Farewell to Lee

This one's going to be long but promises to be jam packed with lots of pictures- so it's all good!  As I mentioned last week, we said good-bye to our Lee Street rehome.  It was by far the most successful project to date as far as almost hitting our target completion date and the closest I have ever come to sticking to our budget.  This was mostly due to the wonderful crew of men we had working on this project- more on that in a bit.  

But first, I thought you might enjoy a few before and after side-by-side comparisons of the house:

I had been wanting to try mid-century modern design for a while so when we first looked at this 1960s ranch something about the skinny brick and faux fireplace of the exterior made me think this just might be the house to give it a go.

The original kitchen was certainly mid-century but minus the modern.  I'm thinking this kitchen was more of a June Cleaver 50's in it's prime and I wanted its new life to reflect more of a rat pack swanky kind of mid-century.

Let me just say, the men that worked on this house (including my number 1 man) thought I was crazy when I started bringing brass into instead of out of the house.  My plumber, straight up laughed at me and said he hadn't installed a brass fixture since the 90s. But as many of you know, brass is making a big come back, and is HUGE in mid-mod design so I held my guns and now this Lee St cutie is proudly leading the cause to bring brass back in our neck of the woods.  

One brass fixture that you didn't get to see was the master bath/shower faucet.  Oh, I was excited about this one.  I had the hardest time tracking down a modern brass shower head.  I searched all over the www and finally found one in China that I just loved.  I especially loved how the pipe from the tub spout to the shower head was on the outside of the tile instead of hidden in the wall. Once again my plumber expressed doubt in my fixture decision and cautioned against me using my Chinese purchase over his recommended brand of choice- Delta (what is the deal with Plumbers and Delta products, anyway??); but I wouldn't listen and convinced him to forge ahead.  

Well, score one for the plumber- one week before our target done date I get a call from the plumber telling me that there was a slight problem with my fixture.  When mounted the shower head only reached about 5' tall.

I wasn't ready to reduce the marketability of this house to those 4'5" and under so I knew we couldn't leave it like it was. Unfortunately, China did not offer any extender solutions aaand because it wasn't a Delta Fixture it could not simply be switched out. Sooooo, 1 week before my target done date we had to rip out the tile on the fixture side of the shower and bust thru the sheetrock on the other side of the wall to stub in for a new fixture.  This time I was an obedient little designer-wannabe and went to the official plumber approved plumbing store and picked out a DELTA fixture.  Unfortunately, the closest thing they had to brass was a champagne gold-it is not nearly as cute, and it hurt my feelings so I didn't get a picture of it.  So sorry new homeowner- I tried!!!

Even without the star fixture, I was still very pleased with how the bathroom turned out.  My cabinet guy knocked that mid-century vanity out of the park with those taper legs and sleek design.  

And here is the guest bath.

Last on our before and after tour is the master bedroom and closet.  This after picture features the second set of those sliding doors that I built all by myself, kinda.  

And that concludes the photo portion of this post. If you will hang with me just a second longer I would love to tell you about some of the men that were responsible for making this project come together.

We had several new subs working on this project and I couldn't have been more pleased.  Our head framers and go-to carpenters for this project were the Jarrods of J & J Construction.  They were responsible for creating our new opening into the house, giving us our 4th bedroom, building our deck and wood wrapping the chimney on the front of the house.  I would highly recommend the Jarrods for any home improvement project- from a small punch list to a complete house remodel these guys can do it all.  

Double J Electric handled the complete rewiring of this house.  Let me tell you, I loved this team. They were always there when they said they would be and honored their quote which is HUGE in my book and were so considerate of the other workers in the house.  They also were very patient with me when I was indecisive about a few light fixtures. 

And then there was the new cabinet crew- Grant's Cabinets and Millworks.  Not only did I love love love the cabinetry they provided they also came to my rescue when I got myself in several pickles during this project (remember the disaster ikea vanity).  These guys are like FB rockstars with over 4500 likes (swoon) and jobs all over the state but they delivered my cabinets right on time and always had time to answer my questions during the design process.  It was also fun to talk shop with these guys because they were in the process of flipping a house at the same time.  In fact, I had lots of people ask me if rehome was working on their house- which we took as a huge compliment.  

If your in the market for a spacious completely renovated old town Conway home you should check out their house!  (I think if you click on the photo it will take you to the zillow listing- if it works it will be the most impressive thing I have accomplished all week)

Robert Shearer and his team joined us again to take care of our plumbing needs.  What I like about Roberts team is they under promise and over perform.  If he tells me he will be there Tuesday I better be ready for him to show up a day early.  He is also great about giving a firm quote and sticking to it. 

Mauldin Heat and Air installed a brand new HVAC system and are just the nicest group of men to work with.  They too are very timely in getting to the job site and hitting their deadlines as to not hold up any other team.  

And then of course our tried and true dream team members: Travis- the landscaper and overall handyman, Marcos the flooring expert, and my favorite painter in the world Nicholas and team. Once again they worked their magic to make the whole project come together.  I hope each of them know how much we value their hard work, attention to detail, and friendship.  

Bottom line, rehome is nothing but a bunch of ideas without these men coming along to help our vision come to life.   

Next week, I promise to give you an update on our current project.  Thanks for checking in!

New Rehome Started

Honestly my plan was to let yet another WWYWW pass by without checking in because I am just flat out pooped from today's activities, BUT tonight I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in years and she told me that she reads my blog- SHE READS MY BLOG! So now I feel duty bound to write something because I CAN NOT, I WILL NOT let my fan down. I do realize that I am making a bold jump to claim her as a "fan" from the simple statement "I read your blog".  For all I know she is one of those grammar junkies who get high on finding grammatical errors in all things written and she knows that my posts are a goldmine- I can perform a run on sentence like no one's business and my improper or overuse of exclamation marks, parenthesis, and my favorite the dash are truly noteworthy and don't even get me started on then/than or effect/affect. But regardless if she reads it as a fan or as the punctuation police I am honored and happy to jot something down for her.  So on with the updates.

In Chronological order from last I left you:

- Lee Street house is sold and closed! I have big plans to write a farewell post to Lee because I want to brag on all the subcontractors who worked so hard to make this rehome the smoothest to date (I only cried once) and to tell you a few more stories about the house- but it will be a lengthy post, so I'll save it for another week.

- Before we left for our family vacation I was able to get inside our next project and draft out the current floorplan so that I could study and draw out a new floorplan on our 10-hour car trip. I spent the first 4 hours trying to figure out a drafting app on the ipad so I could be all "Joanna Gaines like" and do a fancy virtual layout of the house, but I eventually gave up and went back to the trusty graph paper and pencil.  I could not figure out the design or layout for the kitchen or bathroom so I turned to my top design assistant, Pinterest, to look for inspiration.  My absolute favorite thing I found was an idea for the island/peninsula- and would you believe when we walked into our vacation rental home there was the exact island design I had pinned! AAAAND the bathroom from our rental was the exact dimensions of our rehome bathroom! Eureka!  My first thought was "oh my goodness, it is a sign that this is the design meant for our rehome." My second thought was, "oh my goodness, I should totally write off this vacay as a business expense for market research."

- This week we are back and the official work on the home has started.  We are meeting with all our subs to get their estimates and the foundation team has already moved in and out to make this 90-year-old house solid as a rock.  Today Rory and I kicked off the first official WWYWW of this rehome with demolition.  We took down ceiling tiles...

and busted thru walls.

It was during the busting down walls that we were introduced to the joys of lath and plaster.  Oh how I had longed for the shiplap we had been blessed with in EVERY OTHER old town Conway home we have worked on but alas that was not the case in this rehome.  Lath and Plaster (the skinny wood slats and wall surface in the picture above) makes for a much more timely and messy demo.  No kung fu karate kicks are going to work on these walls- it is heavy duty sledgehammer and pry bar all the way.

When we left for the day we were covered in plaster dust and I've got to admit a little disappointed in our progress.    

Now this should have been where this post ended, but my computer froze up on me Wednesday night and then Thursday I couldn't figure out how to free up space on my computer to import new photos soooo you get a few more days worth of updates.

On Thursday I recruited the little men in my life to help. They were beyond thrilled (read with sarcasm).  I gave them an awe-inspiring speech on the way to the project house about the importance of developing a good work ethic and doing our best and working hard in all that we do and how sometimes in life you will be asked to do things on the job that you just don't want to do but to have a good attitude and to give your all no matter the task.... I was moved.  The little one was in time-out on the porch swing within 20 minutes of arriving on the job.  Sigh. 

Still can't figure out how to get some pictures on this blog, and I know most of you only click on the blog to look at the pictures so I'll just keep updating until my oldest son, and tech genius can figure out how to free up some space to allow for some new pictures.

Friday Rory graciously decided to join me again to help with demo.  He has requested to move our work-together-day from Wednesdays to Fridays but I'm unsure about the change because I can't think of a good name for a Friday work day.  He came up with "get Freaky with your Female Friday" but I'm afraid the level of productivity will go way down with a catch phrase like that so for now I'm thinking we better stick with Work With Yo Woman Wednesdays.  Until then I promised that I would not turn down his help any day of the week.  

And finally, today, not only did my eldest get my photos working, we also had the whole family back at the project house for about 3 more hours of demo and clean up.  Everyone worked hard and had a good attitude and were paid in Chick Filet and Sonic drinks.  I'm thinking we will be ready to turn this house over to the framers by Thursday to start putting her back together.  

I have some more exciting news to share about this rehome, but I'll save it for another day.  Hope you have a great day!