Flip #1: Meet My Childhood Home

Here she is.

My family home. The home that I lived in from birth until age 19 when I moved out to be closer to my college campus, and of course the home that I returned to every weekend and holiday to visit my mom.

Built in 1968, it is your typical traditional ranch style home which is the most common architectural style for our region, and my parents were the original owners.

The Sunroom

The house, when built, was around 1600 sq ft, but my dad enclosed the porch and routed HVAC to it creating, by definition, a sunroom- although we just referred to this room as “the back room,” and in my lifetime it was used as our family computer room.

After the sunroom enclosure the square footage was brought up to 2050 sq ft. I’ve always loved the exposed brick wall back here and the bank of windows along the back wall that poured natural sunlight into the room. It was absolutely brimming with potential.

THE “BONUS ROOM”

But my dad didn’t stop there. The man couldn’t sit still. When I was in 5th or 6th grade he decided that our home’s ample attic space was a missed opportunity for a second story. So he transformed our single story home into a two story with his DIY addition of a 600 sq ft heated and cooled “bonus room,” before those were even a thing. I can remember this transformation happening and not thinking anything of it, wasn’t it perfectly normal for parents to add a story onto their homes…?

Check out those stairs.

This was all before HGTV and Pinterest and, gasp- the internet even, so he did all of this out of his own brain.

The upstairs was my domain. A clubhouse of sorts. That “stage” (which is raised to accommodate for the vaulting of the living room ceiling below) is where my band practiced. It’s true- if you thought I looked familiar all this time it’s because I was the rhythm guitarist- and for a stint the bass guitarist- in the wildly famous all girl band Aquarius, which was later renamed That Great Band after learning with palpable heartbreak that there was already a band called The Age of Aquarius. The band broke up in mid-high school citing artistic differences as the reason for our demise.

After purchasing the home but before getting started, I brought in two different home inspectors to inspect all of my dad’s handy work, and I was terrified. None of this extreme change was done to code, and I was certain that the entire upstairs would need to be ripped out and the ceiling patched up like it never existed. This would have broken my heart as I felt it would have deleted some relic of my dad’s legacy.

Against all of my expectations, when I brought in two sets of home inspectors they both said a version of “I WANT to hate this. Everything in me wants to say that this is bad and wrong and needs to be ripped out, but I actually kind of love it and have serious respect for your dad for doing all of this himself.”

The stairs, though steep, were all uniform in distance, head clearance was to code, joists were all present and accounted for. In that moment I felt an overwhelming surge of pride for my dad, and I had an intense desire and newfound motivation to make him proud of me in return by doing this renovation justice.

But all tenderness aside, there was some dated and ugly stuff in this house, guys. I mean.

ENTRY/FORMAL LIVING

Those posts “defining” the formal living room had to go. In fact the formal living had to go altogether. Nobody does formal anymore. “Please, won’t you come and sit in my well defined parlour and drink some tea. Let’s first, though, walk past the perfectly good couch and loveseat in my first living room to get there. Ah, yes, that’s much better. I’m exhausted from that walk and in great need of this tea.”

Yeah those dark, ugly, dated, and unnecessary posts had to GO. This room would become a study with a set of two sliding barn doors to give privacy if desired.

LIVING ROOM

The living room lacks any natural light as it has no windows of its own. To remedy that I would remove what was originally the sliding door to the patio, now an unused and cumbersome door to The Sunroom (I had of course taken to calling “the backroom” “The Sunroom” because it was about to become classy, so it might as well start acting the part.) This would become a large opening and would let in plenty of natural light. I also would paint all of the trim and the fireplace white to brighten it up majorly. Also, can we get some shiplap up in here? Mama needs some ‘lap. Out would go the bookcase to the left of the fireplace, in would go some shiplap in its place- picking back up on the other side of the fireplace.

What was the point of that pass through window to the kitchen with a doorway to just *walk* into the kitchen right next to it? That had to come out to open up the living room to the dining and kitchen. However, that wall was a load bearing wall, and a beam would need to be added to ensure that the house didn’t cave in. That would be sad.

KITCHEN

The kitchen just needed your typical cosmetic updates. Ivy wallpaper, you’ve seen your last days. Goodbye to you and your matching fruit border friend.

My mom had new granite countertops installed a few years ago before her memory really went downhill, and while they weren’t my personal first choice in color I knew that I could design around them and make them look intentional, saving beaucoups of money that desperately needed to be spent elsewhere.

LAUNDRY ROOM

The laundry room is HUGE, which was unheard of for a home of this era. It doubled as my mom’s sewing room, and I knew it would make a fantastic mudroom with all of that space and being right off of the garage. It had to have built in mud cubbies. I vividly pictured a young family coming home from school and hanging up their backpacks on little hooks in this room while kicking off their shoes and filling their mom in on their school day. MUD CUBBIES OR BUST.

HALL BATH

The hall bath had seen better days.

Can I start by saying that the ceiling in this hall bathroom dropped down to SEVEN FEET? Seven. For no reason. No other room in the house had a ceiling this low. The vanity counter was also weirdly low like it was custom made for preschool children to wash up their hands after finger painting and before snack time. What say we go ahead and make this room normal human sized?

Oh, and let’s 86 the mauve wall paint and matching mauve floor, the flower wall paper border, and while we’re at it the mildewed tile tub surround. That cast iron bath tub was quality though. It would stay. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

MASTER BEDROOM AND BATH

Bless its heart.

WHY IS THIS FLOOR PLAN A THING? I need you to fully understand and feel my distaste. My brow is furrowed. Why would anyone ever think “You know what would be great? Having a sink IN the bedroom, 5 feet away from the bed where the wife is sleeping when the husband wakes up and brushes his teeth every morning and then uses his electric razor to shave his face. The noise will wake up the sleeping wife an hour before her alarm is set to go off and it will be fantastic. They will live happily ever after.” I AM FROWNING AT YOU, 1960’S ARCHITECT.

This would have to be fixed. And all God’s people said “let us give this blessed husband and wife a real deal bathroom with walls and doors and everything, Amen.” And so a wall would be built, separating the bedroom from the bathroom so that it would actually BE a bathroom, and a pocket door would be added to conserve space. Additionally the door between the vanity area and the shower would be opened up slightly to create the feeling of more space. Oh, and it would need a major attractiveness boost, obvi. All the things would need to come out of there and be replaced with new pretty things.

BEDROOMS 2-4

(I’m missing a picture of the fourth bedroom.)

The remaining 3 bedrooms were a good size- nice and spacious, with no real issues other than just needing paint and carpet and fixtures replaced. They would have their dated folding closet doors replaced for real hinged opening doors.

THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE

Throughout the house all of the floors would come up and be replaced with wood-look tile with the exception of the bedrooms (which would be carpeted) and the bathrooms (which would be tiled). The walls would all be painted a light, neutral gray, and all of the trim and cabinets in the house would be modernized with a fresh white paint. Much of the trim was damaged and would be replaced (all of the baseboards would wind up needing to be replaced) and a bedroom door that had an unpatchable hole and would also need to be replaced.

All of the light fixtures throughout the house would be replaced with stylish, modern looking ones, and all cabinet and door hardware would be replaced- hinges and pulls.

Additionally, the entire electrical panel for the house and much of the plumbing would need to be redone. This was not an expense that I budgeted for and this made me VERY SAD. The electrician said it was one of the worst electrical jobs he’s ever done. And my budget replied: “ouch.”

The exterior wasn’t bad. It just needed a few paint color tweaks and a good power washing as the garage doors and siding were both relatively new. And it of course needed landscaping, shutters and a new, adorable front door. And I had already decided that the front door had to be a minty blue-green.

I felt optimistic as I embarked on my journey. I had a reason to get up out of bed every day and put on clothes and leave my house. I had a purpose- something that was waiting on me. A commitment that was depending on me to see it through. I had an outlet to channel my sadness and heartbreak over the loss of the baby. I poured my confusion and frustration and anger into demolishing wood paneling and ripping wallpaper from walls. Sometimes tears of anger poured out of me as I ripped and tugged and freed the walls from their ivy patterned prison.

I spent time in prayer and also ample time talking to my parents in the many hours that I was there alone. I cried to the empty walls and to their memories, and I felt them there- in the place where I grew up, in the living room where my mom rocked me as a baby, under the second story that my dad had built by hand- surrounding me and loving me through it. It was there, in my empty childhood home, in the eleventh hour of my darkness and hurt, that I started to find a glimmer of something. A flicker of something on the other side of that dark place. A reminder that I was valuable, and the promise that something good was coming; something was changing.

Out of the ashes comes something living, something good and light; out of the ashes comes the promise of hope. 

****Stay tuned next week, when I reveal what became of my childhood home after her dramatic updates!****