Archive for October, 2010
Bam, More Square Footage
How did we gain a ton of extra square footage to take our for-sale casa from 1300 finished square feet to 1550 in the last 48 hours? We’ll give you a hint: we didn’t add an overnight addition. We just added a permanent heat source to our existing sunroom… and now it counts as livable square footage!
A realtor friend of ours advised us that rooms don’t need to be heated and cooled to count as “finished” here in Richmond - just heated. Meaning the only thing keeping the biggest room in our house (our sunroom) from getting counted as official square footage was a source of heat. So we called a few electricians and got some estimates for a six foot baseboard heater to be hardwired and installed, which should definitely keep the room nice and toasty on a crisp winter day (assuming the sliding doors are all closed of course). The winning bid was $250 and within 48 hours it was done-zo. Yup, our former three season room can now be used year round.
Here’s what the breaker box looked like when the job was in progress:
Let’s just say that we’re glad that we didn’t attempt to DIY it ourselves (messing with the main breaker box while the house was on the market just sounded like a bad idea, and the installers actually had to drill through the concrete sunroom floor and wire things up through the basement and the crawl space so we’re glad we left it up to the pros).
The most fun part of the project for us? Changing our fliers from 1300 square feet to 1550, which makes the dollar per square foot ratio even better for any potential house hunters (and now we won’t lose people who’ve set a must-be-at-least-1500-square-feet search parameter). Plus with our sunroom being one of the most awesome rooms in our entire house, we must admit that it definitely hurt when it couldn’t be counted as anything before. Doesn’t that room deserve a little love? Well, the problem is now officially solved. Sunroom: you count.
We like how crisp and streamlined the baseboard heater looks installed at the foot of the brick wall. And the easy-use dial (marked off, low, med, and high) is all anyone needs to heat things up whenever the mood strikes.
The more expensive solution would have been to install a one-room heat pump system (estimates for that ranged from 2-3K) but our realtor friend actually recommended the baseboard solution over the heat pump since it’s such a simple and inexpensive upgrade (and it’s usually all that people need from a sunroom anyway). So that’s how we gained 250 more finished square feet – for only about a dollar per square foot.
Have any of you guys “finished” an almost-finished space in your house (either to sell it or enjoy it)? We’re kind of sad it took us this long to tackle Project Baseboard in our sunroom since it’s definitely one of our favorite rooms. Who knows how much we could have used it in the last four winters that we’ve spent here!
Note: For anyone who goes this route, we suggest getting an impartial appraisal so the updated square footage can be verified and recorded on record for your protection! Also remember that you may have to inform the county that you’ve expanded your square footage and may need to pay taxes on that area (we already pay taxes on the sunroom, garage, basement, and other unfinished areas but we still plan to double check that we’ve done all that we need to do for this square footage to officially “count”). And remember that different areas have different rules, so check yours out before diving in.
Make A Wish List
First off, my cheeky hubby has decided he’s deserving of a public “you were right.” So here it is. Check out this video from a year ago where he calls that we’ll move someday while I vehemently deny it (skip to 5 minutes and 45 seconds). Who’s married to a know it all? This girl (points to self with thumbs).
Before I climbed on the moving bandwagon UHaul with my smarty pants spouse, we rethought a bunch of potential layout adjustments to this house and even entertained the idea of an addition instead (which we also tossed out as an option in the above video over a year ago). But the fact that the already-here part of our home isn’t very flexible (the layout would have to stay pretty much the same) made us realize that an addition wouldn’t change things about the existing layout and allow us as much function and potential as an entirely new house would. So I slowly started to come around. But the revelation hardly happened overnight. Here’s my range of emotions over the last half of a year of so:
No! I love it here. I’ll die here. You’ll have to pry this house out of my cold dead hands. Wait. More projects? More function? I am kind of a function freak. I’ll think about it. Nope, I don’t care. We got married here! We can’t just abandon our beloved house. Grr, I wish we just had one more bedroom and a full second bath instead of a half bath. What about an addition? Hmm, you’re right, that’s not going to work. But I love it here! We love it here! It’s our home! Well, I am kind of bored. Are you bored? Fine, you might be right. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pantry? Oh don’t play the Clara card. Fine, I agree that it would be an amazing thing for our family. And we wouldn’t be bored anymore. And it would be fun for the blog since we’d have a million new projects to share. Geez louise. Am I actually considering this? I am? Fine. I’m in. Let’s do this crazy thing! Wanna go house hunting after dinner?
I’m one of those people. I can fight something with every fiber of my being, but once I decide to go for it I’m 100% in. No more fluctuating or hemming and hawing. It’s like I run a full body scan about how I feel for a few months by playing devil’s advocate to be sure it’s really what I want. And then I submit with boundless puppy-like enthusiasm.
So that’s how we got here. As for what we’re looking for, we basically have a good amount of living space in this house (a sunroom, a den, a living room, a kitchen, a dining area, a front porch, a back patio) but we only have three very small bedrooms on the other side of the house. So with a baby, a need for a full time two person office, and a bedroom for ourselves we’re bursting at the seams. And we realize that with a future kid (or kids) on the agenda in a few years it’ll definitely get even tighter. It’s amazing how when we moved in just four and a half years ago we didn’t use either of the two spare bedrooms and now we work/play/sleep guests in one and sleep our baby in the other. It’s just funny how things change.
Which is why we’re gonna go for a McMansion this time. Something along these lines:
Just kidding. Of course we’re looking for another humble and modestly sized seen-better-days home – with maybe two full bathrooms instead of one and a half and one more bedroom, but nothing too insane. We’d hate to clean a huge house anyway. We’re more in the market for a home with just a bit more space than we currently have (which adds up to around 1700 square feet counting the sunroom and the basement, which aren’t heated and cooled, which is why our house is labeled as 1350 finished square feet). To have room for another bambino someday would be grand. And a wee bit more breathing room would be nice in the meantime – especially since we live and work from home, so we’re here nearly 24/7. Oh and the idea of two showers instead of one thrills us to no end. You know, so we can renovate one while using the other (instead of hosing John down outside in sub zero temperatures like we did when we tackled our current bath redo).
And of course we’re looking for a different layout since we mentioned that part of the reason an addition wasn’t the answer to “saving” this house because the existing floor plan isn’t quite doing it for us anymore. Speaking of the layout, here’s what we’d love in the next house (we don’t think we’ll get all of these features in one house, but it’s nice to map them all out and hopefully find something with a good amount of them):
- Easy access from the kitchen to a BBQ/eating area on a patio or back deck (right now we walk through the den, laundry nook, sunroom and then go down stairs and all the way across our patio to get to the table and the grill- which is probably why we hardly ever eat outside)
- A kitchen that we can expand into a family room (yay for knocking down walls) with a big island for kids to do homework and a cozy sectional in the seating area beyond. We’ve always loved the idea of creating a place where a lot of our friends and family can gather (and being able to accommodate everyone in one big room would be awesome).
- A pantry. That would just be fun since we’ve been using two kitchen cabinets as a pantry for so long. We’d feel like royalty with a pantry to call our own.
- Four bedrooms (or three bedrooms and an office) of which at least three bedrooms are on one floor. Since the fourth room can be devoted to an office it doesn’t need to be near the other three – but if we have two kids someday we’ll want a way to keep their rooms and our bedroom on the same level while they’re in that young don’t-leave-them-up-to-their-own-devices stage.
- High ceilings would be amazing, but that might just be a pipe dream. Consider this bullet “icing on the cake” territory.
- A flat-ish backyard without a big treacherous drop off (for B & C’s safety).
We’re definitely open to all home types (colonials, split levels, bungalows, another ranch, etc). Just as long as it’s nice and old (ideally from the 60′s or earlier) and not too monstrous in size. Who knows where we’ll actually end up. But speaking of the age of the house, here are some of our non negotiable must haves:
- Built in the 1960′s or earlier (we just love an old home with character and eons of potential behind all those dated decorating decisions of yore)
- Located in a walkable neighborhood (our long evening walks keep all four of us happy and sane)
- Within our budget (duh)
- Great schools (Clara’s education is the most important thing in the end)
- A safe and well loved neighborhood (the reasoning behind the word “safe” is obvious, and the “well loved” thing just means that even if our house needs help we’d love to be on a block with a few homes that have already been spruced up, so we don’t risk over-improving our house for a crumbling-around-us neighborhood). We’re trying to keep that whole” pick-the-worst-house-in-the-best-neighborhood” thing in our head.
We’re also looking for a house just like this one was (totally livable and safe for us to work on it as we went) as opposed to a falling down house that needs months of work to make it habitable. You know cause we have a baby and a dainty-ish small dog. Plus updating kitchens and bathrooms and making other cosmetic changes while we live there is the sweet spot for us anyway.
Beyond our must-haves and our layout like-to-haves, we have a few other would-be-nice features on our list:
- A fenced in backyard that’s Burger-ready (of course we can tackle this project if we don’t find one as-is)
- A private backyard (we just love ours so much that it might be the hardest thing to leave behind)
- A garage (since we have things like mowers and bikes that we’d rather not store inside- although a shed could work too)
We figure we’ll know when we find the one, just like we knew instantly when we walked into this house. And we’ll get to add another key to our key frame. So stay tuned for more house hunting details as we embark on those adventures. Of course we plan to share what we look at and what we like/dislike along the way…
McMansion image found here.
Breaking Out The Creepy Bird…
Halloween is in just a few short weeks so we broke out the old creepy raven along with a bunch of other spook-tastic props from last year (see our big Halloween ’09 set up here). And other than springing for some candy for the kids in our neighborhood and some candy corn for ourselves we didn’t spend a dime (hindsight: candy corn is the worst- it’s basically just a stomach ache waiting to happen). Oh and we grabbed some $4 carnations too. So here’s the console table all decked out:
Nothing too fancy, just a piece of burlap as a casual runner with things like some eerily titled books that we dug up along with some feathers from last year and my new little white ceramic frog (further explained here). And of course there’s the bird, a faux antler candlestick, and the black votive from last year’s Halloween dealy-o.
And see the photo above Mr Frog? Here’s the close up. John made us skulls in photoshop last year and we loved it so much we brought it out again this year. John’s cavernous hole-like eyes are so handsome.
And can you tell what I shoved under that glass dome?
Last year I stuffed a framed black silhouette of Burger in there, but this year I picked up some $4 white carnations and painted them black for a gloomy-ish look.
Now we just have to resist the Three Musketeers and York Peppermint Patties instead of eating them all before the 31st. Honestly, that’s probably not going to happen.
And here’s the coffee table full of faux pumpkins, round votive holders (I liked how they mimicked the shape of the pumpkins), and two vases with dried grasses for a little fall texture and height.
And see the dining table beyond our little pumpkin and candle fest?
That’s where I broke out the tummy torturing candy corn (maybe we just eat too much but it always makes us want to die about five minutes later) along with my spray painted faux gourds and Lumiere (the Beauty & The Beast-esque yellow spray painted candlestick from Goodwill).
We also added three votive cups (also from Goodwill a few weeks back) with faux candles flickering inside of them and a manzanita branch for height and more of that seasonal stick-y vibe.
I guess you could say our theme for this arrangement was bold lemon yellow (as seen in the candlestick, the two-toned metal cups, and that dastardly candy corn).
So that’s how we added some “creepy” to our living room without spending any money (except for the aforementioned edible items and those white carnations that we painted).
What are you guys doing to get your place Halloween ready? Is anyone with me on the candy corn is evil theory? Does everyone else have to buy two rounds of Halloween candy since they eat the first batch well before the 31st?
Psst- Wondering where we got our Halloween props above? Peep last year’s post for a full source rundown.
Pssssssst- Don’t forget to check out our weekly BabyCenter post, this time it’s about animal themes, from owls to rhinos and beyond.
Fab Freebie: Light Up A Room (& Board)
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – scroll down to see who won!***
We were so pumped when Room & Board wrote to us about doing a giveaway. Their furniture and accessories are practically the epitome of the clean-lined, comfortable-yet-sophisticated, natural-material-ed (?) aesthetic that we love. And while there’s plenty to ogle over on their site, one of their Galbraith & Paul pendant lights is officially up for grabs. There are a wide variety of graphic pattern-happy designs, so follow this link to hunt down your favorite (and we completely understand if you get sidetracked by all of the pillows while you’re there).
Here are the deets:
- PRIZE: One Galbraith & Paul pendant (priced up to $449) from Room & Board
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “I’M BOARD” and…
- BONUS QUESTION: … if you could pick any room in your house to magically be more illuminated and full of light, what space would that be? Your basement? A closet? A tiny half bathroom?
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, October 13th at 8pm EST
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
- PRIZE SHIPS: The 48 contiguous United States
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here Thursday morning for the announcement of our winner. Good luck…
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This giveaway’s random winner is… Liz Zankowski (who’s loved these pendants so long that she was excited just at the chance to win). Well, now you’ve won – congrats!
And everyone else can take advantage of Room & Board’s Designer Lighting Event. You can score 15% off Modernica, Flos and Pablo lighting now through Oct 19th.
Note: We weren’t paid or perk’d for hosting this giveaway, we just take them on to reward our lovely readers! See our Giveaway FAQs page for more info. Pics from Room & Board.
By Accident: A Semi-Creepy Porch
Last October we transformed our porch into a spooky display complete with pumpkins, spiders, and creepy branches (read about that here). Well, this summer we sorta achieved the same thing by accident. But more in an “is this house abandoned?” way. Here’s what I mean:
Our best excuse is that caring for a newborn resulted in us neglecting the porch plantings, meaning we got dead bush…
…after dead bush…
…after so-dead-that-the-squirrels-must’ve-taken-it-and-given-it-a-proper-burial bush.
It’s embarrassing, we know. So we bucked up and finally decided to rectify the situation. Not just for ourselves, but also to earn back some of our curb appeal for the whole Project Sell This House initiative. And all it really took was a quick trip to Home Depot to grab some colorful plants (two mums, a pansy, and a hosta to be exact):
The mums were for the two big square planters on either side. So the first step was to say good riddance to the old somehow-they-turned-orange boxwoods that used to live there. Sayonara suckers.
Now here’s where I normally would’ve dug in the new plant. However, we’ve realized that plants on this porch will inevitably have an expiration date. They don’t get much sunlight nor any water thanks to the roof above (although we do our best to water them ourselves), so we agreed it’d be silly to waste our time trying to establish a permanent bush again. Hence the reason we snagged this seasonal mum in a square container (see where I’m going with this?) so that we can just plop the thing right in over the leftover dirt, planter and all…
Voila. Instant update. And it can now easily be swapped out for other planter-ready pot when the seasons change (by us if we’re still here or by the new homeowner if we’ve already moved).
Plus because it’s still in the original container, we can easily take them out and place them on the lawn in the sun every once in a while to help keep them happy since the porch is such a shady place.
So anyway, with the mums just dropped in (which took about ten seconds), I did take the time to dig in the other plants since I wasn’t going to be able to pull off the same trick in those other containers. But they were small enough that it took almost no time. And I can also place them out in the sun a few times a week to keep them looking perky (and opposed to dead).
Then we gave the porch a good sweep to freshen it up a bit. Happily our painted stripes from last spring are still going strong and showing nearly no wear and tear, which is nice since we feared that the light colors might end up looking dingy. And after sweep-fest 2010, just like that we were back in business. No more unintentionally creepy porch.
It’s amazing how under $35 in plants (the mums were $12 each, the rest were $10-ish total) freed us from our previous porch shame.
We even proudly introduced ourselves to a neighbor the other day by saying “we’re the house with the yellow flowers on the porch.” Hey, it beats “we’re the house with the dead orange bushes.”
What’s the deal with your porch – or your front entryway in general? Anyone else with curb appeal shame going on? Or do you also have mums in action in an attempt to keep things looking good?
