet. Knock on wood, but the renovation should begin in honest at the end of the month. In the meantime, let's catch you up. 

1. We finalized our design. 

We worked with Hill & Hurtt to finalize the design for our house. Since we first walked through it we have had a general sense of the design, so the drawings came together pretty quickly.  The only two areas that took time to think through were the third floor design (which you helped with!) and the back wall of windows that we wanted to add in the kitchen.

If you recall, our kitchen has two awesome long windows with a wall in between and no door out to the back garden.  I have been dreaming of making that a full wall of windows for some time and we worked through a lot of iterations trying to conceptualize the right design. While it was tempting to add some french-inspired steel doors, we ultimately settled on a design that maintains a look in line with the style and history of the house.

Here is where we ended up:

We are going to create a small bay with a door out the center. While not pictured, there will be steps out the back and into the garden. The windows will be widened from what they are now but will maintain the same double-hung style that is in the house right now. 

2. We went out for bids with contractors.

The process of finding a contractor for the project took longer than we had anticipated going into the reno. For those who haven't been through it, it took about 2-3 months. Hill & Hurtt helped us identify three contractors, we met with everyone, walked through the house, in some cases did second walk throughs, provided the contractors with the drawings, and then received bids.

There was a 100k difference between the lowest bid and the highest bid (yikes) so needless to say we quickly whittled it down to two contractors. We then spent time seeing projects both contractors had completed and then chose someone (MasterCraft Solutions)!

3. We got our permits (!!!!)

We have heard horror stories about the permitting process and our home is in a historic district, so we were nervous about the permit process. At the end of November, Kyle, Eric Hurtt, and I went down to the DCRA in the hopes of being able to go through the Homeowners Center for a permit and avoid the dreaded Project Docs online process. (Project Docs is notorious for delaying the permitting process for many months). 

We were not successful in going through the Homeowners Center because they considered the 10-inch bay window we were adding to be an extension of the home and they can't approve extensions. After about 10 minutes of anxiety at the thought of our project being potentially delayed 3-6 months, we were told we could try and "walk through" the permit. 

For anyone who doesn't know what "walking through" a permit means, DCRA has a DMV-style process where you take a ticket and then walk your drawings through all the different permits for review - Zoning, Structural, Mechanical, Plumbing, etc. You get a number to meet with a Zoning representative who reviews your project and either approves it or raises items that need to be fixed. Once you have been approved by Zoning you get in line to meet with a Structural expert and so on. 

As with the DMV, it is tedious, takes hours, and you are subject to the whims of the person you meet with. Needless to say, we did not get out of Zoning on day one, but it only took one trip back to DCRA to get what we needed.

4. We got financing (or will have financing soon).

While we haven't quite signed the loan documents, we are finalizing a construction loan with Sandy Spring Bank, which has a 1 year construction loan into mortgage program. If everything goes smoothly (fingers crossed!) we will be closing on financing next week.

5. We found an apartment.

Lastly, we can't live in the house while we are renovating, so we needed to find an apartment. We did some house hunting and have a one-bedroom apartment lined up in the building directly behind our house. We couldn't pass up the convenience of living close by and checking in on the home, plus we would miss our neighborhood and neighbors too much!

Okay, so you're all caught up (mostly). If everything goes smoothly we will be moving out in the next two weeks and starting the reno at the end of month (eeek!). 

It's Getting Hot In Here

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Our spirit animal.

As any DCer knows, we are in the midst of a heat wave - the last two weeks have been brutal and it is about to hit triple digits this weekend. It has been HOT in the city . . . and it is hot (like, so hot) in our house.

We may have mentioned before that the awesome house we spent all our money on didn't come with central air.  While this was an inconvenient truth confronting us at some future time when we closed back in February, we're now sweating our way through summer with no real end in sight.

We really have done well. For a while, the thick old walls of the house actually kept the interior cooler than it was outside; we were impressed and proud of the obviously superior quality of Victorian building. But those days are gone and now the interior of the house has collected the heat and is refusing to let go. For example, on Friday night it was 78 outside and the inside of the house was 88. 

Yes, our spice rack is located beside our thermostat.

Complicating matters further, many of our windows, if they open at all, lack a screen, so if we open them wide to let a breeze come through any manner of combative insects come with it.  Just this weekend we trapped and released an unidentified monstrous flying beetle and two different wasps waiting to sting us in our sleep.

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Us every night.

We held out until the end of June before buying a window unit. We only got one because we reasoned that we didn't want to waste money since we will be installing a HVAC eventually. We decided to place the window unit in our bedroom, which has become our oasis in the sticky, humid swamp that is our home.  As the summer has progressed, we've gone from hanging out in there from time to time, to promising ourselves that we're only eating dinner in bed just this once and only because it's still so hot and muggy outside, to taking up residence in our bed as if we are the grandparents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It's all fun and games until you spill pasta sauce on your comforter. 

We have to keep reminding ourselves: we love our house!  It is super cool (but not cold)!  We are so lucky to be here!  But for now, two showers a day minimum. And hey, if you have an extra AC unit, please send it our way. - J&K

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House Tour: The Stairwell

The center of our home is dominated by a grand stairwell, which curves up three floors (and down one) in a central column. A skylight (that is in need of replacement at the moment) filters light down the shaft and throughout the house.

It is an impressive work of art - a Victorian masterpiece (everyone is saying) - but it is also a design dilemma because it takes up a significant amount of precious square footage on each floor of the house. Its location also unfortunately means we can't fit a powder room on the first floor.

While the lack of powder room is a true tragedy, we knew the minute we saw the house that we were keeping the stairwell. And many a guest (at least those who don't get vertigo) has been enamored by the staircase too. It has lasted for 142 years, and has proven to be very sturdy - a few weeks back we met a former tenant who recalled getting drunk with his roommates and belaying down the center of it. While we don't plan to belay down it anytime soon (at least until we break out the tequila), we are excited to restore the stairwell to its former glory and expect it to last at least another 142 years.  

House Tour: Pre-reno Kitchen

Next up in the house tour: the kitchen.

Not to be missed, the bright turquoise floors are the original floors from 1875! JK, JK, the floors, along with Christmas lights you'll see lining the room in the pictures below, are a design choice of past tenants.  We've left them in place to try to maintain some of the festiveness.

While the floor color is a more modern innovation, the windows are an older vintage.  These single pane beauties only somewhat work in their current 2017 state, but provide stunning light throughout the day. (One of the two windows even still opens, a big win in our book.)

The kitchen is at the back of the house and, at the moment, it's a little closed off from the hallway and main stairwell. The yellow wall you see is the wall to the living room and you'll notice the front door right at the edge of this photo.

You may have also noticed the washer and dryer. While it's not ideal, we have found that having laundry in the kitchen isn't as bad as it seems, but we hope to be able to move it upstairs once renovations get underway.

The fireplace in the kitchen is also original, although it isn't currently functional. Our neighbors tell us that underneath all the paint is a white marble front, which we still can't get over - who paints over marble?? I mean, seriously.

The kitchen was updated in the past few years, so we are lucky to have well functioning appliances. However, the kitchen poses some real challenges as we begin to think about renovation.  

Most importantly, we will really need to consider storage solutions. The cabinets above account for pretty much all of the storage space in the room as currently constructed.  As a result, we have a lot of kitchen wares that are just chilling in boxes in our basement. The other quirky thing is that the internet/tv cable to our home only exists in the kitchen. It comes in through the kitchen window, up behind the stove (seems safe, right?) and into our kitchen cabinet. You can see the internet modem sitting in the cupboard to the right of the stove (a traditional location for cable modems).

Lots to think about in revamping this space.  Feel free to share your ideas.  More to come later!

-- J&K

House Tour: Pre-reno Living Room

Welcome to our living room!  Maybe our favorite room in the house, it is defined by the the floor to ceiling bay window that makes the room bright and inviting. The windows really make the room. In fact, we're lucky they are so old because the floor to ceiling length is grandfathered in.  You'll notice they extend all the way down to a few inches above the floor - in our more enlightented times, the building code stops building windows from extending that low for safety reasons (what if someone kicked the glass? what if someone fell out of the window? nanny state, amirite?).  

Because of the age of the windows they are single-paned. As we are finding out, they are not the most energy efficient, but on the plus-side, we can hear conversations from the sidewalk in our living room!

If you're wondering about the ugly grey rectangle with holes above the radiator, let us assure you that it was all part of our current design concept (that counts as shaggy chic, right?).  A huge shelf used to be there that jutted out into the room at eye level and took up a lot of visual space. Although what remains is an eye sore, trust us when we tell you that removing it right away was actually a great improvement.

You may be asking yourself, what is up with the big white spot on the wall above the fireplace (I know we certainly did), and why would this blog share a picture of some odd shelf above the living room doorway?  Well, previous tenants saw fit to put a projector over the door and hold movie nights displayed over the fireplace. After much discussion, we may be going in a different direction for our own entertainment needs. For now, however, the projector shelf stays.

Finally, the other side of the room - the one we don't focus on that often because it is just a big, blank wall. Behind the wall is the stair case and beyond that, the kitchen. As it is right now, the wall just serves to cut the living room off from the rest of the house and it has got to go. We are exploring ways to open up the space to give it a more modern feel while still maintaining the room's definition. 

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That's all for this week folks! J&K

We Have Architects!

Once we purchased our house the magnitude of the renovation quickly became clear. This is no DIY project -- we needed professional help.

In addition to getting help to think through the design and layout of the home, we want to make sure we are true to the history of the house. While we like modern design, this house calls for a marriage between traditional and contemporary (putting a glass staircase in the center of this house would be a travesty). We aren't planning on entirely stripping out the interior, but we need help thinking through how to make the space feel more modern, while also acknowledging its Victorian-ness.

With that in mind, we talked to a few architects and ultimately hired Hill & Hurtt, a young, local firm that focuses on renovating rowhomes. We met with Eric and Josh for a few hours in February to discuss the project and immediately felt like they understood our vision and priorities. 

Hill & Hurtt provide an array of architectural services that help drive renovations from concept through permitting and then beyond permitting by helping with interior finishing choices and project management. For now we have engaged them to help us through the permitting stage and we could not be more excited to work with them. 

Last week, we kicked off the design process when Eric and Josh came over to measure the house from top to bottom. They spent about 4 hours at the house - Josh with a measuring tape and Eric sketching the house and capturing all the information with a red pen.

While we wanted to leave them to their work, it was hard not to listen to them discuss the house and its quirks. Needless to say, even this initial step has us excited. It was so cool to see our house's floor plan captured on paper and to have some of our questions answered, like, how tall are our ceilings? (11.5 feet!)

In a few weeks, Hill & Hurtt will come back to us with concept drawings for each floor that show options for how we could re-design the home. Check back here for updates ;P - J & K

House Tour: Pre-reno Entrance

Before we tear up the house, we want to make sure to document it in its pre-reno state. So please, come on through the door - welcome to our home! 

This is what you see when you enter the house - a closed off living room to the right and a stairwell and kitchen up ahead.  

The home served as a boarding house for much of its history, and the house definitely feels as if it has been lived in. The floors are scuffed beyond repair and seem constantly dirty, though we have cleaned them ad nauseam. The taupe/grey floor paint is a color choice that has not aged well, particularly with all the scrapes.

In the ceiling right before the kitchen is the hallway lighting fixture, which elicits both fascination and concern on the part of all guests who enter. Come, take a closer look: 

That's right, the ceiling lamp is plugged into a multi-outlet plug in the ceiling, much like a normal lamp plugged into a regular outlet in the wall might be. Don't ask us why, we have no answers. The electrical socket is surrounded by patched ceiling and dried leak spots, which we have been assured are OLD leaks and not anything we should be alarmed about now (electricity and water go well together, right?). 

Finally, one of our favorite things about the house is something you see upon leaving - the EXIT sign! The exit sign is another of the last vestiges of the property's boarding house history. Luckily, it still lights up! We are pretty sold on keeping it and work it into our design - what do you think? 

Check back next week for more touring - J & K.