It's Great To Be Home

The Flip: Kitchen Cabinetry

October 25, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 10 Comments

Cabinetry is so important – especially in a kitchen, and especially in a kitchen with an open layout. Not only do the cabinets need to offer lots of storage and functionality for cooking and casual dining, but they need to be beautiful and help create a workable flow throughout the entire kitchen, family room and dining area (some would call it a great room, so let’s go with that). That’s a tall order!!

The cabinetry at the flip is going to be beautiful but it’s been very tricky to figure out. We’ve been through about 4 rounds of drawings, and realized at the last minute that we didn’t have enough space between the kitchen and the family room to have bar stools on the back of the island, so then we were scrambling to find another place to put them.

After lots of consideration, here’s a rough rendition of the layout we created for the great room:

(There are upper cabinets on the back elevation of cabinetry but I couldn’t figure out how to put them in the rendering. Sorry, you’ll have to use your imagination!)

We decided to do a peninsula at the end of the back wall of cabinetry, and I think it’s going to be awesome – much better than our original plan, actually. By extending the cabinetry towards the French doors and then extending the peninsula out into the space, the room will feel more balanced whereas before everything was skewed towards the fireplace wall.

We’ve been agonizing over where to place pendants – over the island or over the peninsula? I think we’ve finally decided to hang them over the island but who knows, that could change again. :)

This is what the back elevation of cabinetry will look like:

This peninsula will extend from the right side of the pantry and will be parallel to the French doors:

When you’re facing the fireplace from the kitchen, this is what the island will look like:

And here is the view of the island from the family room:

Whew!! We went through lots of trial and error, but I think we finally got it right. I’ll be on pins and needles for the next few weeks, waiting to see how the finished cabinets look!

Getting You Up to Speed On Our Flip

September 30, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 18 Comments

Whew, where to begin?!?

Even though it probably seems like yesterday’s announcement came out of the blue, the truth is that we’ve been busy little bees behind the scenes for weeks now trying to make sure we were ready to hit the ground running once we got the keys. That means meetings with contractors, plumbers, electricians, foundation companies, and tree trimmers intermingled with visits to tile stores, etc. and lots of web browsing for deals. There’s so much to tell you guys about!

But first things first – here’s a quick little tour of our new victim renovation project:

(Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for the hideous photos – I lost one camera and misplaced the charger for another camera so these are all iPhone pictures taken on the fly).

Front of the house:

(This house has 2,570 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and was built in 1970.)

Entryway opening into formal living room:

Tray ceiling with funky curves in entryway:

Formal living room and formal dining room:

From entryway into family room:

Family room towards entryway:

Family room looking into covered patio:

Family room looking into kitchen and breakfast room:

Kitchen looking into family room on the left and formal dining room straight ahead:

Kitchen looking into formal dining room:

Kitchen looking into breakfast nook:

Breakfast nook looking into covered patio (that has been enclosed with French doors):

Covered patio looking into breakfast room:

Looking from master bedroom across covered patio into breakfast room:

Looking from breakfast room across covered patio to master bedroom:

Master bedroom:

Master closet:

From master closet to master bathroom:

Separate room in master bath with toilet and shower/tub:

The shower/tub side of the room:

Hallway connecting master bedroom, 2 other bedrooms, and a bathroom:

Second bedroom:

Jack ‘n Jill bath connecting 2 bedrooms and serving as the guest bathroom for the house:

Shower and toilet area of jack ‘n jill bath:

Third bedroom:

Laundry room area between the garage and kitchen:

Fourth bedroom off of the laundry room:

Bathroom connecting the 4th bedroom and laundry room:

Another view of the bathroom:

The shower:

The backyard:

Over the next few weeks you’ll read plenty on my thoughts about what needs to be changed about the house, but for now – what do you think? What’s your favorite thing about the house, and what did you see that you absolutely could not live with?

Want to see how our last flip turned out? Read all about it here.

Before & After: Excellent Exterior

August 20, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 8 Comments

Back when we were looking for another house to flip, we ran across this little number:

Not too cute, is it? {And trust me, it was even less cute in person.}

We didn’t wind up snatching it up but another investor did. It’s back on the market now and I am in love with the exterior transformation!! Check it out:

Here are some of the changes that jump out at me:

Adding shutters made the windows appear larger, more important and more in scale with the size of the house.
A neutral gray/brown paint color & coordinating new roof reduces contrast and makes the house appear larger. The white trim is so fresh and really pops {and those new windows certainly don’t hurt}.
The addition of a railing around the porch makes it feel friendly and invites you to sit down and stay awhile.
New carriage style garage doors are a vast improvement over the old doors that were literally falling off their tracks.
Tidy landscaping in contrasting colors shows off the house, and the topiaries framing the house on the left add some much-needed symmetry to the home.

What do you guys think of the transformation? Would you have done something differently?

P.S. I’m not sure why my bulletpoints have transformed into stars. Hmm…