New York Renovator

It’s probably difficult for you to “see” exactly how the walls and floor plan of the house look. Pictures can only do so much, it seems. I’m trying to take “before” and “after” photos to help you visualize the radical changes we are implementing here. Here’s one:

This is a view of part of the kitchen before we removed all the cabinets. Note the laundry room wall to the right of The Hubs. I have hated that room ever since we bought the house. It’s a long, narrow little hallway with a washer crammed in one on side, and a dryer crammed in on the other, and two doors in between them. Very awkward.

My daughter is standing where the laundry room door once stood. It was quite an adventure to get that wall down. You can read a fanciful rendition about it at Chuckella Norris Strikes Again. Actually, the entire demolition scenario was like effective hair growth shampoo– hair-raising and hair-pulling all at the same time. :S Ah, but now it is over. I’m praying for smooth sailing.

Opening up this area makes a world of difference. And we also removed a small partition on the other end of the kitchen, leading to the dining room. The original entry into the dining room was a very narrow, cobbed-up doorway. It was knuckle-scraping to carry a laundry basket through the doorway, let alone have four kids clear the dining room table after dinner! So we removed the two studs there (they were not load-bearing) and opened up the space. WOW what a difference. The kitchen is really huge (12 x 23).

Yuk.

We removed the wall where the refrigerator stood in the previous photo.

We intend on installing a half wall where the refrigerator once stood. I’ll have plants there and a base cabinet or two, for the purpose of serving dinnerware for the dining room. I think the flow of the kitchen will greatly improve.

Our rebuilding process begins this week!!

My 1855 house is badly designed, I think. It has a great center hall style, but after that, the floorplan falls apart. For one, the living room is off to the side in a separate wing, all by itself. The room was cold (until I gutted it and insulated it). And to be in that room, you are separated from the rest of the house. NOT a good idea when you have a bunch of boisterous brandishing toy swords and having “lightsaber duels” in front of your glass-windowed china cabinet in the dining room, lol. And the upstairs bedrooms have a very poor floorplan– three of the bedrooms are small and awkward sizes– 10 x 12, and two 8 x 14. Veyr hard to fit 6-foot-long beds in those rooms, believe me. But the only other bedroom is huge– 15 x 17. That’s too big.

Well, anyway, I;m going on and on because I saw this amazing video about a HUGE underground ant colony. It is WEIRD. Scientists filled the ant holes with tons of concrete, waited for the concrete to dry, and then started digging. What they found was pretty amazing.

Isn’t it wild?!

I’ve always preferred drawing my house plans and ideas on graph paper, by hand. As much as I love the computer, and as much as I have incoporated a lot of my tasks to it, I just can’t seem to leave the age-old tradition of graph paper and pencil (and for me, a big eraser). I have seen some pretty fancy computer software in stores recently, that promise to help you design, plan, envision, and do everything for your home plans. I tried one of these programs, about 10 years ago, and I hated it. Software has come a long way, I know, but… is the software really worth it? Has anyone tried it and liked it?

The software is pricey, too– I’ve seen it listed for over $50 and some is as high as $100. Consider that when you realize that graph paper is $3 for 50 sheets, and pencils are just pennies (and if you are really cheap, you can always grab some of those promotional pens that businesses give away, for free).
The only problem with hand-drawing a floor plan are the multitudes of changes that you make on the paper. I like my plans to look neat; and a paper can only take so much erasing. So I have drawn tons and tons of floor plans, each with various changes. I’ve lost track of them all. :S Software has the benefit of instantly saving everything. But the software programs just don’t seem to be precise enough, unless things have changed and programs have realy improved. I have to recreate another floor plan for my first floor and I’m dreading having to draw it all over again. But on the other hand, I really wonder if software will be accurate and if I can learn the program quickly enough. What do you think?

I heard about this new website through Kim Komando, Floorplanner.com. It’s a site that helps you develop floor plans. Or, if you just want to rearrange the furniture, it’ll help you do that, too. It’s really fun! It’s the best little floor planner I’ve ever tried. You can drag and drop, etc., and it looks like they have all sorts of furniture options, and more– even a spiral staircase! Hmm, now if I can just figure out where to put the hdmi cables and stuff…

The registration is free for personal use, but requires an email (don’t they all?). The website privacy policy says it will not spam you without your permission, lol! I’ve signed up for a bunch of new websites and networks, and my email address has been spammed. I don’t care, because I didn’t use my personal email. I don’t think this site will intentionally spam you, but it helps to be aware of such things these days.