~ flipNdesign ~: August 2014

Well hello!

I like to see thought processes that are taken to get from start to finish on projects, whether it be house projects or not. So, I thought it would be interesting to share some of mine.

Having a strong concept makes for a cohesive final presentation. Make every decision on house details, no matter how small, through the lenses of a specific concept. This part of the process can get somewhat abstract. The point is not to edit just yet. Pour out thoughts onto the page and then, at a later time, come back through and edit.

Here's the inside scoop on the inspiration found/used for our first house flip.

I'll start with the session where I brainstormed with words.

turn of the century: 1890's to 1900's slight Victorian feel contrasting with "primitive farmhouse"
Shaker style
primitive-simple, rustic, basic, wood, uncomfortable
natural materials
in keeping with the neighborhood
naturalist environment
old with new
restored elements-flooring, stucco, maintain exterior look (color)
retreat
strong breezes on porch
energizing but relaxing
views
clean out small quail eggs
eggshells-color inspiration: complimentary (opposite on color wheel)--desaturated blues and oranges, used with saturated gray/slate and rust as accents
"appetizer" for historic town" (our house is one of first houses seen from the main road approaching the small historic town)

I also collected pictures along the way from magazines, favorite blogs, or google searches.

Here is some pictorial inspiration for our kitchen/open living space:

http://www.countryliving.com/homes/how-to-get-the-look/farmhouse-style-0809#slide-2

http://blog.builddirect.com/kitchen-storage-and-fashionable-pot-racks-on-a-budget/

http://www.cabinetsanddesigns.net/portfolio

Better Homes & Gardens; July 2012; p.54

thisoldhouse.com; Jan/Feb 2012; p. 42

thisoldhouse.com; September 2012; p.72-73

http://www.oldhouseonline.com/an-authentic-victorian-kitchen-design/

With kitchen design in mind, Gabe found this photo after we finished ours:

https://homes.yahoo.com/news/what-the-property-brothers-want-you-to-know-before-buying-that-fixer-upper-203606262.html

Kinda nice to see something similar end up in a magazine! Thanks for the tips Property Brothers :)

Thinking about interior doors and trim, I wanted a "post & beam" simple kind of look.

Taking the original style trim for the windows and doors:

Original state of window trim; Dec 2011

Original state of door trim; December 2011

I wanted to go with a similar construction for doors and trim.

Something like this:

http://hammerlikeagirl.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bedroomdoor1_a.jpg

Our contractor friend Mark helped us order the right materials we needed to accomplish this look. Except we added a plinth block at the bottom.

FYI--

plinth: a slab-like member beneath the base of a column or pier.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plinth?s=t

plinth block: a plinth interrupting a door or window architrave at the floor or ground level.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plinth%20block?s=t

Your welcome. :)

Notice this detail we added on the closet door trim:

As for front door design, I took inspiration from here:

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/70189/list/Painted-Front-Doors-With-Personality-To-Spare

http://cochranfarmlife.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html

I really like that blog. The family goes to my parents church, and Ben's aunt is my former youth leader. :) Cochran Lumber used to be located in the same town as our little house flip and they milled our wood floors so we could reuse them in the house. I gained a lot of inspiration from the blog!

Another house in the same town as ours:

This house is the oldest in the neighborhood--in late 1700's

Thinking about the bathroom space:

http://www.signaturehardware.com/product20229

And the front porch space:

http://www.shelterpop.com/2010/08/30/color-diary-blue-porch-ceilings

Color palette inspiration:

http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-white-bro-113678

Along these lines, I had a color project in school a couple years ago where I fleshed this out a little bit. This is part of a collage I did for the project:

(I'm not sure from which magazine I sourced this center image, sorry!)

The colors aren't altogether true to what I remember in real life, too bad.

After a seminar from Benjamin Moore Paints, I gathered their historic color picks from 1890-1900:

I don't love these, but it was interesting, none-the-less. None of these colors ended up on the walls, but they were useful in picking out general color direction and decorations.

This is just a glimpse of the inspiration I had for this house. I always have my eyes open gathering ideas for my next project.

Stay tuned for the next undertaking on our second house project!

Hello friends and fellow flip enthusiasts!!

I am pleased to announce our first house has now been listed as of August 8th!

It was a big final push, but it's done. Things all crossed off the list done. Yay! What a good feeling, after 2 1/2 years of working weekends, evenings and well, a lot in-between. We finally have Saturdays again for family outings! Boy, am I excited about this.

I have divided these Finale blog postings into two parts, since there are so many good "after pics" to share! Part I will include the front exterior and downstairs portions of the house. Part II will go over the upstairs portions and back of the house. I'm looking forward to sharing the upstairs bathroom, since that is the space that is the most newly finished with a custom surprise!

I would love to go back and detail all the finishing touches we did in the past 6 months, but with an infant and a move, I'm not sure I can! So, I leave you with the final product. Along the way, we can take a few side steps onto memory lane, just for comparison sake. :D Here we go!

For the funsies, here is a "before" pic from 2011:

(copyright says 2012, but we bought the house Jan 2012,
and agent's pic must have been taken summer before)

Now we see this:

The money shot:

Yes. yes, it is.

And a few detail shots of the front:

front landscaping all spiffed up-Mom trimmed the shrubs

Mom & Dad championed the outside. Mom spearheaded the landscaping plan and they hired out some of it to ensure its completion here at the end.

Mom re-stained the landscaping beams.

We got the exposed stone foundation re-pointed:

Shnazzy! :)

Detail of stone moving around house to the left:

I am particularly pleased about how the front porch turned out. I had to fight for my design choices--white opaque stain instead of translucent!! I thought this was important to relate to the window trim and fascia.

Dad took time to paint the porch roof--Behr Aqua Breeze--the same color as the guest room upstairs. It's better if you can find ways to overlap paint choices on a budget, so you don't have to buy so many different cans of paint.

The decking and front lattice were painted a clear wood sealer. This enhances the look of the wood. I love how it looks!!

Around the side of the house to the left:

The bricks that we used to line the mulch beds are original to the house--they were part of the brick fireplace

Moving around the right side of house:

Dad worked on building the door under the front porch, and Mom coordinated/carried out this landscape plan, with the angled brick detail, plantings and slate pavers.

And here is the crawl space door that Dad built:

Ok. Lets move inside. We will revisit the rest of the exterior at the end.

Starting with the foyer :)

The window chalkboard hook art in the entry is something I did to incorporate an original window from the house. I cleaned it up, painted a coat of polyurethane to seal up any lead paint, and added hooks for some functionality. Then, I painted chalkboard paint on the panes for an added pop.

Next we have a before/after comparison of the stairs:

And a before/after of the under stair storage door:

The stairs is located in a different place in the home for this comparison, but you can still see how I tried to relate the two of them with the slats and cross beam supports. Also note that the new door was made from leftover heart pine slats.

Here is a view of the foyer detailing the fixture. We used Edison bulbs for this one to add to the character of the space.

This is the foyer from the living room:

Next we come into the living room all shnazzed up.

A true "before" shot of the corner where the fireplace is now:

Since we couldn't salvage the existing location of the fireplace, we moved it over to the corner where the furnace was and used the existing venting opening for our gas fireplace.

This is the exact same angle, as a true "after" shot:

This next one might be my favorite of all. The sexy fireplace. :)

LOVE IT!!!

And another "before" showing the stair-stack in the throes of demo. The stairs were part of the original 1890's section of the home. The bathroom addition (the door shown at the left of the picture is where the bathroom had been added on) is on the east exterior wall:

This next "after" pic shows the stair-stack moved to the east exterior wall instead of being in-between the bathroom and the main living space.

Our design includes a full bathroom "under" the stairs, tucked away efficiently in the "core" of this space.

This "before" shot shows the old porch full of heart pine flooring that we took out of the house.

This next "after" shot presents the heart pine flooring extending all the way through the living room and dining room, peeking into the kitchen.

Here are couple additional detail shots of the living room space:

The fireplace mantle--

This piece of thick dimensional lumber is an old floor joist from under the old kitchen/dining room space.

And a "pretty-pretty" just for fun. My dear friend Hannah just got married and I was able to collect some of her succulent decorations that didn't have roots and save them for such an occasion as this. :)

Next, we have a segway from the living room to the dining room space.

I don't have good "before" photos of the dining room since the room was so dark--the windows were boarded up at the time and the electrical didn't work.

So I introduce to you the newly finished dining area:

from the living room

from the kitchen

Angle shot showing the sewing table, antique desk and dining table.

Next we see the door to the utility closet which houses the HVAC system, cabinet and electrical box. The goal is to have the homeowner tuck their T.V. components into this closet.

This bowl of eggs on the dining table was my initial color inspiration :)

muted palette of cream, beige, tan, chocolate brown and pale blue

This view of the dining room shows the section of kitchen countertop with the pot rack above that is intended for extra dining room storage--kind of like a buffet.

And now, for the piece de resistance, the kitchen!!! My personal favorite space in the house. Most probably because I designed it. Well, it was mostly me---I had my trusty husband who let me bounce ideas off of him on occasion.

Let's start with the design vision drawings:

And then the design fruition!

Another comparison from a different angle:

Love these!

And one more:

Not exactly the same angle, but it will do.

Stainless steel appliances:

Range/oven/microwave

Dishwasher/Refrigerator

Remember these cabinets? I'm glad we replaced them. ;)

Remember this sink? I'm glad we replaced it. ;)

Remember how the water heater used to be in the kitchen? Well I'm glad it's in the crawl space now!

We extended the kitchen into the covered porch space (you can see the porch door above), and reworked the improper foundation and roof.

Both of these images are looking due east.

Finishing up the kitchen images, I have a couple remaining pretty-pretties:

I really like this backsplash. It comes in 12" X 12" sheets, interlocking so as to look like a seamless installation.

The granite is not to be ignored as well--it is an "antiqued, leathered" finish to lend itself with the matte appearance of the slate natural stone. I just love this.

Now for a brief look into the utility closet, which houses the HVAC and electrical box. Slate tile has been laid in here pretty recently. This is the only window facing west.

It was so rewarding to take out all of our tools in order to stage!

I added this antique, primitive tool box I found at a yard sale, just for fun.

Now for the final room on the lower level right before ascending the stairs.

This bathroom is tucked away under the stair-stack with the door visible from the front door. It's really quite small, but surprisingly, it doesn't feel as so.

This is what it looks like as you open the door.

Next is a "before" shot of the downstairs bath, which had been the only bath in the whole house, so it was rather large. (it had only been a bathroom since the 1980's--before that it was a bedroom!)