Ready to be Underwhelmed?

As you've seen, there's loads going on inside the house and unless you've come for a visit, I haven't really described what the layout is like.

I haven't a clue what you think the exterior looks like but here it is:

Yep, that's it.  Not so exciting from the outside.  Here's more.

No not a dirt track but our driveway

Looking downhill at where the driveway meets the road

Bet you're even more underwhelmed.  And likely wondering where oh where in the middle of nowhere we will be living.

So here's the (brief) story.

Part of the old house (yellow building) was built a long long time ago.  Ha ha ... I have no clue.  Initially, it was thought that the 'cottage' could've been built circa 1930 but since Steve has begun knocking walls and uncovering the original layout he thinks it probably was even earlier than that.
There was some major refurbishment in the 1980s with an addition added and a new roof at this point (which helped hide the fact that a fireplace was hiding in that really thick bedroom wall).  The layout of this cottage had 3 small bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room, and bathroom.

In 2008, the previous owners got planning permission and built a dormer extension which now houses all the bedrooms and bathroom.  They had plans to renovate the old cottage to contain just the living spaces but then decided to put the house up for sale.  Though the dormer extension is mostly finished (it's floored, bathrooms completed, electrics done) since the owners knew their plan was to move, they never actually lived in the new extension.  As you can see, the new front entrance is between the old house and new extension.

So this is where we come in and why we get to knock loads of walls.  And while there's lots of work to be done inside, there's clearly even more work to be done on the grounds as well which at the moment is a lot of overgrown hilly mounds of hairy grassy weedy rocky land.

Which brings me to mention, this is surprisingly not in the 'middle of nowhere' but seriously only 5 minutes from town and our current house!

And also on the site are OUTBUILDINGS!  I would call them sheds but you don't understand how excited Stephen was about the OUTBUILDINGS!

I was rather indifferent at the time we bought but now I'm eyeing up one of these for a potting shed as I'm beginning to dream about all the GIY veggies and plants I'll have next year.  Dreams!

Dining Room Door Decision About-Face

STOP!!!!!

Forget the decision made re. the last post on our sliding central dining room doors and all my humming and hawing about it.  We went back into the house today to have a look around at what was completed over the last week.  And for some reason after standing in the 'play room', both Stephen & I came to the same conclusion that a single door placed laterally would just suit better.

The play room space hasn't changed much at all.  We moved a window.  And a small part of the wall was knocked out to put a door in for the the study/spare bedroom.  But the area and dimensions are exactly the same.  It's quite a cozy room so I think the idea of central doors opened it up too much and also decreased the usability of storage, play area, or couch placement.

So the idea of being able to supervise better into the playroom has been scrapped.  But that's not that big a deal as there are loads of times the little one is out of sight when she's playing away.  So here are my two favourite pictures of the kind of hanging/sliding door we're looking for.  Now to just source it.

Visions of Pocket Doors Dance in my Head

Our latest big decision has needed to be made regarding the doors leading from the kitchen/diner and into the 'playroom' or den.  I always envisioned having lovely french doors in this space because:

1. I LOVE french doors
2. It would bring light from the playroom into the dining room (which lacks windows as it is in the middle of the long space
3. I could keep an eye on the baba while she is happy self-entertaining and I am whipping up a domestic goddess feast (in my dream world)
4. I LOVE FRENCH DOORS

Come on, how can you not love THIS ....

But in addition to french doors, I've always loved the look and idea of pocket doors.  They just make sense.  No swinging arcs.  No wasted wall space.  So I got fixated.  I WANT POCKET DOORS.  I NEED POCKET DOORS.

But we have a problem.  The way the space is designed, the dining room table will be placed directly in front of those doors.  I think that's fine.  I think there's enough space to walk around it.

But then when Sinead, Stephen's cousin and an architect questions the practical flow of the space ...  And Steve, our contractor, also wants verifications that that's what we really want...  And Colin, our kitchen guy, also questions the central placement of the doors AND makes you think about whether the dining space may lack intimacy...  And Stephen, my dear hubby, reminds me that we'll need to keep the playroom tidy if visitors can always see directly into it via the french doors .... well, it makes me re-think this plan.

So it's been an evolution (much like all my decision making processes) that followed along like this:

POCKET FRENCH DOORS ... LOVE

POCKET SOLID TIMBER DOORS 

(OPEN to watch the baba, CLOSED to hide the mess)

Super size single sliding door, positioned laterally to avoid  having to walk around the table
(and btw, our finished product will not be gorgeously spacious or look as fabulous as
this drool worthy table and dining area!)

Then we re-measured the space and our dining room table.  The first and very clear decision was that the extra wall depth required to fit a pocket door would eat into the dining room area too much.  So we will just go with a sliding door fixed to the wall.

Next evolutionary step - Sliding door hung directly to wall or door frame
... and I love this barn door type railing system

And we also realized that the width of the dining room is the exact width of our current dining room!  But our table is positioned along the longside of the room instead of across it, which is the dilemma with these centrally placed doors.  As below:

So we turned the table the other way and positioned it in front of those central doors and have left it like that for the last few days to get a feel for moving around the table.  And you know what?!  It's just fine.  So that leaves us with our final decision.  Double doors, placed centrally and hung on the playroom side so that from the dining room, it will be framed by the door frame, but on the other side will hopefully be hung with these type of barn-style sliding tracks.

Kinda like this ... but I think we'll go for a painted wood finish instead!

Decision made! Woo hoo!  Completed pics will definitely not be ready until the very end so I will have to post that MUCH MUCH later.  But now just to try to find the right door ......

Who Needs Walls II

So I was finally able to get back to the house for some updated pictures!

I'm not sure if I've said before, but there is a main structural wall that goes down the centre of the old house.  We didn't think it was possible to do anything with it, so when we first saw the house and plans, we thought we could take down the other non-structural walls to create larger living spaces instead of 5-6 small pokey rooms. Stephen has a cousin who's an architect and we thought we'd ask her to give the house a look over just to get a professional opinion.  Well folks, professionals are there for a reason and if you are ever doing anything major to your house, I'd highly recommend consulting one!

Sinead looked around and though I'm paraphrasing, essentially said, "Get rid of that central wall.  It hits you in the face as soon as you walk in."

So that is what we set about doing.

Well, we just made the decision, Stevie (our contractor) is making it reality.  It apparently is as simple as putting a steel supporting beam in place, but hey, I know nothing about structural integrity so  I think this is a pretty massive undertaking.  We aren't knocking out the whole central wall but just about a 6 foot section to join the kitchen/dining room and living space.  The wall has been knocked out for awhile but this week the supporting beam and lateral concrete pillars are in place. 

The most obvious change can be seen in this before and after pic taken from the kitchen.

So here we are now with the kitchen wall taken down (the right wall) and the open central wall space.  The difference in space and light is just crazy! 

Again, looking from the kitchen, this is the before and after:

From the other direction, looking into the house from the old exterior door:

And here's a different perspective I've not introduced yet.  This door connects the old house (where we're renovating) to the bedroom extension (which was completed before we bought).  It used to be an external door but just hasn't been changed yet.  In this pic, we're standing in the entrance hall looking into the hallway going into the old house.  

Directly ahead is the central wall which you can see does 'hit you in the face' when you walk in.

And now with the hallway walls gone and the central opening.  And thankfully the doors aren't directly opposite each other.  Gotta think about that feng shui!

Let's talk Floors

This week has been nuts and I've needed to be in Dublin the last 2 weekends so I haven't been out to the house to take new pictures.  So as I don't have any photos to back up anymore wall demolition and construction updates, I might as well move on to other fun stuff .... FLOORS!

So, as most of our living space is going to be open plan, we decided to go with the same type of flooring throughout.  I think it will be more streamlined (and it cuts down on me having to search for and make a separate decision about tiles too!).  Trolling through the internet, drooling over different flooring is akin to the time spent looking for the 'ideal kitchen' and the excitement while searching for the 'perfect wedding dress'.  Unfortunately, when you enter the showrooms, the dreaming becomes shortlived as Practicality and Budget begin to rear their necessary but clearly less indulgent personalities.  I've been into Bruce (our floor guy) a number of times, humming and hawing over real wood vs laminate flooring (I'll do a separate post on that point!) and getting samples.  He has been incredibly patient with all my questions and probably thinks I have NO IDEA what I'm looking for as I've borrowed samples that couldn't be more different from each other.  This is sort of how my flooring desires evolved ....

In the beginning, I loved the look of glossy and dark hardwood.  It is rich and classic and would marry beautifully with the classic creamy kitchens that I had been looking at.  Kinda like these:

And then I began to worry about long-term care, scratches, wearability.  So I switched gears and fell in love with older looking oak or pine, reclaimed wood boards, anything that lends itself to a cottagey or farmhouse feel:

And then one day I was in a kitchen showroom where a part of their floor was laid with a very light wood laminate, think white ash or Scandinavia.  And that very same day I came across 2 pictures of kitchens with a similar type of floor AND kitchen features that are similar styles to what I'm looking at:

And armed with this last love of light wood flooring, we went to the floor guy a few weeks ago to narrow things down in terms of what I could get within our budget (actually, Stephen went with me and gave me the ultimatum that I could leave with no more than 2 samples from which our floor must be chosen from).  So I am still undecided but atleast I'm down to 2 options, DARK or LIGHT.  Here are my last 2 model images, and sorry, the darker floor is mostly covered by an area carpet (!) but it's the best pic I could find that also incorporated the look and feel of the kitchen that I'm thinking about!

 ..... or ......      What do you think?

(and btw ... all these pics are from my Pinterest boards so if you want to find original sources, find me there!  I couldn't figure out how to embed pics from Pinterest or the source directly into the blog!)