Rain drops keep falling on my head . . .

Demolition proceeded in fits and starts, and decisions had to be made, but its all finished now.  The lathe and plaster work is gone, first the upper half of the wall left after the original demo from Sandy.  Then the ceilings.  Then the linoleum tiles removed from the old wood floor.  And just about everything but the interior walls had been removed.  Then a few of those came down as well (the bathroom was but a memory, marked, as bathrooms are, by the vent pipe up through the roof).  Then some of the middle wall had to go, or be moved, or replaced.  And a post here and there.  And then it was done.

Well, almost.  The last thing to be demolished is the rest of the house.  Ha ha, just kidding.  I think.

But really, the house was literally skin and bones.  One electric line was left to power the tools but otherwise nothing was left but bare floors, the studs of the walls, the beams of the ceiling and the rafters of the roof.  The outside (aka the skin) was entirely shingles.  And from this the first major hurdle is born.  The exterior of the house, the walls, are a quaint shingle all around.  Now that the interior has been completed removed one can see they are not nailed to an under-skin of plywood or the sort, but they are nailed to lathe nailed to the studs of the exterior walls.  Old construction methods, that.  Probably as old as plaster and lathe. 

But the other fun thing we discovered upon removing everything and laying the old house’s innards bare is that the roof is built the same way – old cedar shake shingles nailed to lathe nailed to the rafters.  This is quaint as well, except when there are five or so layers of new asphalt shingles over the cedar shake, and when you want to remove all those layers and put up a new layer there is no base layer left to work with. That is the question: do I demolish the roof or not? Because once you remove all those layers you have no roof – just rafters.  Demolishing the roof would entail installing brand new plywood and then put on the shingles of choice.  This makes the job twice as much, or more, than budgeted.  And so the thinking starts, do I need to replace the roof right now, or can it last a couple more years?  But if I am insulating between the rafters (I would like to use the small attic space for storage and the HVAC unit will go in there – more on that later since I decided to go with HVAC after all) and if there is a leak I will not only have to replace the roof but all of that insulation as well.  Or do I risk it and spend the money on some of the other little issues that have popped up and need attention (and money) to resolve?

Well, I have a few days to think about it . . . no pressure . . .

Does size really matter?

To get an idea of what this Bungalow is, a summer Bungalow at that, and what I am working with, I have decided to show everyone a (pretty much) to scale floor plan. The first plan is the way it is configured now.  There are no appliances or fixtures in the house now so the kitchen and bathroom are blank.  There are no divisions between the bedrooms – it is now one long room – and the Foyer and office/bedroom are also one long room.  There is a boiler “room,” meaning a walled off section that hides the boiler and hot-water heater, in the corner of the Kitchen.  And between the Dining room and the Master Bedroom is a thin closet that is too thin to hang clothes in and opens to the Bedroom and the Dining room with a thin divider between the two "closets".  (dashes are doors, dot/dash are windows)

My plans are to add two walls – one in the front room to make a Foyer and an Office/Bedroom and another to divide the bedrooms into two (which is actually how the house was built originally).  I will expand the closet between the Bedroom and Dining Room so that I will actually be able to hang things in it and, more importantly, to fit a stackable Clothes Washer/Dryer (opening into the hallway).  I will add a small coat closet in the Foyer.  And finally I will completely remove the Boiler room by moving the boiler into the attic and using a Tankless water heating system (yes, its more expensive, but I NEED the room, and there are energy savings as well).  This will create enough room to have a real refrigerator in the kitchen and more cabinet space. 

To get some sense of size, the entire house is approximately 18 ft. x 40 ft.  I know people who have living rooms bigger than that.  The rooms are small – Master bedroom is 10 ft. long by 9 ft..  The girls bedroom is 8 ft. x 9 ft..  The living room is 13 ft. x 11 ft. (at its widest into the bay window – 9 ft. for the rest).  The largest area is the Dining room/Kitchen which is 16 ft. (to the cabinets) by 8 ft..  I think I will be able to seat no more than 6 people at a time (just kidding, at least 8!).  

Before you think I have completely lost my mind, or even have any room to change it, get a tape measure and look around you. 

Let’s take one room ferinstence . . . my bedroom.  I have a quite large brass bed, it is a monstrous 7 ft. by 5 ft..  The bed will sit with its foot by the door (allowing an ample 3 ft. for the door – most doorways are 2 ½ ft. wide, add 3 or so inches for the frame) and 4 ft. for the width of the room.  Dressers stick out about 20 inches, leaving about 2 ½ ft. between the bed and the dresser or whatever furniture I place there (book case, small desk, night table, etc.).  It’s not expansive, but there is room to walk, turn around, and so on. Take the tape measure and compare it to some of the spaces in your own rooms, and see if it really is too cramped.

If done right will be cozy.  I hope . . . 

It actually happened . . .

Just a little over a year ago I decided I would start a Blog about my experiences buying, renovating and living in a small bungalow.  I wrote an introductory post.  I had started the process of purchasing the house over 6 months before that.  I figured I would write more once I closed on the house.

I just closed on the house last week.  That is 551 days after I signed the contract.  1.5 years.   Looking it up on the intrawebs, I see that the average from signing the contract to closing is about 45 days.  Mine took over 12 times that long. 

It was not fun. 

The first snag was Sandy, the superstorm.  She was nice enough to hit New York (where the home is located) the day before the first scheduled closing date.  She was also nice enough to only flood the house with about a foot of water – not much considering some people had water up to the ceiling of the first floor.  Sandy put a nice 4 or 5 month pause in the proceedings. 

The second snag was the mortgage.  The house is smaller than anything in the area and comparables (which are essential in determining the value of the house, and hence the willingness of a bank to lend money to a purchaser of said house for said independently verified value) were impossible to find.  The house was nonconforming in many ways.  I ended up working through 2 mortgage brokers (after the first one failed to deliver a loan the seller and I tried another who was able to get a pre-approval of sorts from another bank), months of back and forth with the bank over minutia, ups and downs as issues were brought up and worked on and solved, and finally a closing date was set.  Even then there were last minute papers to sign, details to be worked out between the seller and I, and my rate lock was expiring soon . . .  I didn’t believe it was actually happening.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see an email from the bank requesting more information.  I still have to remind myself it happened.

Now I have to do the work to get it livable.  I am excited about this part.  I’ve had a year and a half to think about what I want to do, how I want to do it, and what interesting, novel, and funky things I could do to the space to make it livable.  I have thought of the systems, the walls, the floors, the furniture, the doors, the windows, the paint, and the beach.  I am really looking forward to the beach.  It is a block away and semi-private (only for those who live in a 3 block radius around the beach).  But that will have to wait until the Spring when it will be nice enough to sit on the beach and relax without freezing. 

And it will have to wait until the house is habitable.  Right now I am working on the demolition.  On the way home from the closing I stopped by my local mega-hardware store and bought myself a crowbar and some masks.  I went to the house and started tearing out the front closet – an abomination of storage and space wasting all in one, and it covered a window in the foyer (such a fancy word for such a small house).  Pictures before and after below.  I banged and pried and pulled and hit that structure until it was no more.  I had conquered my first project in the house and I started to feel a sense that this can be done, that it will be done, and all my planning and scheming will bear fruit.  I was beginning to believe this was actually going to happen.

Once the closet was down I noticed the ceiling above the closet.  The front room, which used to be the front porch when the bungalow was first built, had old acoustic tiles covering the ceiling.  I figured there was nothing above the tiles, maybe plywood.  But in one corner of the room above where the closet had stood was an area that didn’t have any acoustic tiles.  It had old beadboard that had been painted white.  I took the edge of the tile next to this bare spot and pulled it down.  Above it there was a wonderful dark brown beadboard with great patina.  I pulled a few more down, finding a shim the tiles were attached to I pried the shim down, pulling off an entire two rows of tiles down the length of the room.  This was a pleasant surprise, the entire front room ceiling was this dark chocolate colored beadboard that used to cover the front porch.  I knew I wasn’t going to take this down.  The Foyer and my office would look great with this ceiling.  I don’t expect any more pleasant surprises (in fact I only expect unpleasant surprises from here on in) but this was a nice way to start the project.

I get the dumpster tomorrow and thenceforth the destruction begins!

This is about frivolity.

I am not writing a blog to find salvation, to investigate the inner workings of my tortured soul, or to explore ideas and philosophy (except regarding architecture and use of space).

I have too much that is intense and important going on in my life, and I need to have a place to flee the heaviness. I need to be able to enjoy creativity (and hopefully share that joy) while not taking it too seriously. While I don’t think of my home as a refuge from the world and its vicissitudes, as long as I have a roof over my head and I am warm and dry, it serves as a safe place to deal with (or ignore) it all as necessary. I view expending thought and creativity on the necessary and unnecessary aspects of home ownership as taking a break from everything else.

The things I envision writing about are:

Renovations - simple to complex practical fixes to the house as needed and as I can afford.

Innovations - changes in layout or function, addition of space or fixtures, built-in items - anything that is more than a renovation and adds to the practicality of the house.

Decorations - simple to complex painting, tiling, furnishing and displaying that add to the beauty and enjoyment of the house.

Interactions - how all of the above impact and affect my family’s life and living in the house.

History/Exterior - from time to time I envision writing about the neighborhood, its history, population, culture, and our adventures when we step out the front door.

The things I want to avoid writing about are:

Anything and everything serious, aka that which I am diverting myself from by focusing on the house.