By painting all the trim, doors and walls the
same color (Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan)
the seven doors in this 17 foot long hallway fade
into the background creating a seamless look.
It is easy to forget how far we have come when renovating a home for, oh, seven years or so.
This hallway on our second floor looks AMAZING to me, but if I were to give a “house tour” it would be hard to explain just what had to take place to make this calm and peaceful transition area look as plain and lovely as it does. 
This is what the hallway used to look like. I took this picture on a second walk-through after we had decided we wanted to put in an offer.
I am pretty sure this view would have scared most people away, but we could hardly contain our excitement “We love it! We’ll take it!!”
Here is the mathematical equation
for how we achieved our end result:
Subtract:
One chimney
One fire alarm bell
One wall niche with little purpose
One wall and door way to second floor landing
All doors, trim, walls, ceiling
Linoleum floor covering first,
then existing maple hardwoods second
Add:
One larger linen closet where existing closet was
New central vac closet where chimney was
One set of brand new stairs to third floor
New doors, hardware, trim, walls and ceiling
New lighting and updated electrical
One french door (not shown in pic above)
New red oak stained medium brown hardwood floors
Fresh coat of low VOC paint
All that is left to do is to figure
out what to hang on the walls
Weaver Brothers Construction, Lynnfield
C&R Flooring, Needham
LoConte Painting, Lynnfield
Come back later this week for a sneak peek of New England Finery Magazine which I will be able to cross off my design-to-do list early next week : )
Getting organized: check out my tips on Patch.com
Just when I start to get organized at home, we have to move everything around again! This week we are having hardwood floors installed on the second and third floors. Only in the hallways and stair landings, but enough construction traffic to create a sense of being displaced. A bedroom floor is also being refinished which adds to the commotion.
I can be quite the homebody (when I am not out and about) so I will be happy when this phase of construction is over and I can work peacefully at my desk in my new office and not downstairs in the living room amidst the boy chaos!
Until the dust settles, please visit my recent post for Lynnfield Patch.com and see how organized I was not too long ago ...
2004: First winter in our New England “farmhouse”
We live in an old house. Built in 1904, it was at one time a dairy farm with a large barn and around 15 acres of land. All but two of these acres were sold to other parties, with some deeded to the town as conservation land, a large section was developed and is now a street with a handful of homes, and the last six acres belongs to a neighbor behind me. Those six acres were scheduled to be a development of homes, but many of the acres were determined to be conservation land so the project stopped at just one. Knowing that someone could not build behind us or next to us was one of the main reasons we felt this property would be a worthwhile investment. It can be quite unnerving to buy a home in a neighborhood that you fall in love with, only to look out your window one day and
see the landscape change before your eyes!
We bought our current house in spite of
room-after-room of dated wallpaper.
Today I wish we had saved more
of it then just this swatch.
There were other reasons that we fell
head-over-heels for this property:
1. It felt like a “town and country” home, located within walking distance to the center of town and most of the schools, yet the backyard felt like a rustic retreat from modern day.
2. Our house is situated in a way that it gets full sun
in the backyard with lots of great interior light throughout the day. Shaded farmer porches in front are a welcome place to sit. Tall evergreens stand at
the properties edges, adding both privacy and
natural beauty.
3. This home is bigger than our last house, but still manageable in size, with plenty of room to grow
(barn will one day be a family room, over garage will one day be office space ... )
4. The dining room probably sold us. We did not have a formal dining room in our last house that was big enough for our young family, let alone for entertaining guests. This dining room is plenty big and is centrally located in the perfect spot to enjoy it every day, not just on holidays.
5. While we realized some areas could use increased storage and energy-efficiency, we figured we redesigned our last home — how hard would it be
to do it again???
If only feathering our nest was this easy!
Well of course it has taken us much longer this time around to complete our home renovation projects. When we were working on our last home we raised the roof before we had any children, started our kitchen addition when we were expecting number two, finished new kitchen and bath by the time number three came around, and then finally got around to all the final details just in time to put it on the market and simultaneously find out number four was scheduled to arrive six months after closing on our new home. To say it has been a challenge to renovate with four little ones under foot is to put it mildly! And as our little ones have grown, our visions for our current home have changed at about the same pace. When we were surrounded with babies, we needed to be close at hand, but now we have a bit more breathing room ...
A sneak peek of our newly completed master bedroom.
Today I am happy to report that as of last night we have officially finished one of the major renovations that has been on our construction “to-do” list ... the master bedroom that we built from scratch is a reality! What was once an inaccessible attic space is now a brand new room with a new set of stairs, new carpet, freshly painted new walls and it even has the newest type of insulation. We slept in it last night for the first time (our twelve-year-old actually helped us move the bed upstairs ... we have come along way!) and it felt like we had traded in “this old house” for a new and improved version. I always knew this house had room to grow, I had just imagined it would be laterally not vertically! Some day we may do that addition we dreamed about, but for now, we are happy with this new arrangement which is actually more energy/cost efficient in the long run than a large-scale addition would have been.
Find out how your home rates by taking this
test available online at Slow Home Studio.
Later I will post some true “after” pics of our new space. I really should be decorating for the holidays about now, but I’d much rather be accessorizing our new room than pulling out boxes of ornaments and wrestling with strings of lights! How long do you think I can put it off without the kids noticing that we don’t have a tree, yet? ; )
I figure I have about 10 productive weeks left of 2010. My goal is to finish at least 10 projects that have been on my to-do list.
1. Finish master bedroom. I know I have been talking about finishing this for some time now. We are down to just having the hardwood floor installed and then we can move in!
2. After we move out of our existing room, have hardwood floors repaired and then refinished before giving this space to two of the boys (we never did this floor over, just put a wool carpet on top). This room will then be complete (which means all walls are new, trim is new, electrical has been updated, walls are insulated and painted).
3. Finish painting closet and trim in existing boys room and add a new light fixture. We are so close to being done in here, but I just haven’t been willing to get in there, move furniture around and paint. It is much easier to tackle now that the guys are in school for most of the day. I did get the beds painted black like I had planned, but haven’t put together the finishing touches so have yet to post after pics!
4. Paint interior of front door high gloss black and paint new trim around door. Such a small project. Have all the paint. What am I waiting for??? Oh yeah, again I had to wait until no one was home and going in and out for most of the day. If I paint at 9am it should be safe to the touch by 2pm (when they start to arrive home). I know I could paint at night, but by the end of the day all I want to do is sit on the couch and catch up on my reality TV or design shows!
5. Turn the smallest bedroom into my office once they move out to the bigger room. This will be the best reward for all our hard work (at least for me it will be!)
6. Make temporary kitchen a little prettier. We gutted the kitchen and have been using the dining room as our new home central (cooking, eating, homework, you name it). Would like to add some shelving on walls and some fabric under temporary sink (which is starting to feel quite permanent!) Also would like to get a handle on the huge amount of recycling that we do since we are short on space these days.
7. Get 2nd floor laundry room under control. No need to show images, but our system is overburdened right now (started out looking very organized and GAP-like when the kids clothing was small, now it is more guys-college-dorm-room in appearance!) New bedroom arrangements with additional closet space should help.
8. Have stairway, 2nd floor hallway plus all 2nd floor doors painted (we recently replaced 7 of them). For this I will call in a professional painter with staging.
9. Add new fall-to-winter flowers on front porch. Maybe I will start with this??
10. Begin the process of replacing the missing kitchen and first floor powder room!
I figure if I put my to-do list online, I will feel more pressure to tend to these projects. Plus that will be 10 weeks worth of great home renovating content for all of you. Besides, I don’t want to go into 2011 with the same resolutions that I set for 2010 (why do I even bother putting “use treadmill” on the list???)
Wish me luck!
As I pulled in to my driveway early this week, I came upon this mesmerizing sight. There is nothing like a huge boom truck delivering a bunch of blue board to bring a smile to this decorator’s face! I will now show you a series of before and after pics from this project ...
Master phase 1: new floor boards are put down over newly insulated and framed floors. What I don’t have a picture of is the true before, when there was a chimney surrounding this black vent pipe and the access to this space was a pull-down ladder that was situated in a 2nd floor bedroom closet! My I’ll-never-forget-memories from the day the chimney came down is a story for another post!
Master phase 2: framing of the new room has begun! What happened next was Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we did not get back to this project till the new year (and the day I created our at-home-projects timeline calendar!)
Master phase 3: insulation! We are now fully insulated. Doesn’t this space just look warmer?? A crew showed up last week and created this sci-fi like scene. Spray foam insulation is the latest energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly technique used to achieve a completely air-tight insulation application. Here is a close up of under the eaves (which will be a great area for long-term storage) ...
The difference in the overall temperature in our house was noticeable right away. Before, heat was going through the slate roof which would cause landslides of snow to come crashing off the roof during the winter months. When my kids would go out to play, I used to fear that they would be caught in a mini-avalanche if they walked too close to the sides of the house! Now, the snow stays on the roof like a blanket. With the added insulation, it is also a lot quieter in the space. Bonus: we are expecting to cut our heating bill almost in half which is something to look forward to!
Master phase 4: the walls are up! Yesterday the boarders did their magic. A dream is starting to look like a reality! This dormer will soon be my mini-office. There is actually room for a good-sized desk and file cabinet in this little nook (see my sketch below). Now all we need is an energy-efficient double pane window to replace the ancient single-pane ... the only window in the main house that was never changed by the previous owner (we will replace this in the spring). 
I used a neat online tool, icovia to sketch out the plan for our new room. I first discovered this resource while reading the blog of Linda Merrill. I asked her about it, and she walked me through a couple of her projects (virtually). The software offers a lot of options, although the monthly fee certainly will add up. The offset value to the monthly fee is that program updates are received automatically (without having to purchase a new version). Plus, if I were to sign up I could cancel at any time. I have already tried it out for a couple of spaces, however I cannot save my project work until I become a member.
What you can’t see in the above drawing is the future master bath (just framed for now) and the walk-in closet. Both of these will be just outside of the room and to the right. I will be very happy to finally have space to hang all of my clothes in the same spot instead of stashing them in various closets like I am doing now (old homes like this one are notorious for their lack of closet space!) I also like the idea of having our clothing storage located outside of our room – it will be much more serene. To check out some inspiring walk-in closets, visit Heather Clawson at Habitually Chic who recently posted some enviable spaces!
Come back next week to see the completely plastered room along with my color and fabric choices. I am off now to make some final decisions on the flooring ...
By painting all the trim, doors and walls the
All that is left to do is to figure
