Half way and Plans revisited - Reno Day 52

It seems that we have reached almost half way through the predicted four month build time and looking back, the progress is huge. At the end of the week the massive span bifold doors arrived and here they are finally in position. Here is a before shot in comparison, taken from a similar angle.

And the granny flat now looks like this,

instead of this.

And we have a lot less grass and much, much more of this. (Yep, it's raining AGAIN).

But it's ok because we checked today and we have a DRY deck. So exciting.

Anyway, I thought this might be a good time to re-share the house plans. I initially posted a version of the plans almost a year back, but as I have had a few questions about the layout and making sense of it all I will do an updated version now. So for all of you who, (like me) love floor plans,

Here is the house before.

The front of the house is facing to the right. Bedrooms 1-3 and the bathroom are all getting new windows but are otherwise unchanged. There is no study as marked, it is really an entry foyer type room. We have removed the wall between Bed 4 and the old kitchen to create a much larger kitchen space. The  three rooms in the top left corner are what was essentially a granny flat, a separate structure added about 25 years ago and connected only via the deck. The rooms were narrow, with poor ventilation and for the last three years, really just used to store stuff as they were not easily accessible from the house.

Here are the current plans that we are working to.

Our main goals were to largely use the current foot print of the house (so as to not encroach into the yard), create a larger kitchen, add a second living space, move the laundry out of a cupboard in the lounge room, add a new deck which would remain dry and resolve some crazy roofline issues.

By closing in the granny flat verandah, we were able to add a separate room for the TV and create a good flow from the kitchen and deck. The only real addition to the existing footprint, was for the laundry and a small section of the family room, about 9 m2 in total. The carport has moved to the front of the house and will be a double instead of a single.

So, I hope this makes it easier to see the changes we are making to the space. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. I will try and reply within the comments section.

Functional with frills - Pantry, panic room & office nook combo

Panic room may not be exactly the right definition of what I mean. Unless it means somewhere to hide from your children with access to a computer and unlimited Tim Tams. In that case, it's spot on. I know the current trend is to have a butlers pantry, which I think is a miniature kitchen inside the pantry to conceal all the mess, but really, what fun is all that? Far better to have a small  room to blog uninterrupted than a closet to dump all the dirty dishes in I think.

So, given that it's come time to finalise our kitchen design and that includes our walk in pantry, I thought I would share what we are planning and get any tips from anyone who has an actual functional pantry. I personally have come from a tiny cupboard  so stuffed full of food that the garlic salt can never, ever be found when you need it, so I cannot imagine what it will be like to actually be able to put everything away, let alone be able to find it again.

Of course in my fantasies it will look exactly like this,

with all the milk glass lovingly displayed in neat rows with a gorgeous grey backdrop. Unfortunately, in the real world of Betsy, the pantry will actually be for..........gasp........... FOOD! I know, a complete styling nightmare but what can a girl do? After roaming around on pinterest ogling pantries, I have decided that what is really needed is a series of interconnected smaller and smaller pantries, kind of like in the 'Cat in the hat comes back' when he has a hat full of tinier and tinier cats named from A- Z.

Imagine, a pantry just to look gorgeous, then one to dump all the mess in, then another for the  milk glass, another for the pyrex, another one for an office, one for all the bulk goods and so on and so on. Don't giggle, someone is probably doing it now, for next months Belle magazine.

Anyway, back to the reality of only one pantry. This is the before shot. This small space is tucked between our bedroom and the existing kitchen. The previous owners were planning to turn it into an ensuite but instead became overwhelmed with the concept of a renovation and decided to ditch Betsy for a house that required no work. Luckily for us that meant no dodgy ensuite to rip out, just the bare bones of a very small room that we thought was in the perfect position for a pantry.

The doorway on the right ( which leads into our bedroom) will be closed over. A new doorway will be made on the left with a sliding door. The window will be replaced with a full width glass panel with a view out onto the side fence, with just a glimpse of the neighbouring house and lots of trees.

Below the window will be a bench with a stool and a filing cabinet to store all our paperwork. Above the window will be some shelves to store folders. Below the bench will be a filing cabinet and there will be a stool to perch on. Probably a  similar size to this, just add a window above the desk.

 When you enter the pantry you will be facing the left hand picture and the wall in front will have my teapot hooks and probably aprons and bags. To the right will be floor to ceiling shelves.

The opposite end to the window will have 500 mm deep pantry shelving almost to the ceiling to store large items and appliances. The shelves along left left hand wall in the photo below with have 300 mm deep shelving for all the pantry goods. The wall on the right will have no shelving but high up will be a large open space (which is above the fridge and microwave) to store eskies and probably the Christmas tree.

Given that the entire space is 1.2 m x 2.7m we hope that this is a functional use of quite a long narrow little room. I anticipate it being the place were bills are paid, food is stored, school paperwork is organised while still having enough frills that it will be a nice little nook to sit in and enjoy the view. Perhaps even nice enough to shut the door and hide in with a cuppa, and the floor to ceiling Tim Tams.

And speaking of doors, I'm quite liking that yellow one in the first pic. I had planned to get frosted glass doors to let in more light, but a solid colour painted door is also appealing. So given that my previous pantry space was about the size of a mini-bar, any tips or thoughts on general pantry design and function would be greatly appreciated. And answers to those pressing questions of course.

Would you paint your pantry door yellow?
Would you put an office nook in a pantry?
Would you like to able to lock yourself in your pantry too? (with internet access and chocolate).

Images that are not mine via 1.Remodelaholic  2. Thistlewood Farm 3. Apartment Therapy 4. Decor Pad

Husbands with opinions (and other annoyances)

Well, it's been a while between posts over here at Betsy's and it's all because there are goings on and also not so much going on at the same time. You see we are culling and sorting and giving away and selling on ebay in every spare minute that we have over here, but photos of my boot full of bags destined for the oppie were not inspiring a blog post.

 I do find that whenever I ruthlessly rifle through the kids stuff and give it away I am rewarded with op shop treasures. Hence the little trio of vintage sheets from my very local oppie that has never before produced sheets in the 2 years I have been visiting. All neatly folded and tagged and wrapped up with pink ribbon.

I even found the pink and yellow version of the purple and green floral that I  found months ago at the beach.

And the not much going on? Well that would be anything crafty, my overdue tax and our house plans. After taking nearly six months to actually agree on a floorplan, Legoman and I have kind of stalled on the details. Quite a few of the details in fact. The entire problem has arisen because Legoman has opinions on interior design. And is quite stubborn about it all. I am spending days fantasizing about him working on an oil rig whereby he would be away for months of the year while  sending back wads of cash for me to recklessly lavish on laundry splashbacks and undermount sinks. He would wipe his smelly, oily hands on his overalls and skype things like "Love, I'm not much into that design malarky, you just order whatever frosted glass pantry door takes your fancy".

The current list of items unable to be agreed upon is extensive and includes:

1. The freestanding stove- Eventually he will realize that I am not going to back down on this one just because he does not like the knobs

2. The kitchen bench thickness - who knew that was a whole debate topic in its own right and I am in  trouble with this one as he even has pictures stored in his ipad of the desired bench

3. The kitchen tap- I am actually prepared to give in on this one but plan to hold out to the last minute for leverage on other items

4. The entire vibe of the kitchen- he wants minimalist contemporary, I want a fusion of this plus vintage, hamptons,scandi,and farmhouse.  I plan to confound him with the sheer confusion of such a fusion and hope that he is willing to give this up for the tap that changes colour with hot and cold water.

5. The size and position of the TV- which then unfortunately has a flow on effect on the whole lounge room arrangement and window positioning. I now see that having only the tap as leverage is creating a problem

6. The laundry splashback- I can sense weakening on this front though, victory may be swift and absolute.

And you thought that Women's Olympic hurdle final was tense? That split second victory by Sally Pearson has nothing on the atmosphere over here at Betsy's.
I hadn't even included all the things that we don't agree on simply because neither of us can decide what to choose. That would include all the doors and windows, the back wall of the kitchen, storage and where the heck we are going to live when we go ahead with it all.

On a more positive note all this selling of unwanted stuff has generated $1600 towards the lovely freestanding stove that we can't agree on. And Legoman has designed the best walk in pantry a girl could ask for. And we have new building designer who uses a computer (instead of drawing everything by hand!) and the plans are due back in a week. We are hoping that having some 3D walkthrough images will solve some of these tricky decisions.

I think this was my first ranting post. Every girl needs a good rant every now and again I think.

Anyone else out there have husbands who like to meddle?
Or all you all lucky enough to have ones that say "Yes dear" while they take another call on their phone or start constructing that window seat you sketched on a serviette?

Plans for Betsy

Despite the fact that winter has arrived, miss Liongirl appears not to have noticed and is soldiering on with an alternating wardrobe of tutus and princess frocks. All of which are completely inappropriate and inadequate in coverage. She has not developed a relationship yet with ANY of the cardigans, coats or tights in her wardrobe.  I am endeavoring to choose my battles and bake cakes instead.

Oh and I'm poring over some house plans, trying to make some more decisions. Care to take a peek?

Well first let me show you Betsy in her current state.

The original part of Betsy has 3 bedrooms and a sleepout in the old front verandah. Can you see my miniscule kitchen probably shrunk down in order to fit Bed 4? Not only is it tiny, but it's also really dark and has a spectacular outlook onto the carport guttering. (Sarcasm inserted here).

 About 15 years ago, previous owners added a large granny flat linked to the house by the deck. The granny flat has quite small skinny rooms but includes a kitchenette and second toilet/shower. Mostly since we have lived here it has become a storage area for stuff that we are trying to sort and get rid of. It has at times been a great space for building lego train sets and I even cleared one end recently for my sewing gang. The deck is large but only one small section has a roof so  for much of the year it is either too hot to sit on or too wet to use.

Our goal was to create a more functional use of the space that we already have rather than increase the size of the house as Betsy already has quite a reasonable footprint on the block due to the granny flat. And did I mention that we have silk purse aspirations on a sow's ear budget?

So, here is what we have come up with.

Let me explain a little. The front part of the house (blue) will remain unchanged. Down the track we will probably steal a little space from Bed 2 to make the bathroom larger but  there is no budget for that right now.

The red box with the cross is a proposed addition of an ensuite and bedroom that we may get around to adding in 5-10 years. With small children we are completely used to having no privacy in the bathroom, one bathroom is less to clean and there is no budget for that either. However in a house this size we realize that most people would anticipate an ensuite so we didn't want to be short sighted and not leave room for one. The area would have skillion roof and would be simple to add later. The carport will move to the front of the house and become a double instead of a single. If we run out of money this may not happen either. We wanted to put it at the very front of the block but were unable to due to the fact that our house is on a corner   and the carport must be 9 metres from the boundary.

We plan to take out the wall between Bed 4 and the kitchen to make it  a much larger space and then close in the verandah along the side of the granny flat to link this area to the kitchen. This would create bigger, more functional rooms including a second living area, a small sewing room/study for me and the displaced 4th bedroom. These rooms will all face north and have an outlook over the garden. The yellow area marks out the only new footprint we are adding in order to fit a laundry/entry. The deck is a similar size but will have a gabled roof covering the entire area. The deck faces East and we wanted  a high roofline to maximise light into the house and also to make the most of a view onto the huge poinciana tree in our backyard.

At the moment the back of the house is a real dog's breakfast, with rooflines galore. Sorting out the new roofline has been the trickiest part. This is the granny flat end where the verandah will be closed in.

And the back of the house with about 8 square metres of deck that has a roof.

So, there you have it. If anyone else is like me and enjoys playing with floorplans, please let me know any ideas/criticisms you might have as we are still fiddling around a bit. Also if anyone has experience with either large span bifolds or stacking sliding doors, we would love to hear about that too as we are trying to choose between them. I am hoping to share my kitchen and laundry ideas soon too. 

In the meantime I  might just go and get miss Liongirl's clothes ready for tomorrow. Pink princess frock from op shop? Check. Tiara and matching bling necklace? Check. Tacky merchandised bike and matching helmet? Check. Equally nasty merchandised princess footwear? Check. Oh look, she's good to go.

Oh, it's a single digit temperature outside? I think I'll go and bake another cake.

Plans are afoot

Well, for anyone who has felt let down by the lack of renovating on this self proclaimed renovating blog, we are finally making some progress. We have some plans. Now, let me qualify that, we have fantastically detailed plans of our current house, complete with feature laundry in the lounge room , least functional kitchen in the entire universe and roofless deck rendered completely useless in the rain. And it has been raining in Brisbane for the better part of the last 18 months since we bought Betsy.

We also have a building designer who as we speak is making various changes to some concept drawings that plan to renovate Betsy on a pretty tight budget. We intend to take out a wall, put in a massive beam that spans the entire house, double the size of our kitchen and rebuild our rotting roofless deck with a new roof. She  also has some exciting ideas to link in the granny flat that was tacked on to the back about a decade ago.

To say I am excited is an understatement. As soon as we have some drawings we are happy with I will share all the details. Fingers crossed in the next week or two. In the meantime, to satisfy any renovation cravings I can heartily recommend a visit over to a very new blog I have just found where real actual renovating is happening daily as we speak. If you pop over to Rachael's house you will find walls that are already white (not custard and whinged about daily), a backload of posts about previous renovations and daily posts about an unfolding renovation of a glorious Queenslander house in northern NSW. Oh yes, and she has great taste in artwork, house styling and very cute children. Don't even get me started on the vintage wallpaper tree in the kids room, I am desperately plotting to replicate it somewhere in my house.

When I am not up late at night obsessing over kitchen layouts, I am finding things to do on endlessly rainy days with the kids.

A spot of baking. Yay for the discovery of dairy free chocolate chips. The pyrex birthday bowl is a gem to work with.

Some paper plane folding and racing.

Growing crystal gardens (lovingly chosen and gifted to me for my birthday)

And trawling the internet for inspirational invitation designs for one upcoming 6 year old birthday party. You'll never guess what kind of cake I have been begged to create this year.

Back soon with news. Could be a party, Betsy related or op shop love. Should be good either way right? Before I forget, if anyone else knows of any other blogs with actual renovations going on, I would love you to share, nothing better than living vicariously through other peoples renos when your own are slow going.