Some pics of the progress so far. Window next to the range won't work in the sunroom so I am doing sconces with shelves on either side of the hood. I think (I hope!) the room will look brighter when we take the plywood off the arch to the main hall and once the sheetrock is up

thinkdesignlive and Lydia Derhake, LLC, I would love if you would give me some advice on my floor plan, I have enjoyed your responses on this thread. (I can't figure out how to send a private message on Houzz) https://www.houzz.com/discussions/help-with-floor-plan-for-hurricane-harvey-remodel-dsvw-vd~5032766  Apologies for hijacking!

Happy New Year! Yes, the room will increase dramatically in brightness when sheetrock goes up (I've been there with an entire house). How is progress?

christina405 - Happy New Year! We are waiting on rough plumbing so we can get the first inspection done and then close up the walls. Lots of demo and new framing done in the house but kitchen still looks mostly the same except now we have wiring, subfloor, framed pantry, and sheathing where the old LR doors and windows were removed
.

This is the old kitchen in the house - it was tiny and had 4 entrances to it. The arch in the second picture leads to the breakfast nook. Door to the right of that led to a skinny hall. There was also a door to left of fridge and one to the right of the cooktop.

thinkdesignlive- I just saw your question about the fireplace - it's staying. It's not on the plan because I drew that plan and was probably struggling with the software. At some point I will change the granite and mantel but not sure I can do that now. Back roof leaked badly and had lots of damage so I had to replace that and the cost of the exterior work is more than I expected due to the lead.

The skinny back hall to the bedroom never bothered me that much before but now that I have to use the basement bathroom and contractors are going up and down the attic and basement stairs all the time, it is driving me nuts! The hall isn't big enough for doors to open while people are in it. Getting rid of the hall gave me the big pantry plus a new walk in closet in the master. I really like all the bedrooms off the new bigger hall.

My friend's brother is the contractor. He had been advising me all along on quotes I got but didn't have the time for the job. After the last designer drew something way out of budget again (moving both bathrooms and the kitchen), I drew my plan up and met with him to see if he thought it would work. He suggested some changes and then I begged him to take it on. I had to wait a few months but it was worth it.

I will be over budget but I will be getting everything I wanted and we will be doing much more than I thought I could do.

christina405 - I have questions about your pantry -

How often do you use second sink and dishwasher?

Do you store dishes in pantry?

One of my friends is trying to tell me a second dishwasher is nuts and not worth the loss of cabinet space for the few times a year I would use it.

Actually the pantry dishwasher is the one we use all the time (daily at a minimum). But we have guests often (probably every couple of weeks or more often) and I enjoy cooking and baking (gets lots of items dirty) and use both dishwashers for quick clean-up. The pantry sink, besides rinsing dishes, has a basket for washing fruit and veggies, and is larger than my roasting pan or cookie sheets or cooktop grills. So it gets a lot of use.

I do store dishes in the pantry. The coffee maker is on a shelf planned for it. When the pantry door is open, the coffee maker and dishes are in view from the dining table (not the assortment of other things). I allow myself one appliance at a time on the counter in the kitchen. Right now it's the breadmaker since this frigid week has encouraged baking. Others are brought out as needed. So the pantry stores the toaster, crock pot, food processor, Kitchenaid mixer--and the microwave!

I do have a basement shelf for items such as the roasting pan, canner, ice-cream maker (haven't used that in years), etc. Also foodstuffs from Costco in bulk (tomato paste, tuna, evaporated milk, rice, etc.) and I have an upright freezer in the basement.

Did think about using an 18" dishwasher but they turn out to be quite expensive to save 6". Bottom line: if you don't entertain often, your friend is right that storage may be more important for your needs. Hope this helps.

Kitchen is sheetrocked (mostly).

this is looking towards 3 season room

Rectangular opening will be pantry

Looking from foyer into new kitchen

Kitchen into foyer. The dining room entrance is behind the magnet door

Here is the new kitchen with the floors which I finished myself. It’s painted and ready for the cabinets tomorrow. We still need trim but I wanted to see the room with the cabinets before I decided on trim style. My dog Gus follows me everywhere.

This is looking towards the sunroom

looking towards back of house

The rectangular door is the pantry and the arch is to foyer

Gus says, "It's pretty but where's my food dish and water bowl?" He's very handsome.

Kitchen cabinet install underway

Kitchen install day 2.

view from the pantryn - Gus is always in the pictures because he's my shadow and chief inspector

view from the foyer

front of the island

It’s looking nice! Navy blue is very in - did you see the Houzz video w Gordon Ramsey?

thinkdesignlive Thank you. I’m loving the whole remodel but the kitchen is furthest along. I will post other pics when they are more than just framing. One of the best things we did was getting rid of that skinny hallway. It’s now a walk in pantry off the kitchen and a small walk in closet off the master. Picture below shows the old hall blocked off and the attic entrance moved to foyer.

I did see the video and you’re right everyone is doing navy now. When I picked blue everyone was still doing grey or white. I love the blue though - it looks so gorgeous with the brass. Mine is SW Dark Night. It’s not navy but a midnight blue with a hint of green. Sometimes it looks black.

Here are some progress shots

Backsplash in kitchen (still need floating shelves, outlets, lights and I will probably change wall paint color)

This is the new arched entrance we created in the dining room. The unfinished area through the arch is the new bedroom foyer and laundry. The open doorway is the new third bedroom which used to be breakfast nook and side porch. The existing arches were all cased but I wasn't a fan of the trim and it's custom so we removed the casings from all the arches.

This is the existing DR arch without the casing and through it is the arch to the LR (aka my furniture/appliance storage area)

New bedroom foyer looking from guest bath -

New guest bedroom - I wish I had done a bigger window but too late!

Exterior - we used the stone we removed from the sunroom to side the area under the bow. We also replaced the window to the right of the bow window.

Before shot of the exterior - note the window to the right of the bow and the siding under the bow

close up of the vertical siding I hated

Wonderful. Great to see how project is progressing.

Yes! Looking good!

Fireplace help - the molding around the fireplace always seemed off scale to me so I removed it now I have to figure out fireplace design. Builder thinks I should remove the wood surround and do a stone surround but I’m not sure that with the paneled wall

this is the fireplace with the molding

i was thinking something like this

Builder thinks I should do something like this

I don’t think I would do a drastic change. I think just beefing up the wood detailing only around the fireplace just a tad would set it off nicely.



Do you have a new paint color throughout? Or for this room specifically?

And is the TV going to be on that wall?

thinkdesignlive - that's exactly what I was thinking for fireplace.

I am not doing tv on that wall. I don't like them as focal points.

That shiny yellow paint is the previous owner. I'm going to paint the whole room white but haven't picked the color yet

New siding going up finally

Progress shots of the exterior

before

during

Before

So far

Splendid! And inside...?

christina405 - We have run into a major snag - paint in several of the rooms is coming off in sheets. So I have some rooms finished but most aren't set up as rooms yet because I don't know what it is going to take to fix the paint issue.

Here are pics of some empty rooms with floors covered. I sanded the floors down to natural and they are beautiful but I stopped removing the floor covering when we found the paint issue.

This is the new bedroom we created out of a breakfast nook, bathroom, hall, laundry area and a side porch

Dining room - In this room we created the arched entry on the far side, changed the smaller window, replaced the window trim, removed casings on arches, and painted.

Living room - now. Mantle and surround is new, doors moved and replaced, new windows

sneak peek of the LR floors before we had to move everything back out

living room before

guest bath - where the toilet is used to be the kitchen sink

pantry - this was a hallway and 2 closets outside the full bath.

Existing guest bedroom. Here we removed wallpaper, skimmed, changed window and door casings, moved the entrance , replaced doors, painted and refinished floors

This is the kitchen being prepped for painting which is why the shades are off the fixtures. When I took the shelves down we discovered the paint problem and then I tried a few other rooms and it's in several. Here you can see the reclaimed chestnut island top and shelves

Oops - that's the limit on pics for a post

Stunning so far! I’m so sorry to hear about the paint...that’s happening on drywall and millwork? I like your dramatic dark walls - may I ask what color that is? Good luck w the painter - let us know what happens. Love the progress shots!

thinkdesignlive - Thanks! You were so helpful - of course I will share. Did you mean the living room? (Most of the rooms are dark!)

The black ceiling in the dining room which might be my favorite thing is BM mopboard black.

The living room is BM Raccoon fur. It looks more blue to me than black although the sample didn't look as blue. Here's a shot of it with a red chair

I have to figure out what to do with the brick area of the fireplace. There was black marble there like the hearth but it fell off when I removed the molding and I wasn't sure I wanted black with the black walls.

Very sorry to hear about the paint problem. Maybe post a photo detail of what's happening; perhaps someone on this board will recognize what's going on.

christina405. pictures don't do it justice. Everyone says "Oh I have seen peeling paint before." Then I show them the video or what it does in person and they all say they have never seen anything like it. A rep from SW came to take a sample for analysis and he said he was expecting to see the usual peeling but was amazed at what he saw. It comes off clean, in sheets.

This is with just one hand and holding the camera as well.

link to video -

Improper prep and priming for the paint peel. Seen it dozens of time when someone didn’t use a shellac based primer over oil painted walls, or the wrong primer over bare drywall (and didn’t vacuum the walls first either) and/or only did a TSP scrub without rinsing as prep. Proper prep requires of existing paint needs cleaning, rinsing, stiff sanding, tacking off, priming with a shellac based primer like BIN, then painting the two top costs. That’s just he plain walls and woodwork. You also need to do the the patching snd repairing.

What primer was used? And were the walls cleaned properly first?

Sophie Wheeler - except those are brand new walls so there was no oil based paint on them. It was new drywall. It has happened in multiple rooms with different compound used as they were done at different times and by different paint contractors. The common denominator is the primer which was all from the same container.

Wow. And weird. In video, the back of the paint is white. Very weird. Hope the SW rep can find a solution.

christina405 The white is primer.

House Progress to date - sorry about the links but much easier to do this then to repost the pictures here.

Kitchen

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmdp8lUlCbi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Guest bath

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmQlMMhg69s/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Living Room

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmBBFE6ggqM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Dining Room

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl2u6ESgPiC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The new bedroom

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkussEvAzmo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Front exterior

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmYWfpggfqO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Here’s my kitchen - I’ve got more here https://instagram.com/p/BnBiYWQllik/

Oh wait - this is the right URL https://www.instagram.com/125and126/

Totally splendid!

Very nice!!!

I remembered your post from when you started the reno. I just hunted it down because I was so curious about the final product. Wow wow wow. Great job. I love it! Totally worth the hour I spent tracking it down.

Julie - that’s so sweet of you to say! I haven’t updated pictures here in ages. You can see more of the house on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/p/BsToIKMlmdv/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=10d3s8dpt509k

I started following you on Instagram just to see more cute dog pics - especially love the one who likes to stick their tongue out :)....yes, you did a phenomenal job - I love your use of color! Whatever happened to be the cause of the paint problem?

thinkdesignlive - Thank you so much. You were so helpful and the comment you made about how I would have to accept a quirk to get a better overall house is what made me move the kitchen to where it is now and lose the side door. I had been stuck on thinking I had to keep the side door but I don't miss it at all.

That's Gus with the tongue - he cracks me up every day.

We never figured out why the paint peeled. Tests showed that it failed (DUH) between the primer and the paint but not why. I spoke to a friend who is a personal injury lawyer who deals with product failures and he said even if I did more testing they'd never assign blame.

Wow. So did you have to redo drywall and millwork? That’s crazy.

Some basics I would look for as a buyer:
The master bedroom must have a private bathroom.
The family bathroom must be near the family bedrooms.
Three bedrooms is always better than two bedrooms.
I prefer a powder room for guests (NOT next to the living room unless fully insulated for sound privacy).
I want a dining room for special events, convenient to the kitchen.
*If you can make two tiny “rooms” into a bigger, more useful room, do it. Your second bathroom is too far from the family bedrooms. Your dining room doesn’t need to be huge...seating for 8 would be optimal. Look at re-purposing rooms. Closets are important.

felizlady

Thanks. Renovations are almost done. I did get three bedrooms, a master bath with a private bathroom and a family bath near the bedrooms. I also have a dining room.

thinkdesignlive To fix the paint issue, we peeled and scrapped all the paint off, patched all the dents from that, primed with a bonding primer, sanded again, and then painted. We tested that on a small area first and once it stayed, we did the rooms again. It was such a nightmare.

That does sound like a nightmare! Well enjoy that beautiful house and those sweet pups!

I need help with the layout of my second floor. can anyone assist?

Start a new thread. Provide a flor plan and details. If you’re lucky, thinkdesignlive will pipe in. She’s amazing.