UncategorizedOur Renovation Story: The Plan January 6, 2014Welcome to the first day of Our Renovation Story! I wanted to kick of this series with the plan we started out with. When we bought our first house, we fully expected to be there for ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years. We fell in love with renovating in that house and before long, realized it was time financially and otherwise, to do it again. In the first house, our renovations were fairly small. We did mainly cosmetic updates with the exception of two bathrooms that we gutted and re-did. We knew this next house would be a larger scale renovation. In finding the house, we considered several things. We really wanted to be in Greenville’s downtown area. We also wanted a property with investment potential and a neighborhood that we could become involved in and call home. Through some friends of ours, we quickly found the neighborhood that we ended up buying in. We watched real estate in this area for one year before buying this little beauty. I know she isn’t a total babe yet, but she’s on her way! We’ve made some updates to the outside and area actually working on finishing up her curb appeal in the next few months. But, this renovation story is about the inside work we’ve done so far. Here was the floor plan that we started with in this new cottage. Our wants for this house were: 3 bedrooms 2 full baths open concept large kitchen outdoor living space As you can see from that floor plan, we didn’t really have that to begin with. I know it looks like there were three bedrooms, but that master on the left that’s 11×20? Yeah, that was a garage that had been poorly, and I mean very poorly, converted into a bedroom. Like carpet glued straight over concrete, poorly. It was rough. There was only one bath. And open concept? Yeah, not happening. It was all choppy, small rooms inside. And speaking of small, do you see that the original kitchen was 8×8? Add cabinets to that and you literally had just enough room to turn around. That had to be fixed. So, we put our heads together and came up with a plan. Let’s start at the front, shall we? You’ll see that we planned to take down the wall between the front room and the main living area as well as the 20-foot wall between the living room and the new kitchen. We planned to convert the 11×20 master into the new, large kitchen that is open to the living and dining areas. That allowed for the dining area to merge into what was the kitchen, making a still tight, but more functional dining space. You’ll notice that we planned to remove the laundry closet that was sticking out into the living room. This gave us about three feet of width back (even after we put in built-ins, more to come there). The right side of the house with the two original bedrooms and bath has no walls removed, no re-configuring. And then the back of the house got some major changes. To give us the master suite we were after, we planned to add a roughly 20×20 foot addition. That would allow us a decent size master bedroom and bathroom, and his and hers walk-in closets. The closets are small, but we worked hard to maximize storage. And you’ll see in this AFTER floor plan a huge covered porch. Here, I have to emphasize the word “plan.” Y’all know we changed this part of the plan and I’ll be talking all about why and what we went with during this series. So, that gives y’all a little introduction to our plan as we approached this renovation. I also think it’s good for you guys to understand the layout a bit before I start showing rooms. So, tomorrow, I’ll be talking about knocking down the walls to make it open concept and how we created the faux wood beams to frame each opening.
angela says January 6, 2014 at 1:11 pm I loved reading this post and can’t wait for more of this series. You know I think your home is fantastic! Have a great week! Angela @ Number Fifty-Three Reply
cassie says January 6, 2014 at 1:33 pm oh i love this plan!!! i love everything you do, too, so i can’t wait to see you really make this home even more yours! Reply
Shannon says January 6, 2014 at 2:09 pm Even though I followed along through most of your renovation posts I’m really excited to read about what you did all over again in more detail. Thanks for doing this series! Reply
Mary | Lemon Grove Blog says January 6, 2014 at 2:16 pm I’m a new(er) reader to your blog and I’m SO excited for this series! Can’t wait to read along and see how this space transforms! 🙂 Reply
Beth of designPOST interiors says January 6, 2014 at 4:36 pm It is my dream to renovate a house at some point. We luckily haven’t had to do much work on our current home but the thought of putting together a plan like yours makes me giddy! Reply
Julia@Cuckoo4Design says January 6, 2014 at 4:46 pm Wow, I actually never realized how much you changed around! Loved seeing it on a floor plan! Reply
Jennifer @ Brave New Home says January 6, 2014 at 5:00 pm We’re in the process of buying a home with a very choppy layout, too so I’m excited to see how to create an open concept. Great series! Reply
Sylvia says January 6, 2014 at 7:00 pm I would suggest that you add a year around porch to the left of your office/sitting room, expanding the front of the house all the way across. You’d be surprised how useful these year around porches are! Reply
Lara says January 6, 2014 at 10:32 pm This is awesome! I love that area of Greenville and super excited to see it all “laid out” for us to read! (I’m new to your blog via YoungHouse “house crash” but live in the Gville area). Super excited to see what you do , Reply
Jennifer@The Chronicles of Home says January 7, 2014 at 12:24 am Wowza! Big changes ahead! Looks great, and very exciting 🙂 Reply
Kelli@Style Domesticity says January 7, 2014 at 1:22 am Hi Lindsay! I just came across your bog and I’m in love. You have so many great projects and it really gives me ideas of my own! Thanks so much for sharing! Stop by my blog sometime and say hello! Kelli styledomesticity.com Reply
Kristin @ bliss-athome.com says January 7, 2014 at 2:22 pm Love that you are sharing this! So fun to see how people renovate 🙂 xo Kristin Reply
Gabbi @ Retro Ranch Reno says January 7, 2014 at 6:16 pm I love when people show their floor plans…it helps to visualize things so much better! I put together our floor plans too, and I think it’s a ton of fun to see things in that form. Reply