Framing new hallway opening and removing closet

What is now the kitchen will become a guest bathroom and a four foot wide hallway leading from the existing living area to the new kitchen/dining room area. The picture below shows the newly created hallway opening.

 While at it, I reinforced the supports in the wall holding up the main  living room beam. With the new hallway opening in place, we removed the old kitchen door and blocked up the opening left behind.

Also removd the kitchen and bedroom ceilings. The material we removed was 100 years old and was a masonite  type product. It had become  very brittle and was sagging and coming away from the ceiling joists.There was also quite a bit of 100 year old dust collected up there :0)

Removed the closet from the bedroom to make the future guest bedroom larger. The addition will have a closet space for the bedroom leaving the 9'x12' area open.

BEFORE

AFTER

Doors for addition found at architectural salvage

Since our last post, we came across three matching really nice soild wood louvered doors that we will use for the guest bedroom, master bedroom and guest bathroom.

We also found a pair of heavy duty French doors. Together, they will have a 5' opening. THese will be used in the living room going out to the soon to be built porch and will add additional light to the living area.

Julie found this antique screen door at a salvage yard in Deland, Fl. She loved the color and aging just as it is and will use this door as the entrance to her pantry in the new kitchen.

Placing a window in the front door opening

Today we removed the front door and framed in the opening to except the window removed from the bedroom. The project worked out well and at the end of the day we have three windows in a row in our future living room.
                                                                       Before

After

The next step was to make the door coming into the sun room off of the front porch an operating front door with a lock. This door had previously been nailed shut and had no lock.

Shutting down the Kitchen

This weekend, we took out the built in cabinets in the dining room and kitchen. This cabinet was in the dining room. We tried hard to save the piece but the way it was built and attached (nailed) to the floor and walls made impossible without tearing the cabinet apart.

All gone :)
Where the cabinet existed will become a four foot wide hallway leading back to the new kitchen dining room.


The next step was to remove the kitchen cabinets that were on the other side of the wall.

 This was followed by removing the wall surfaces on both sides and removing the 2x4 studs to create the hallway opening.

The doorway on the left (pictured above) will be closed up. That part of the old kitchen will become the guest bathroom with a door off of the hallway..
The next day we took out one of the bedroom ( future guest bedroom) windows. The wall this window is on will become an inside wall. This window is the same size as the two existing windows in the living room and will eventually replace the current front door to create a bank of three windows. This will allow more light in the living area and prevent somebody from entering the house in the center of the living area.

Finished the day boarding up to keep the critters out.

Julie's musings

Hello everyone.  Starting this blog was my idea but Pat embraced it so fully that I just abdicated my position as blogster.  So today I decided to just share my rambling thoughts.

We are fully committed to making this move and as you know we are veteran remodelers so we are into this process.  We really enjoy the creative process of taking a so-so house and making it into something new.  This project, however, is the largest in scope that we have tackled.  I am wanting to be past the planning phase and on to the doing phase.  All in due time.....

New Smyrna Beach seems like the perfect fit for us.  The coffee shop in the morning, the beach, the opportunities for Pat to show his art and to get involved in teaching.  I hope to find a church and other volunteer opportunities once we are here full time.

Just glad to be here for short intervals for now.

One of the up sides for me is that we will be downsizing.  I look forward to a smaller house with less "stuff".  So far the only one getting rid of stuff is Pat.  What a great job he has done so far!  One boat, one motorcycle, one bow flex, three guitars and one mandolin, gone.  Whew!  My contribution sadly will be to part with my baby grand piano.  We realized that it just will not fit in our plan.  Hopefully it will go to someone that will play it much more than I did.

Thanks for letting me share.  I'll post again soon.

Plans for new addition

We are at the NSB cottage again this week and will leave  in a few days to visit family in West Palm Beach for Thanksgiving. While here, hope to finish off the new opening from the living room onto the sunroom, plant some tropical plants we brought with us, and possibly add some new entry steps to the front porch.

This is a sneak preview of the house plan we have arrived at. Back in May, shortly after purchasing the house, we bought a computer program that allows one to design a house and actually be able to walk through that design and see how it feels and looks. We must have come up with 25 different designs , some one story and some two story. We then began making little changes to each plan to make it better. Then we had to choose which one had the most advantages.   

The opening in the upper left is to avoid an old oak tree we want to save.

The area shaded light blue is the original house footprint, about 600 square feet. We plan on adding about 1000 square feet for a total of 1600 sq. ft.

One of the big pluses of this design is that the front view of the house from the street will be virtually unchanged. We did not want to loose the charm and character of the original cottage that initially attracted us.

Creating a larger living room

This door coming off of the living room opened into a smaller 7'x11'  bright sun room. The problem was the light did not come into the living room and the sun room felt a bit claustrophobic. We decided to open this area, which will create more light and more space in the living room. This above photo is the before and below is the after. The door, hardware, and framework were saved to be used elsewhere in the renovation

Here is another view of the before

After

In addition to getting some work done on the house, there was a local art show known as Flamingo Follies  one block from our cottage. I set up some of my paintings for display and met a number of new art friends.

This painting is heading for the Berry Islands  :0)

It is always nice to find a new home for a painting.