Front walk is finally in!

After literally a year of agonizing, I finally bit the bullet and hired the Kiwis to put a "bridge" in between the concrete walk and the deck.

It doesn't look so great in the photos, but I think that's temporary--I need get my butt in gear now and plant around it to soften the edges.I think it will look so charming! I need to paint the supports the same color as the house so the ugly treated wood isn't visible; the Kiwis say I should wait a couple of months for the treated wood to dry out (yay--an excuse for procrastination). Now the mailman can get to the porch, and I can have trick or treaters next year...


The supports do not touch the oak tree's roots or the ground, which is pretty cool. They are attached to the big beam under the porch and on the other end, treated wood is resting on (and screwed into) the concrete walkway.



I think it looks awesome from this direction! Pictures were taken at night after I got home from work.

It needs some serious landscaping. Help!

Beautiful new window screens

One step at a time. It took about a year, but I finally got around to ordering screens for the windows. I felt strongly about following the vernacular of the neighborhood with these. They cost a lot more than aluminum screens, but the effect is stunning. And now I can open the windows and enjoy the fall breezes...

The Plan.

Many folks have made great suggestions after looking at my kitchen. They suggest modifying what is there--just get a new sink and put in a dishwasher where the drawers are, or, get new doors so you can keep the cabinet boxes. But it's just not worth spending money to try and fix something that is broken. I have to wash mixing bowls before I use them because they're full of sawdust from the drawers above. That's really the kicker, I think. I've decided that life is too short to put this off any more, and I need to be able to enjoy cooking in order to stay as healthy as I can. I need to be able to have people over if I want a happy social life, too.

So here's the plan (not necessarily in the correct order, and certainly missing several steps) but laid out here to give you the best sense of what I want to do). I have come up with an initial design, which I will finalize myself, but I will hire a contractor to do most of the work, since I simply don't have the skills or time to do the labor:

1. Contact a structural engineer to find out if I have issues with loadbearing walls. Depending on what they say, the plan will be adjusted as necessary.
2. Rip out the entire kitchen. Rip out the wall between the kitchen and living room, leaving the water heater cabinet intact, as well as the wall that is between it and the living room, but take away the door frame. Put a new bar height wall between the kitchen and the living room area (but no bar), with a wider walking area where current doorway and telephone table are located.
3. Rip out the wall between the living room and the front guest bedroom.
4. Have floors patched as necessary and refinished.
5. Patch sheetrock, do electricity and water, etc., etc.
6. Install subtle can ceiling lights through most of the kitchen and a neat accent light over the little window.
6. Install new kitchen, keeping the sink and stovetop exactly where they are, locating oven underneath the stovetop and adding a peninsula jutting out from the old oven location, creating a "u" shaped work area. On the far side of the peninsula will be three countertop chairs for in-kitchen eating and newspaper reading (I created this effect by placing the kitchen table where the peninsula would be, and adored it! I didn't want to put it back).
7. Get rid of kitchen table and chairs, and install upper and lower cabinets and countertops along that long wall to give the feel of a "hutch," and tons of additional storage
8. Transform living room/guest room space into an open plan living/dining space. This may require some carpentry--I haven't planned this as much as the kitchen at this point.

I have already selected most of my materials:
IKEA cabinets: Nexus in yellow-brown wood
Silestone countertop for most of the kitchen: some kind of white color, tbd
Butcherblock countertop for work area to the left of the cooktop
Separate cooktop and oven units. This is more expensive than a range, and is what I need to do if I want a downdraft vent hood instead of a big stainless steel one coming down from the ceiling. In a house as small as mine, this makes a big difference. I finally confirmed this big decision yesterday (after talking to nice appliance guy at independent shop on Burnet, and after discussing with my brother the chef, who recently lived in a house with a downdraft vent and said it worked fine--this is a man who cooks bacon regularly, unlike me. I'm a very low-impact cook). Not having a vent hood jutting down from the ceiling will make the space look so much better. I can do something fun with the lighting over the dining room table and make that the visual focal point when you enter the house.
Stainless dishwasher
New stainless single basin sink
Tile backsplash (fun!)
And five gazillion other little and big expenses of course.

The biggest change from the earlier version of this plan is that I think I'm leaving the water heater intact. Because it is such a problem in the current kitchen layout, I had planned to remove it and install a tankless one. But the more research I have done, the more clear it becomes that this would be an extremely expensive change, and to little benefit. The city of Austin has a calculator for energy savings, and for a household of my size and my low hot-water use, it would take a very, very long time to recoup the costs, and I would not really be making much of a difference environmentally. Consumer Reports, too, does not highly recommend going tankless. So rather than move the water heater, I'll build around it. I think that the cabinet will actually look charming once the layout is changed. We'll see!

The Kitchen: Before Pics!

I've been living in my house for 3.5 years now, and I'm really tired of dealing with my old kitchen. I want to cook more and entertain more, but both are difficult, especially entertaining. I have no dishwasher and a cantankerous old oven. My kitchen is very closed off from the rest of the house and I have nowhere to put my gorgeous dining room table, inherited from my grandparents and currently serving as a console behind the couch in the livingroom. It's badly in need of restoration and will be gorgeous once that's done.

The kitchen looks really charming at a glance, due to the wood floors, gorgeous refrigerator that I bought when I moved in, the awesome paint color on the walls (Mexican Chile from Home Depot), and the french doors installed during the exterior remodel. But despite these things, it really, really sucks. Here is a kitchen tour, counterclockwise.

View from the door into the living room. That's the laundry room/storage to the left. The doors under the sink and the upper doors to the right of the fridge don't close:


The back wall next to the french doors, where I come and go most often. The french doors (just out of the frame to the left) go to the deck and out to the carport. Check out the clutter. My fault, not really the kitchen's fault. But I want more storage. I plan to leave this little cabinet where it is when I renovate. I adore it. My grandmother bought it antiquing in Vermont some decades ago:


Continuing on to the eating area. It looks charming but it's actually the worst part of the kitchen. There isn't quite enough room for the table and chairs. It's awkward and uncomfortable and seats only 4 for a basic meal (there's nowhere to put the food!). I've tried to give it some character with a cute light fixture but there's a limit when the space is so small. You can see the open door to the water heater to the left. It is the reason the kitchen feels so cramped:


The view into the living room from the French doors. That's the water heater cabinet behind the door. The entry is narrow and cuts off the kitchen from the rest of the living space. Note, however, that the hardwood floors are continuous through the doorway. Lovely:


Continuing on around, this is the telephone table just to the left of the doorway into the living room (hi Pirate!). Absolutely wasted space, and a sh*t collector. The ovens are old and funky. I've never used the lower oven, and the upper has temperature control problems. Note the ugly ventilation space just above the oven-it's just a hole in the cabinets:


The cooktop, where I spend a lot of time. I do a lot more cooking on the stove than in the oven. I actually love my little cooktop despite the fact I need to turn it on with a match and the fact that it's almost impossible to clean. I hate the crowded space, though, and the laminate that runs up the wall behind it:


Disorganized storage. I want cabinets with fittings that will help me stay more organized, and I want pullout cabinets holding the pots and pans so I can reach them more easily:


Just to the left of the cooktop is pretty much the only working counterspace except a small area to the left of the sink. It's really difficult to cook more than one dish at a time in this kitchen. I love giving dinner parties but I hardly ever do because I simply don't have the space in the kitchen or elsewhere for prep, serving, and eating. Note the partly open cabinets. They don't close. I can't even get into one of the upper cabinets--it's wedged shut! The laminate countertops are so old that they are permanently stained. No matter how much I clean they have yellowish blots all over them, and they get dirty very fast. You can't just wipe them down:


Next, the adorable window over the sink. it's staying just like it is. But as you can see, there are some, um, unpainted spots where a flourescent fixture, complete with cord, was hanging when I moved in. More greyish-pinkish laminate backsplash:


Ah, the sink. What can I say? I scrubbed it with Comet before taking this picture. This is as clean as it gets, folks:


Next, the drawers where the dishwasher will go. I've never had a dishwasher. I find it really depressing to have a great dinner party, and then spend two hours doing dishes after everyone goes home--I look forward to changing that! Note the spaces between the drawers and frames. Also note that the third drawer does not close any more than that. Grrrr.:


OK, now you've seen it. Next post: the plan.

Getting restless...

So, I think I'm going to take the leap and move on to the next stage of making Live Oak Cottage my dream cottage inside as well. I've 90% decided that I am ready to rip out the kitchen and replace it with one that opens out to the current living room. But the bigger deal is that I think I will knock down the wall between the living room and the guest room and add a half-bath, to make this house a 2/1.5 rathe than a 3/1. Checking out real estate values in the neighborhood, I think this would be a very good decision! I'm getting pretty excited about undertaking this massive project. Details forthcoming.

Small steps in a new year

A new year! I accomplished my goal of redoing my house in advance of my 40th birthday last week, and it felt great. I celebrated by having a huge open house on New Year's Day. I'm not sure how many people came--maybe 35. They spilled out onto the deck, and the French door was wide open! It was a great success. We barely fit in the house, and the event made me wish for that new, open kitchen I'll have some day, as did the singed coffeecake. But for now, the remodeling I've done has really improved my life.

There are two guys out back ripping down my eyesore shed add-on as I write this. Here's what it looked like ten minutes ago.


Voila! My neighbors are going to love me:



Now the house and yard feel even more exposed from the back, and I am no closer to an acceptable decision on how to design my fence. Alas. Here I am sitting on the deck looking down upon the problem area. How to close it off properly?

Big work projects trump house projects

Hi every and anyone who is still checking my blog, and apparently there are a few of you out there. Thanks!

Only two projects remain: a fence and a new front walk. Both have stalled out due to a combination of procrastination, way too much to do at work, and, well, avoidance of spending any more money! Both must happen, though, and when they do, you'll see it here. Till then, push and prod me and maybe I'll get around to both.