(upbeat music)
- We were looking for a fixer upper
when we bought this house and we were architects,
it's kind of a, maybe a rite of passage
to remodel your own house.
- When we bought it, you know, it was unique
and it was actually a one bedroom, one bath,
so we knew, you know, we were hoping to start a family
at some point that we wanted to have,
to add least one bedroom,
so there was kind of some functional pragmatic things
that we wanted to do.
For a lot of people the immediate response would be like,
oh well we have to do an addition.
But after kind of looking and thinking
and looking and thinking we realized,
well if we just kind of pushed this here
and moved that there.
- It was really chopped up
and so we had to kind of reconfigure it
without expanding the footprint.
We're 750 square feet to begin with
and now it's 850 on the main floor.
We enclosed the front porch
and back porch to gain a little bit of space.
And then we converted part of the attic to a loft space.
And then we also finished out the basement downstairs.
So I think we're around 1350 square feet right now.
With three bedrooms, two baths and a loft.
- So we almost really doubled the size of the house
without adding anything on.
- Most of the design I think you'll see,
is in the main floor of the house,
where you would call a great room.
We wanted to have one big open space,
but we also didn't want to create
kind of a bowling alley effect.
So we played around with the ceiling finishes
and textures and heights.
We vaulted the ceiling over the kitchen,
to get some natural light in and in the living space,
we exposed the original 1910 wood joists
and cleaned them up and refinished them.
To create a little bit more intimate space.
- So the challenge with creating this great room space
is that you basically have to come up with
one color pallet for your entire house.
Because it just wouldn't look right if you had
one distinct look in the dining room
and then one in the kitchen,
but yet they're really part of the same space.
And so what we chose to do, was focus on white bright walls,
the warmth of the wood, the dark floors throughout
and then to kind of define it, just a few colors,
that would really represent like our overall house.
And so for us it was kind of the sea blues
and this aqua green and this mustard yellow
and really that just evolved
from them being our favorite colors.
But we used those colors in ways where,
down the road if we were just like,
oh god mustard yellow, we hate that now,
that we could easily change it.
Oh hi, how's it going?
Hey let's follow you.
- We designed for livability and small space design,
so every nook and cranny gets used.
We don't waste any space,
we try to keep hallways, stairs, circulation,
down to a minimum so the rest of the space is usable.
One small space design we did in this house
was to eliminate swing doors on the inside.
Just because we didn't have a lot of room in the house.
So we opted for the sliding barn doors,
so that we could keep them open and closed without
taking up kind of valuable floor space from door swings.
- With having small children,
you know I could make them breakfast
and they can be eating breakfast in the morning
and I can be taking a shower
and actually be able to just like kind of peek in on them.
And it just makes the whole space a bit more livable.
There's definitely challenges that come with that to,
with small living and even this kind of doors.
You don't maybe have as much acoustic separation
or isolation as would be desirable.
But I think that's just one of the things
you just accept going in to small living
and that it's okay.
- Another small space design feature we did was
what we call our fauxdensza.
It serves as a guard rail for the stair
and its also bookshelf storage area,
for kids toys, art stuff, crayons, books.
- Our daughters' room, it's a very playful space,
it's very fun.
For us, because it's such a visible space it our house,
its really an extension of our living space,
we wanted it to feel very, very cozy, very warm
but we didn't want it to be overly girly necessarily.
So we chose this very deep dark color,
and that really contrasts with what's going on
in the other rooms of the house
that have these very bright white walls.
We were a little bit stumped at how we were going
to fit two kids in there
and with the two big sliding barn doors,
really we only have three walls to work with.
So that was a little challenging for furniture layout.
But you know, we made it work.
I think the other favorite space is the kitchen.
Like a lot of peoples homes it's really kind of,
the gathering space of the house.
It's where everyone tends to end up.
You know a lot of our meals,
we actually eat at our island versus our dining room table.
Even though it's four feet away.
So one thing that's actually been really popular on Houzz,
is our dog's built-in dog bowls.
When we were laying out our kitchen,
we realized that we don't have actually any wall space
available to keep and put two dog bowls.
So the microwave is hidden in the side cabinet,
as part of our island
and below that we made a custom cabinet,
with cut outs we could drop two dog bowls into.
Not only are they, you know a little bit out of sight,
out of the way but a little bit more elevated
for our large dog, which is nice.
It wasn't a big expense or anything like that
but a small move that I guess had a big impact.
Also the big windows that we put in,
that connect to the backyard.
A lot of evenings,
Kyle will be out playing with the kids in the backyard
and I might be prepping dinner or something
and that's really given us a sense of expanded living space.
Having that both that visual and physical connection
to the outdoors just makes it feel bigger.
It makes it feel like we have more options.
- We do have pretty overcast, kind of gray days
and so it's important to get as much natural light
as you can.
So we have maybe a little bit more glazing than most homes.
We also have our skylights in the kitchen and dining room.
The overhead light is a really different light quality.
So during the daytime,
we don't even have to turn on the lights inside our home,
unless we're working and might have a task light.
But other than that, it's all natural.
- The loft actually was a space that,
going in to the main remodel of this house,
we didn't know we were going to do.
It actually wasn't until demolition
and we were standing around with of our friends
and kind of looking at the space.
We started talking about like,
hey what would it be like if we actually
carved out some of that attic space and used it?
And so that's kind of where the idea of the loft was born.
We get a lot of questions and feedback about the ladder.
People want to know where they can buy it
and it is a totally custom thing,
that was designed specifically for our space.
I like that and it's one of those elements
that's not only obviously a very functional thing,
but it's also kind of the sculptural element in our house.
And its a nice focal point,
and when people see it they are like,
oh that's really cool.
And then they look up and they're like,
oh and what's up there?
And oh you have this neat space up there.
Its been a little bit of a challenge,
keeping our kids off of it
but I know that once they're old enough,
they're gonna love that space.
And they're gonna make it theirs.
During the course of remodel,
whenever we would do demolition
and occasionally under the plaster walls,
we would find kind of remnants of old wallpaper and things.
And right before our first daughter was born,
Kyle had actually commissioned one of our friends
who does a lot of paper collage artwork,
to create this art piece for the nursery.
Bits and pieces of this like old wallpaper,
throughout the house
and paint chips of all the paint colors that we used.
And its this kind of flower blossom, abstract piece.
For us, what it represents, is kind of the old life
and also like the new life of the house.
It's this really great piece of art
and it's also this reminder of like
the journey that our house has taken
and what it's turned into.
(upbeat music)