what we’ve got up our sleeves: the upstairs plans

Last week, we were thrilled to share a little bit of a catch-up post regarding all things progress with you, and then our plans for the main living area of our new little rehab purchase.

Also, making your face fit on other people’s heads is awkward.

And a few days ago, a little update on the pool. There’s a lot of fun to be had around here, y’all.

I mean, if we can’t laugh at ourselves…

And today, we wanted to go over the upstairs section of our little split level house. As we stated before, the home has a great footprint, and we plan to rehab the inside, as well as develop the basement {an update on the heels of this one} so that we have more living area for our family.

The initial redo will include the main living area, basement {currently the garage} and upstairs. The home was built in 1976, and the last remodel was in the early 80’s. It’s a true ranch/split level home, with a lot of potential. As it stands, it has 1700 existing square feet, so it’s a definite downsize for us. However, once we finish out the basement, we will have 2485 finished square feet. Down the line, we plan to expand into an addition… that location will be on the other side of the house.

We envision a place where our kids can invite their friends. Where teenagers come to hang out. This is our vision for our family, and we wanted to be intentional with our decisions for that. Which means mom and dad are in touch with what’s going on. We know we don’t have teenagers yet, but they do grow. Maybe it’s naive of us. Or not… as we did spend 12 years working closely with teens so we feel like we have a grasp on such things as both parents and mentors. Also, we were teenagers once. ;} So there’s a lot going into our thought process there. But that’s what we want for our kids. In theory, it will be fantastic because the kiddos will have their own side of the house as teens for entertaining, between the basement and pool area. Yes, we are thinking into the future big time because we wanted to make sure this home would last for us, if we were to invest all of the time, energy and funds into such a project for our family.

Because we had so much work in front of us, we decided to take out a rehab loan to make this happen. Rehab loans are possible here if you plan to change the square footage on your property. That was possible for us, because of our garage and our plans to finish it out. Our number one concern is our children. And what was best for our children and getting them settled, was this. I discussed a bit of this in our last post, but while we will probably take on the eventual addition ourselves, we needed help with the initial redo. When one takes out a rehab loan, they are required by federal law to have a contractor.

We heavily weighed the pros and cons on which avenue to take, before diving in. But relocating our family, establishing and expanding our business here, and tackling the rest of the homeschooling year were just too much at once, so we decided it was best for us to go this route. We needed a roof over our heads sooner than later, as we don’t want to live in my family’s apartment forever – we couldn’t have done this without their generous help, and that’s also not fair to them to drag it out. The house has to get to a certain level before moving in with our kids and construction dust is not on the docket with little lungs. So our reasoning was multifaceted. Plenty of projects and fine tuning still await, but the initial overhaul called for help with a home rehab from the studs up. It’s a lot to take on.

We are working with a fantastic contractor who understands what we do as a company. It can be complicated to explain things at times because sometimes we think it sounds kinda crazy ourselves. So we will be working mostly side by side with him on almost all of the projects, from demo to completion. A lot of it will be day to day, touch and go…  but this way we get the best of both worlds. For example, while Jamin is looking into pursuing his contractors license, we want the roof and new supports done correctly. And professionals are professionals for a reason. So we said all that to say, we very much hope to keep you posted step by step.

It’s an adventure to say the least, and we hope that clarifies what on earth we’re doing.

So up the stairs is where we all will be, for all things sleeping quarters, for a year or two anyway. Eventually each child will get their own little space, which we think will be what they will prefer the more they grow.

We plan to finish out the entire main living area and upper level with hardwoods, for a nice, clean classic feel throughout. We have wanted this for a while for a lot of reasons from design, to allergies. But visually, it will give it a nice clean classic look.

We also plan to scrape all the stamped ceilings for a cleaner look.

Rigby and Fitz won’t go up the stairs, by the way. We think it’s because they’re so steep right now and need to be brought up to code. The floors are currently laminate so it must feel odd on their nails. Or maybe it’s the scary ghost upstairs. We can’t decide. Interestingly enough, they have no troubles with the basement and sniffing out that creeptastic crawlspace.

First up: The hallway bathroom.

We’re here to show you the good, the bad and the ugly. The ugly would be this toilet. The initial photos may have made this tile seem charming. I’m sure it was once upon a time. Right now, we kind of want the pee stains and hair to go. Sorry not sorry.

The cabinets are cute but have definitely seen better days, as well.

We decided that since we’re doing the rest of the house, we may as well go ahead and do the bathrooms as well. I have this weird combo of feelings bordering on impending doom with a tummy ache and ridiculous excitement all at once.

Right now, this little built in area for the drop in tub has empty drywall to one side. We took a peek the other day with a casual hammer to the wall. It’s how we roll.

So we plan on opening this entire area. And to the right, we have an awkward closet with super {unnecessarily deep} storage space. We’re probably giving this more of a built-in cabinet function, and pushing it back to the depth of the tub/surrounding wall. There’s no way we could utilize a closet so deep, anyway.

It will definitely free up some space for the bathroom. PS. We never realized how smelly old closed up walls can be. Okay. That was me. Jamin asked if I was expecting rainbows and butterflies, but really I just want to make things look pretty and skip the pee stained parts.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere about pee stains being what make things interesting and beautiful.

T-shirts coming soon.

Up and across the hall, we have what will eventually be Malone’s own room.

He’s a huge fan of that peeling wallpaper and lilac color, and begged us to leave it.

JK. He’s going through a phase where he won’t go anywhere alone, so the idea of having his own room is terrifying since he’s always shared one with big brother. We think it’s adorable until he starts screaming at us for leaving him in the bathroom. It’s probably the pee stains.

Until we are completely finished with the basement, and Malone is ready for his own room, this space will be their study/school room for at least the first year. We haven’t decided what we’re doing with school yet, but the school we’re zoned for has received nothing but praise and accolades, and we’ve spoken personally with the principal. If we’ve learned one thing about our family, it’s the importance of our kids having a quiet space to spread out and study/do homework/whatever they need to accomplish. We eventually hope to move this space downstairs into the basement when it’s completed. This will also be our “studio” as we currently still need a home office until we complete our addition which includes plans for an upper level studio.

It’s about to get interesting.

This existing bookcase holds the ventilation system that comes out on the small stairwell on the other side. We’d like to move that giant vent to the ceiling, to make the staircase more attractive since it’s a current eye sore from every part of the lower level.

Right now, this closet backs up to the next room. And it’s a shallow space with a really tight squeeze. It’s very awkward to get to the back of the closet. See awkward photo taken while squeezing into the back. Since the next space over will be Aiden’s room, we think a connecting closet just like our old home would really open up the space for them. They had so much fun with it last time, it only includes a little extra flooring after knocking out that wall and reformatting the shelves. That’s definitely something we would do again, with some fun barn doors for character. We were amazed by how much more space it gave them for all things toys… every inch counts. 

We were sad we couldn’t take these doors with us.

This room will eventually be Aiden’s… with his own little connecting closet. But for now, this will be the shared space for all the kiddos in what we shall refer to as their sleeping room.

Getting them settled has been what I’ve been focused on more than anything, because we want them to be comfortable with where they are. But kids are also resilient and this is a fun little adventure and I need to remember things don’t have to be perfect.

We think they’ll have fun in here together once they’re settled but will also be playing it by ear to do what they want. It will be a bit of a squeeze for the first year or two, but well worth it in the end. There’s a reason they have a giant yard. With that amazing cesspool.

No worries, because that red burns our corneas and is going.

There’s actually a closet in between the boys’ future rooms, that backs up to their closet. Right now, it’s the only access to the attic {crazy} so we’ll be adding major shelves to this closet for much needed linen storage, and a new drop down access to the attic in the hallway.

For the first year {or so} this will be our master suite.

Eventually, it will be Emerson’s room, since she’s the only female of the offspring variety, and will probably want more privacy in the future with her own bathroom.

One of the things we love about this house, is that the bedrooms are nice and spacious. It’s an older home, so the walls for the most part, have simple lines. But we believe one of the reasons this home sat on the market for so long, was because of the existing master.

People walked in, and had no idea what to do with it.

I think we’re still trying to figure out what to do with it.

In terms of adding on, the house will be great. But there is that in-the-meantime phase, where this will be our bathroom. And eventually hers. Needless to say, I reheeeaallly miss our old tub. ;}

For some reason, the photos make it look absolutely tiny. And while it’s a squeeze, it’s not awful. It’s almost perfect for a growing girl. We’re just thinking about those teenage years. And all things storage for the endless montage of beauty supplies that are sure to come.

Heck. All things my beauty montage that are sure to come. This takes work, people.

So we’re in the process of beginning demo, and really planning around some of these tricky parts. We would like to figure out a way to combine the closet and bathroom in one, and make the bathroom just a smidgen bigger to allow for that much needed space. Almost wondering if we should gut out the entire thing, and bring the closet out a bit, making it a part of the bathroom. OR having a walkthrough closet into the bathroom to give us just a little more space. We would definitely have to pull it off in a way that makes the most sense visually. And right now we’re not sure that makes sense.

Stay tuned.

So that pretty much concludes our upstairs plans. We will be completely redoing the bathrooms, floors and scraping those ceilings. They’ll also get a few little tweaks  in the form of closet improvements and layout with storage, but nothing as major as the downstairs or basement. This sweet little house is in the process of some big changes, and we love making it work for us and our family’s needs. For both the present and future.

Do your kiddos share a space? Any ideas for the tiny bathroom and closet layout? Have you tackled a rehab?

We’re in this together, and we’d love to hear your own thoughts and experiences!