Before (and) The Plan

Sometime in July we will initiate renovation at Wise Road. Because of budget constraints we will complete the interior renovation first and (hopefully) repair/reside the exterior some time in the fall or winter.

To understand our renovation plan it's helpful to understand the house as is and the bizarre-I-mean-*interesting* current floor-plan. The original house (circa 1850s) was probably a small two-room structure (see 1 below). At some later date (1930s?) an addition was made to the back of the house (see 2). Then, in the swingin' seventies (when nothing, nothing should have been built ANYwhere), a third addition was made off the front of the house (see 3) and (probably at the same time) the floor-plan was butchered.

Here is a detail of the floor-plan as it currently stands:

Please notice that the front door opens into a bedroom. Notice also the Dark Hall and the Hallway of Doom which look like this:

Wasted Space

and this.

Goes Nowhere

Notice also the addition off the front of the house, which we have affectionately nicknamed the Cancerous Growth, or CG for short. It looks like this from the outside:

As you can see, it emerges like a diseased appendage distorting the pleasing and simple facade of the original house.

Inside the house is actually clean and (relatively) "updated." Too bad. It all goes. We are gutting to the studs in order to rearrange/restore the integrity of the floor-plan. Folly? Possibly. The first thing we will do is demolish the Cancerous Growth and restore symmetry to the facade. This will reduce the square footage to around 900sq.ft. The revised floor-plan is thus:

The original footprint will become a single room housing kitchen and living room. The back part of the house will include two small bedrooms and a simple bathroom. Simplicity and functionality are the watchwords of the project.

So here is a "before" pic of the kitchen:

The Kitchen!

This will be our bedroom:

The floor is, alas, not the original wood, which--we were told--was beyond repair. I am still skeptical about the veracity of this information, and I'm itching to peel back the current floor to see what's underneath. But once again, budget constraints, well, constrain me. The current floor is real tongue in groove, installed recently and in good condition. It was pre-finished (blech) in a color I'm not crazy about, but will serve until Phase II of the project (should we get that far).

So I hope you enjoyed my "before" post, and I sincerely hope I have some good progress and after shots in the not too distant future.

Stay tuned for my INSPIRATION POST next time!!!