The coming storm.
In 45 days we will be homeowners of a house that has lived for nearly 5 times our age. The house is need of substantial work, the owner kept everything vintage as he and his wife were antique collectors. I will be undertaking the arduous task of updating the home to the 21st century while keeping the vintage quality that truly makes the house unique.
A friend of mine recently went through a similar process with a house half the age and while his house came out excellent, it feels like the changes made were designed to make it look and feel like it was built in 2011. This is definitely not the end result I am desiring. Ryan and I would often joke about me building and installing a custom banister to his second floor. As he is a massive Street Fighter fan, it would have carved figures of Ken doing a flying upper cut in freeze frame up the stairs. Basically the image on the right carved into wood 7 or 8 times. Anyone who would walk into the house would immediately know that it was Ryan's. While alas the Street Fighter banister was only a dream, the feeling of obviously knowing that the home is mine (and Belle's) is what I want to convey throughout.
While Ryan did much of the work himself, most of the construction and rehab was done by contractors. Outside of the immediate needs (plumbing rehab on day one), I will be trying to do as much of the work as I can on my own. I am fortunate in that my father has already passed plenty of home rehab knowledge down, but I think that this start to finish project will continue to allow him to teach me lessons not just in construction but in art as well.
It is going to take a lot of work to get it there, with the first steps being establishing habitability in a select few rooms opening up a greater amount of time for me to get down to business and churn out some epicness. Once the basecamp is established we have a plan to go room to room and gut it, restore it and customize it. I think this blog is going to serve as both a document of how far this project has moved and as a way to stay focused and get my ideas down when my body is too tired to keep hammering.
Going to get some overall before pictures up so that we can see exactly how large an effort this is.
A friend of mine recently went through a similar process with a house half the age and while his house came out excellent, it feels like the changes made were designed to make it look and feel like it was built in 2011. This is definitely not the end result I am desiring. Ryan and I would often joke about me building and installing a custom banister to his second floor. As he is a massive Street Fighter fan, it would have carved figures of Ken doing a flying upper cut in freeze frame up the stairs. Basically the image on the right carved into wood 7 or 8 times. Anyone who would walk into the house would immediately know that it was Ryan's. While alas the Street Fighter banister was only a dream, the feeling of obviously knowing that the home is mine (and Belle's) is what I want to convey throughout.
While Ryan did much of the work himself, most of the construction and rehab was done by contractors. Outside of the immediate needs (plumbing rehab on day one), I will be trying to do as much of the work as I can on my own. I am fortunate in that my father has already passed plenty of home rehab knowledge down, but I think that this start to finish project will continue to allow him to teach me lessons not just in construction but in art as well.
It is going to take a lot of work to get it there, with the first steps being establishing habitability in a select few rooms opening up a greater amount of time for me to get down to business and churn out some epicness. Once the basecamp is established we have a plan to go room to room and gut it, restore it and customize it. I think this blog is going to serve as both a document of how far this project has moved and as a way to stay focused and get my ideas down when my body is too tired to keep hammering.
Going to get some overall before pictures up so that we can see exactly how large an effort this is.
Labels: Home Restoration
posted by MacGyver at
3:23 PM
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