Writing this post feels a bit like the one in which I announced I was pregnant; I’m finally bringing something HUGE in our lives into the blogosphere. Our partial home renovation, referred to as the ‘house project,’ has been on our radar for at least six years, if not seven. (I know this because we’d been working with our architect for at least a year before I was pregnant.) So, not only has the house project ramped up in the last year, it’s simply been IN our lives for quite awhile, despite the radio silence. I just didn’t feel like I could say anything until it was ‘official,’ and that took much longer than anticipated.
The short story is that we’re finally starting! We’re adding a front entry (we didn’t have one before), doing a new kitchen with a small addition, and putting a dormer and window into our master closet.
The MUCH longer story is that we’ve been up, down and around with our plans over the years, adding and subtracting scope to fit our budget, had a baby, waited out all the delays and skyrocketing prices with COVID, and then took almost two years to find a contractor. Kinda makes the six years seem more reasonable now, right?!
Here’s the front of our house when we moved in back in 2012:
A real lack of curb appeal, am I right?! (Shrubs have since been removed.)
Apologies for the photo of the black and white photo that I’m using as the cover of our ‘house project’ binder. I wish I’d had the energy to collect and upload a variety of ‘before’ pictures these past few months, but I just couldn’t manage it. Snapshots of what I could find on my computer will have to do for now.
Back to the project. I mentioned that we were all over the place with our design for awhile. Part of that is a lack of experience on our part, part scope creep and another part simply exploring all our options. Here’s an early kitchen design by our architect with a smaller addition:
Below is another (more recent) design, this time of the exterior front of the house, that featured a barrel-style roof over the entry and a second-story dormer on the north side of the house (right side in the photo).
Because we’re executing this project after COVID (but it was largely planned before), we’ve had to cut out a lot of work, which has been hard. That north dormer, for example, got cut. A second-story dormer we REALLY WANTED also got cut, which would have made our homeschool room and the hall bath larger. (We do intend to do it, some day. ) Perhaps the most painful thing we’ve had to cut is new exterior siding. We’ve delayed a lot of general exterior maintenance to our house, knowing this project was going to happen ‘soon.’ So, the project would have addressed that work, but now that everything is more expensive, we’ve had to cut some things out. This summer, hopefully, Andrew and I will side the new construction ourselves, and the rest of the house (which desperately needs it, too), will have to wait.
But enough of the negative! Here’s what we’re ACTUALLY doing:
The yellow areas are all new. Going from left to right:
1.) Partial room outlined in yellow but not filled in: our porch room, which turns our existing enclosed porch into an actual room. It was an exterior porch 100 years ago (for real–the oldest parts of our home date from the early 1920s!), but along the way someone added windows, carpet and closed it up, but without any insulation. So, where we live anyway, it became a one-season room. Whomp whomp. Over the years we tried to make it a usable space with a couch, but because our ‘front door’ (located further to the left on the side along the driveway) was situated on the other end of the porch, it made the space a ‘pass through’ and simply a dumping ground for shoes. I’ve always wanted a room for sitting with lots of windows, and this is it. I can’t wait to sip my coffee out there each morning.
2.) Front entry, highlighted in yellow: We’ve wanted a true ‘front door’ since we moved into the house. Well, now we’re getting TWO! (We decided to splurge a little and go with a double door. We both love the look and we have plenty of room.) The new entry will be brick steps, a small covered portico and then a new vestibule into the house. As you enter, you’ll be able to turn left into the porch room, or veer right and enter our new…
3.) KITCHEN! Because our house already had a couple additions, the original kitchen ended up in the middle of the downstairs. Even with a small family, it was too small, especially since I like to cook and bake. The addition is along the north wall of our home, and extends from the front of the house almost to the back. It makes the kitchen 8 feet wider, and since we stole a bit of depth from the laundry room, we decided to make it wider, too. There will be a 12-inch bump-out in the kitchen along the east wall (toward the street) that will feature three windows. The neat part is that the counter extends with it, so I have a big stretch of counter that will be a foot deeper–lots of extra room!
4.) Small dormer and window to the master closet: Our closet is like a cave, and a window is one of the first things I asked the architect to add when we met with her all those years ago. It seems like such a small thing, but it will make a huge impact in that space.
Here’s a 3D image of what the outside of the house will look like (generally) when it’s all finished. The swoop roof was a detail our architect turned us on to, as it allows you to do a one-story addition without reconfiguring the entire roof. We fell in love with it right away. There are a couple houses in the village with a swoop, as it’s an appropriate design element from 100+ years ago. I may be biased, but I do feel like ours will be incredible with the double swoop on the roof and on the covered porch.
I mentioned it took almost two years to find a contractor, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. Post-COVID, not only was everything more expensive, but contractors were busier, too! We got our first quote in December of 2021, and while we thought the contractor would do a fine job and his number wasn’t out of the question, we knew we had to get additional quotes to do our due diligence. Well, contractors can’t just give you an accurate quote overnight, and so we spent the next YEAR AND A HALF getting quotes from three other contractors. I kid you not–it took that long. One contractor came in too high but was available right away, another came in under budget but was too busy, and a third was way over budget. Honestly, it was exhausting and so discouraging.
But this is a happy story! (And I’ve already told you the project is starting, so obviously we found a contractor.)
We found ContentoCo at the recommendation from a friend of mine from running group, and we began meeting with them in the summer of 2023. I knew they were ‘the ones’ from the moment we met them. (It didn’t hurt that Chris’s Great Dane came to our first meeting! It was a sign.) Everything about Chris and Tim felt right. They appreciated how long we’d been at this, how hard it had been to fit the scope of work into our budget, and they were willing to work with us to find creative ways to save money. They told us that their main concern is the homeowner’s experience during the project. Chris and Tim both live and work here, and want their clients to WANT to say hi to them when they see them out and about. So far, I can tell they really mean that. I truly feel like the Lord provided these guys at just the right time–they were worth the wait!
Obviously, we were further along in our plans than most of their clients, so we hit the ground running and planned to start right after the holidays. The weather so far this month has preventing them from digging, but as soon as it dries up a bit our foundation for the new addition and stairs will go in!
Up next: breaking ground!
thehealthypineapple 