Let There Be Light!

Before: The Screened Patio

After: No Screen Patio

Is there a back yard pool in our future?

My Head is Spinning!!

Oh my gosh, how amazing what all has been done in just 3 days!!!! I will let the pictures tell most of the story.....

Here are the Habitat Restore guys removing the kitchen cabinets.

This is the kitchen after the cabinets are out and more demo has been done.
You can see on the right where the dining room wall is coming out.

This is the Bonus Room getting demoed. That corner back there will have a full bath.

This is the Bonus Room with the bathroom and storage room space framed in to it.

This is in the Master Bedroom where his and her closets and a full bathroom have been completely removed to make space for bigger his and her closets and a much bigger bathroom. That tub is not long for that space!!! The window on the right will be in my DH's closet.

This is what that space used to look like.

This is the Great Room/Family Room/Den (oh, what to call it?)
The paneling, which was what was beneath the wall paper floor to ceiling,
has been removed and the faux beams on the ceiling are out.
The pile of debris is laying there because the construction dumpster in the driveway is FULL!!!

There is so much more that has been done (or should I say UNdone!!)

that it's hard to post all the photos. It was discovered upon carpet removal that underneath was not plywood but a product called MDF I think, and it won't support hardwoods so all that had to come up and plywood sheets are going down. That is everywhere in the entire house except for the 3 bedrooms where we will have carpeting!!! Also, the original design for the bonus room bath and storage changed when I thought it might be a good idea not to hide the sky light in the storage area after I thought it would be a good idea to have it IN the storage room, of course!!  My very smart and clever and skillful and talented and PATIENT building contractor (who might just be reading this!) came up with a great way to make that happen. 

So far this experience has been nothing short of amazing to watch. The challenges come with the details which I hear that is where the devil is. Ugh! I need some angels in the arrangements!! 

Till next time...which, at the rate things are going, won't be long!!!

Habitat

This afternoon, I met with our building contractor and a fellow from the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Nashville. Mr. Habitat man will come out tomorrow morning with two more guys to remove and save all the kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities we are not using (which is all of them!) and remove all the carpet from the bonus room, bedrooms, hall, living room, dining room, and great room, plus several light fixtures to put in the Habitat Restore. We will get an itemized list of our donation for tax purposes and the gratification that it's not all going to be tossed into a construction dumpster.

"Befores"

Here are some "before" pictures. The demo begins tomorrow or Tuesday so things will really start to change.  I will post some more photos of what the place looks like after some de construction work this week.

The dining room before we took down the drapes, swag, and sheers.

The Living Room looking toward the foyer. The front door is to the left.

View from Foyer looking straight ahead into Family Room. The cased opening will be completely removed and walls removed to open it up.

The Family Room. The fireplace will be covered with stacked stone,
 The book case/cabinet units will be removed and on the right side of the fireplace will be french doors to a screened porch addition which will be added on directly behind that entire wall. The left side will be built in cabinets with our television mounted on the wall. Where the doors are on the right will become a cased opening leading into a new 10'x10' breakfast room addition to kitchen.

Hallway with four bedrooms off to left from foyer. The door at the very end of the hall is the entrance to the Master bedroom. This will be walled up and a hallway that will go to the right, then left, will be built to enter the Master. 

First room on left is bedroom one...Randy's future office. Shelves will be removed, walls will be painted,  and hardwood floors installed everywhere. The entire house will have hardwood floors except the three bedrooms and laundry room will be part tile.

Hall bathroom soon to be a divided powder room and guest bathroom.

2nd bedroom on left...future king guestroom.

Only bedroom on right soon to be Queen guest room which connects to guest bathroom.

Master bedroom . Door on right goes outside and down some steps to a screened-in porch which will be removed and become a landcaped patio area. Wall at back will have a set of three windows. 

Master bath soon to be expanded and totally remodeled.

Another master bath view.  The wall where the tub is will become where our vanity with double sinks will be.

DH and I took all the drapes down in the dining room, living room, and Master bath and bedroom. We found them to be made of many yards of some very nice heavy damask and moire fabric in excellent shape.  My plan is to use it to recover my chaise lounge, a bedroom chair, a couple of bedroom benches,  my dining room chair seats, and possibly some other uses. I look forward to the "repurposing" results!!
I will post the "before" kitchen, bonus room, laundry room/pantry, and some exterior pictures next time. Until then....

We Closed! And We SHOPPED!

On Wednesday June 15th at 8:30 am we became the new owners of 8304 James Robertson Court which I have fondly nicknamed "Jim Bob Court".  The seller turned it over to us on Thursday the 16th after 1 pm (today!) Starting at 9 am this morning, with the help of our  fabulous designer, we picked out plumbing fixtures at Ferguson's. That included a black Blanco Silgranite kitchen sink (Thanks, Bunny!!) (farmhouse style: no divider and very wide and deep), toilets, a bubbler tub, pedestal sinks, faucets, handles, shower heads, etc. Whew! Glad to have that done! We are also considering an ice maker. We then went to the custom cabinet place where we looked at and pretty much decided on our kitchen cabinet color scheme. More on that in another post. We picked up some bathroom tile samples and carpet samples and then went over to the house to take some more measurements. We meet our trusty builder and his framer there tomorrow morning for a final walk around before demo begins on Monday. Here we go!!

Title and Intention

ThreeTwoOne. My blog name. What does THAT mean? A little play-on-words attempt from a mind that was having trouble coming up with a clever title for this new blog. It describes what my DH (Dear Husband) and I (the TWO of us) are preparing to do soon. We have decided to move from a THREE story fifteen year old home with an elevator to a ONE story 32 year old ranch home. Thus, ThreeTwoOne! Here I intend to write about yet another one of my many journeys in life. This blog will be about my experience of what my DH likes to call "Right Sizing" and will chronicle the renovation and updating of our new (older) ranch home beginning on June 20th. It will be a place to post my thoughts, excitement, anticipation, and challenges about, as well as photos of, the transformation process. I begin by posting a couple of pictures of the two homes. This is where we currently live and have been for the past 12 years.

A winter shot:

And this is the house we are closing on in 12 days:

Our current home sits on about two thirds of an acre and our house-to-be sits on 1. 3 acres. So we will go from a big house on a smallish lot to a smallish house on a BIG lot! We have several changes planned for this ranch which I will note in a moment. With the help of two important people in this endeavor, a talented designer and a reputable builder, our ideas and dreams and desires have been put on paper and it will be a great adventure watching them develop.

A few of the planned changes include replacing an asphalt driveway with aggregate and adding a circular drive. Possibly painting the brick or just the trim or maybe doing a mortar wash. (Undecided at this point) Adding an architectural design in the triangle of the front porch over the door. Removing the current screened in aggregate patio and building a larger screened in porch off the rear of the great room. Remodeling the hall way bathroom. Redesigning and enlarging the master bath and closet area. Adding a set of windows in the master bedroom. Changing the access to the master bedroom. Adding a wall in the bonus room over the garage to create a storage area as well as a full bath room. Adding a 10 x 10 eating area to the kitchen as well as completely remodeling it. Changing the current laundry room/powder room, which is now accessed from the hall way, to a laundry room/pantry with access only from the kitchen. Removing a wall that currently separates the kitchen from the formal dining room. Removing paneling, beams, and wall paper and painting everywhere as well as adding hardwood floors in the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, great room and DH's office room. Whew!!! We are doing ALOT!!! And I haven't even begun the discussion of how to reduce the amount of "stuff" a three story home holds in order to move only what we truly use and love to a one story ranch!!

Or the minor detail of preparing our current home for the real estate market. No doubt we will be having a busy summer of 2011!! See you next post!