Our Home: Framed Window Progress

Every Friday I plan on sharing updates on our home rebuild progress, some of these posts will be exciting some mundane. Regardless, I'm happy use my blog as a journal in our adventures of re-building our beloved 1956 rancher. Quick reminder

last week

construction began on our home, removing the garage and starting the the framing for our Garage expansion and house addition. Read more about our floor plan changes

here

. So far this week, most of our new windows in our house have been framed. Which is a such a good feeling, heck seeing any change to our home is a good feeling, lol. Friday they'll be pouring cement for our garage floor and and addition. 

This is the current view of Avery's new twin windows. We decided to replace the sliding glass door with a pair of windows. I was never thrilled about the idea of sliding glass doors in his room, so this change is a good thing. I think these windows will provide so much natural light, one thing I did like about the sliding glass door. I can already picture roman shades on his windows and even see him standing at the window looking out side. 

Another view of the windows, looking towards closet area. 

Here's the frame for our new bedroom window, the old window on the left will be going soon. The window will be replaced by our master bedroom expansion of a walk in closet, bathroom & french doors. If you noticed our new window is taller than the old its bringing the house up to current code.  

The window below belongs to Tabari's bedroom, we've decided to make his window smaller and have it match our window size. We fill the 6ft window in a such a small room over powers the space. Again his window is also taller than it once was due to code. 

For the time being almost all of our house is temporarily 'wrapped' in plywood to protect it from the elements. Looking forward to our new house siding, then it will start looking more like a house. That's it for this weeks blog worthy progress, I sparred you all the plumbing pictures, and new sewer clean-out pictures although I'm happy about those too :) Hey it all adds up right? 

Our Home: Floor Plan Changes

As I mentioned on Tuesday  in my post about our new living room ideas we decided to make some changes to our homes layout. In case your a new reader to Chic Little House, we lost over 97% of our belongings and house due to a fire in July 2012 you can read more about the fire here. We like the original layout of our small home, but wanted the living room/ dining / kitchen areas to feel more open to each other. But we still wanted to keep the integrity of  1950's rancher and not make any major changes that our existing layout feel off. Some of the changes we decided on our minor tweaks that still leave us giddy, those minor tweaks are simple to make in our home since its been completely gutted down to the studs. Now the big changes make me wanna do cartwheels with the anticipation of what's to come! I still plan on doing a floor plan before and after, but still need more time playing around with a layout designer. First up the minor changes we are making to our houses layout 

Minor Changes 

• Enlarge doorway between Living / Dining & Kitchen
• Rearrange Linen closet layout 
• Remove Master Bedroom Closet - creating a nook area
• Replace sliding glass doors in Nursery with a pair of windows 
• Enlarge Main bathroom window 

Our Thought Process

I've wanted to enlarge the doorway between the living room and dining room forever, so when our house was down to the studs, we decided it now or never. We went back and forth between making it really open between both areas, but in the end decided we like the idea of our front door open to a small wall way instead of nothing. Our new opening is still much wider than the old one and will still allow our house to feel open. The photo below illustrates, how our rooms will still feel open in relation to each other.  

(via Pinterest)

Here's how the opening currently looks, before it was a very small opening. Now its super open, too much for our tastes. But all that will change soon. 

The plan is for the back of the door to 'hit' the wall, still giving us a nice big opening to see into the dining room and kitchen. I like that I'll still have a little wall real estate behind the door, not enough for the picture ledges we once had there. But I have other plans now, so its OK. 

I'm also excited about the change in Avery's nursery, I loved all the natural light his sliding glass doors provided but never like the idea of them being in his room. A pair of twin windows, like in the picture below has me excited try some and sew some DIY Roman shades in a fun print! You can read more about my ideas for his big boy room here. 

(via Pinterest)

Big Changes 

• Update Kitchen layout from 'L Shape' to 'U Shape' kitchen
• Remove hallway closet (makes the kitchen & main bathroom larger) 
• Flip Plumbing in Hallway bathroom (swap toilet and vanity layout)
• Laundry / Mudroom Addition 
• Create access to backyard from inside house (with out using a bedroom access) 
• Push Garage forward 5ft for laundry room addition (more details soon)
• Master Bathroom / Walk-in Closet Addition 
• Add French Doors in Master bedroom that lead to backyard 
• Widen Garage door from 8ft to 10ft 

Our Thought Process

As progress on our house continues  I'll have more in-depth posts about the changes we are making, for now this is a glimpse of our plans. Again, I have to stop my self form doing a cartwheel whenever I think about the big changes! First up improving our kitchen's layout from a dysfunctional L Shape into a Functional U Shape. The new layout will allow our kitchen to work for us and give it better flow. The new layout will also provide us with more counter space, more storage which will help my stay organized. To create our kitchen U Shape, we got rid of an awkward bump out that took precious space away from our kitchen and bathroom. The bump out was actually a hallway coat closet, we decided to remove. With a small home like ours every inch is vital and we'd rather have a roomier kitchen and bathroom then a storage closet we rarely used. I've been pining kitchen images like crazy and will share more of my ideas for our new kitchen in upcoming posts. For now here's a U Shape kitchen I adore. 

Remember the picture from our house progress last Friday? The frame out is for our bedroom addition!! So excited to see progress happening at our house. Click here to see more of the progress so for on our home. Our plan is to transform our basic 1956 rancher bedroom into a master suite, complete with a walk in closet, french doors to our backyard and a bathroom. Another bathroom in our house is a must, since were a family of four. I'm also thankful to have my own bathroom (OK, I'm sharing with my hubby, but still :)  I've been gathering inspiration ideas and can't wait to share more about our plans. I've always wanted french doors in my bedroom and so happy it's becoming a reality. This picture makes my heart skip a beat, our setup will look different but you get the idea.  

(via Pinterest)

Just a reminder every Friday I will be sharing weekly updates of our house being rebuilding progress. While all the new things we are doing to our house is exciting, I'm more excited about filling our home with love and laughter when we move back in. Keeps things in prospective, a home you love is more mean-fulling sharing it with those you love. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about our floor plan changes, I'd be happy to answer them.