Master bath demo, part 1

Quick update from Sunday demo day. After finishing some more modest demo, like removing trim, door frames, and mouldings, I started on the master bath. We aren't saving anything in the current bathroom, except for 3 perimeter walls. The shower stall will be removed, the vanity, and all tile comes out. Here is a mid-point check: 

 Looking through the entry door. The view straight ahead will retain the vanity; we'll replace with a double sink. To the left in the foreground is the existing shower stall. That comes out and will be replaced with a 3'x6' shower, part of the expansion pushing out the back wall. The new toilet will be tucked around a new wall where the shower is now. 

The wall between the shower and the vanity area. I took the first layers of tile and drywall out this weekend. The shower side tile and drywall will come out next, and then the studs.  I'm getting pretty good at demo. I have no skills for putting anything back together, but that's a different issue. 

Note the  intercom system which is next to the  toilet in the current layout. I don't think we'll be keeping that feature...

Some inspiration photos

I've been more than a little obsessed with the Houzz.com app, which has a few hundred thousand photos of houses, rooms, products, finishes, and more. The iPad app is all too convenient for thumbing through a couple hundred photos in one brief episode. But it has helped to shape our thinking about the overall look we are hoping to achieve, and some detailed ideas for the renovation. Here are the pics that we keep going back to for inspiration, hoping our humble little house looks something like this eventually:  


Great Room Focal Wall
Like: modern slate tile for the fireplace surround, built-in cabinets and shelves, clerestory windows at the roof line. 

modern living room design by san francisco architect John Lum Architecture, Inc. AIA

Master Bedroom Expansion (bump-out in the back)
Like: large windows, cedar siding, shade of brown 

modern exterior design by san francisco architect Koch Architects, Inc. Joanne Koch

Great Room
Like: open view from dining to living room, high ceiling, fireplace wall as the focal point, defining the dining space with pendant lighting

contemporary dining room design by vancouver interior designer Gaile Guevara

Bedroom Corridor
Like: clean lines of the moulding and paneled doors, uncluttered feel, recessed lights (instead of hanging fixtures)

contemporary hall design by minneapolis architect Charlie Simmons - Charlie & Co. Design, Ltd.

Glass Pocket Doors
Like: letting light flow through, size and shape of glass panels, feeling of openness but separation

contemporary dining room design by boston architect LDa Architecture & Interiors

First look at finishes

In other renovations we've done, many of the other finishes are already in place, so it naturally limited the choices; like picking a wall color or granite counter top that goes with the existing finishes.  


But now everything is on the table. I realized this weekend that choosing finishes and fixtures for the entire house sounds fun, but is an overwhelming task. (In the bigger picture, this isn't as overwhelming as, say, making Afghanistan a more stable country from which US forces can soon exit, so we'll manage on the house front, it's not that daunting.)


With a relatively modest sized ranch house, everything is connected on a single level, so there needs to be some overall consistent scheme for finishes, aesthetics and colors. 


At the tile store this weekend, I came across an interesting design scheme for the guest bathroom. I don't know why I started with that room, but it seemed to make sense after putting some of the pieces together. Over the past couple of months, I've been collecting pictures on the Houzz.com iPad app. The photo below gave me the idea to choose an accent wall in the tub surround, and coordinating tiles for the rest of the walls and floor. (I also like the half glass wall instead of a shower curtain, a cleaner look that leaves more light into the shower, I think we'll steal that idea too.)

modern bathroom design by san francisco architect John Lum Architecture, Inc. AIA


I came across this tile for a possible accent wall in the tub surround: matte finish, ivory toned, in stacked bond pattern. I thought it was a modern-leaning style, but not too much. It turned out to be on sale, the final several boxes were on the sales floor. So I bought 25 square feet yesterday. I hope we can use them!

This tile seemed to coordinate nicely with the others that I could envision in the guest bathroom, which includes this for a surround/wall tile below. It has light and dark brown straw-like stripes: 

This could be paired with a darker gray slate-like floor tile. Putting it all together, here is the view (note, the white wouldn't be a tile, but represents the white tub/toilet): 

With several dozen other finishes and decisions ahead, I don't know why I focused first on the guest bath. Perhaps because it's in the center of the floor plan, everything would need to feel connected and coordinated to that room? Or it feels more manageable because it's the smallest room? Whatever the reason, it feels good to start narrowing the options so when the time comes to make final decisions we'll be ready. 

Demo continues

We are still a few weeks away from starting construction. The architect is drawing up detailed plans for Arlington County approval, and the builder is doing a detailed work plan and budget (we still have no idea how much this might cost, yikes!). If all goes as planned, we'll be under construction by April, and the builder estimates 3-4 months for completion. 


So, I have been dabbling in some small demo projects. We are replacing most everything in the house, so even a low-skilled person like myself can do some basic demo. I removed the kitchen a few weekends ago, with no major incidents except a water gusher when I pulled the dishwasher out (I thought the shutoff valve was closed). I'm continuing with removing trim and mouldings, some paneling, and other easy tear-downs. I think I can pull out the master bath next. I'll post that soon...

Starting demo in the front hall:
The door on the right will become a double pocket door to the "new" den/study. We'll choose a new front door, maybe something with a larger glass window to let in more light. New trim, moulding, floors, light fixture, etc. to come!

Starting demo on the fireplace wall: 
This will become the focal point for the living/dining room. We'll push the ceiling up to 12', so we hope to have the fireplace extend to the ceiling, with built-ins on either side. In a future post, I'll show a finished room that could serve as the inspiration for our final design. Note: we'll add an 8' sliding glass door where the window is now. 

New Floor Plan!

Overall we're making modest changes to the floor plan, from a construction standpoint. But the upgrades and additions we hope will make a big difference in the flow and use of the spaces. The before and after layouts are below. 


BEFORE (CURRENT)
The main issues we wanted to address: 

• Better kitchen layout, remove the peninsula
• Defined living and dining spaces in the "great room" (shown as the family room), with a vaulted ceiling and more light
• Larger master bed and bath, larger master closet
• No formal dining room
• A less cluttered hallway: currently there are 7 doors and several switches, knobs and vents in a very small area!

FUTURE
After a few productive rounds of design ideas and iterations, we arrived at the near-final layout. In the new design, new construction is depicted by solid black walls.

Here are the highlights, from walking in the front door:

• The dining room becomes a study with french doors (currently depicted as swinging doors, but we'll make the pocket doors).
• The entry foyer gets a curved wall to connect to the bedroom corridor, removing one of the closets/doors that cluttered things up. 
• Instead of a hallway linen closet, we'll turn half of the space into an outward-facing niche for art or bookshelves, and the other half will face inward and become shelves in the second bathroom (more clutter avoided!).
• Down the bedroom corridor, the entrances to the 2 spare bedrooms will be pushed back to create a square landing area in the hallway, creating more space and less constrained feel to the narrow hall. 
• The far right spare bedroom will have a new closet built, in order to give back the existing closet to the master bedroom closet, to create 1 large walk-in. The resulting spare bedroom will still be 11x11, plenty of room for a bed and/or home office. 
• The master bedroom gets a 12'x14' addition pushed out the back wall, creating a setting area and large windows onto the back yard. There is also an 8' sliding glass door that opens onto a newly created courtyard patio, bordered on the opposite side by the existing living room. 
• The master bath also pushes out about 3' to create a large shower, and some re-arranging of the toilet behind a wall to create privacy and more room at the double vanity. 
• In the kitchen, the shared wall with the laundry room moves 2-3' toward the garage to create a wider kitchen and more narrow laundry room (a great tradeoff). This is really the only wall that is moving significantly (which keeps unplanned costs in check, we hope!). 
• The resulting kitchen space allows for 3'x6' island for seating along one side. The kitchen layout will be refined with a kitchen designer soon; placement of appliances and cabinets may change. 
• A defined dining area emerges in the great room with built-in cabinets along the wall shared with the mechanical closet. This would be a great chance for upper cabinets with glass and a counter that serves as a sideboard when entertaining. (We thought about a wet bar and wine refrigerator under cabinet here, but it seems like we wouldn't practically use those things at that spot. We hope to incorporate a wine fridge in the main kitchen, though!)
• To define the dining and living room spaces, Bruce suggests 2' walls on either side of the line that separates them visually. 
• In the living room, we add a new 8' sliding glass door on the right side, mirroring the existing slider on the left which opens onto the existing patio. The new sliding door will open onto the newly created courtyard patio, for great traffic flow (and air flow too). 
• Though not pictured in the 2-D floor plan view, the ceiling in the living/dining room will be pushed up to  about 12' with a course of windows above both sliding glass doors, with a vaulted tray design. We are thinking about skylights, possibly, too. 
• The back wall of the living room will be the focal wall, with a fire place that has floor to ceiling tile or stone with a new gas insert, as it's currently a wood burning box. We'd like to have built-in cabinets and shelves on either side of the fireplace. 

Hopefully these changes will be underway soon, we are excited to get into the project!

Exterior Architectural Plans

When we decided to buy the house, we knew it had some great potential and we had some initial ideas for making it more modern, open and light filled. We also had an architecture firm in mind, Concepts and Contours, from looking at properties in Arlington for more than a few years, having seen some amazing houses built or renovated by the firm. So when we closed on the house we hoped that C&C would be willing to take on a smaller, less traditional design than most we've seen them do. The architect, Bruce Deutsch, walked through the property at the inspection. We weren't certain that he'd take our relatively small house and project, but he seemed intrigued by taking on a mid-century era brick rambler that would lean toward mid-century modern if we could make some thoughtful changes. Fortunately, soon after we were off and running with Bruce as our architect. 


At the outset, we knew we'd need at least "a few" upgrades:  new kitchen and baths, hardwood floors, new windows, doors and roof, and most other cosmetic finishes. We also wanted to expand out the back to give us more space in the master bedroom and bath. Mike also had the idea to make the ceiling of the living room (which is a gable roof running perpendicular to the main roof line) into a vaulted ceiling to give us more vertical space there. 


With that general list of requests, Bruce began working on sketches and ideas. Over the past 3-4 weeks he has developed multiple options and we've met a few times to review the evolving plans. The latest (and nearly final) version is here, and it's shaping up to be more than we expected. These are the exterior drawings, I'll post the interior plans next. 

FRONT ELEVATION
The front will stay largely the same, except for the roof line of the living room that rises over the ridge of the existing roof. We'll add cedar siding to the porch inset to tie-in the additions in the rear, and a possible expanded front porch (will look different than pictured). 






REAR ELEVATION
The living room will retain the brick chimney, while the ceiling will be raised about a half story, with a hip roof. The earlier designs called for a curved metal roof (cool but not our style) and then a flat roof with a parapet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapet). The third version pictured in the drawing above is our favorite, and it also creates a 12' ceiling for both the dining and living room, something the other designs did not allow. On the left side of the drawing, the expanded master bedroom setting area is 12' W x 14' D and has a 9' window. To the right of the setting area is an expanded master bath--the three clerestory windows will bring great natural light into the bathroom (the large walk-in shower actually). The master bedroom bump-out creates a courtyard patio between that structure and the living room, and there will be an 8' sliding glass door opening onto the patio from both sides. 


RIGHT ELEVATION
This view shows the great room in the background, rising above the master bedroom setting area in the foreground. The MBR addition will have a skirt of brick (recycled from the demolition, to match the rest of the house) with cedar siding on top. The existing window in the MBR will be replaced by 2 more modern windows that will flank the bed. Still not in love with the porch design in front, we'll ask Bruce to come up with another option...

RIGHT ELEVATION (MBR addition removed)
This shows the design of the great room addition, which includes an 8' sliding glass door in place of the existing 6' window and a window above. The left elevation of the great room is identical with a sliding glass door and window above. 

Kitchen Demo 
While we wait for the architect and builder to complete the final plans, I took advantage of a few weekends to start some (real) demo inside. Though the design isn't finished yet, we were certain that we wouldn't  be saving anything from the vintage 1966 kitchen. It's also easier to envision the new layout after the room is cleared. Here are the before and after (demo) photos. The real "after" photos are still a few months off! The tape on the floor draws the new island and the position of the new left wall. 


Demo is a blast, especially since I didn't have to be too careful to preserve anything. The first few upper cabinets came out with screws and a firm tug, but by the end I was swinging the hammer and kicking in doors ninja style.  

BEFORE


























AFTER

NB: the wall on the left will be pushed back about 2 feet to widen the kitchen and allow for a 3' x 6' island, rather than the peninsula in the original layout.