Category: all things renovation
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Guest Cottage Update – How Do You Design A House If You Don’t Know How You’ll Use It????
You guys. I’m having so much fun with the design of this house (our guest cottage). We don’t even know what it will be used for, but I do have some ideas on future function, which are informing our decisions. So if you want inside my brain (not sure I’d recommend it), here is what…
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All The Kohler Faucets We Used In My Brother’s River House
One of my biggest goals around my first “new build” was ensuring that it didn’t look “builder grade,” especially since my brother wanted it to be visually simple and not “fancy.” If we didn’t customize the finishes to the exact right amount, it could look basic, but too much could look overly designed (for what…
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Our Guest Cottage Update: How Much Will The Foundation Repair Cost???
Happy national “Reveal Your Foundation Repair cost” day. Brian advised against “cost honesty” (because he is my ultimate protector, which I appreciate), but I’m going to share some real numbers, similar to the asbestos and lead removal quotes (thanks for the feedback there). My hope is that these numbers can provide educational information for others…
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A Genius New Design Product: Introducing Quilt Mini Split
Every few years, a product explodes into the marketplace, and you can only say “finally” with equal parts relief and enthusiasm. Quilt is that for me this year. Mini-splits are famously huge and bulky, look like plastic, and are such an eyesore (and impossible to disguise, especially in an older style home!). Quilt not only…
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How Much Will It Cost To Remove Asbestos And Lead Paint From Our Guest Cottage (+ What I’m Willing To Do Myself To Save Money)
OK, lead and asbestos info coming at you – and before you click away, I know this stuff might sound boring, but it’s actually riveting because I can see all the dollars we are saving. I’m GIDDY. In past gut renovations, I would have just relied on our professional contractor to hire the experts to…
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How Big Is The Guest Cottage? All The Dimensions And Floor Plans For Us To Geek Out Over
I honestly had no idea what the square footage was of our 1850s guest cottage on the property. My guess was around 2k, so I was super eager to find out how close I was. Gretchen did us a solid and took ALLL the measurements, and while it isn’t perfect and I wouldn’t hand it…
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How To Choose Paint Colors That Are Happy But Not Too Bold – The Full River House Paint Color Palette
If you like big macro “how the sausage is made” posts, this one is for you. The art direction of this house was pretty clear from the get-go, four years ago. The intent was to create a warm, contemporary home that was family-friendly. It’s similar to the mountain house, but with more color. When you…
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All Your Burning Questions, Answered
A few people keep asking the same questions about this project, which made me realize that I don’t think I’ve talked about them. Maybe this project came out of nowhere, like, there is another house on the property? A guest cottage?? So it seems like all the whats, who for, whys, and hows (and how…
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What’s Wrong With Our Guest Cottage
Ok, first off, yes, I think we are calling it The Guest Cottage now. Too many people were confused about “carriage house”, wondering where this is, why it is, what it is – and everyone gets “guest cottage,” aka on our property, but not where we live, and she is old. As a reminder, we…
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Read This Before You Paint Your Concrete Floor
When we first started “fixing up the garages” (that’s a real understatement, I know), one of the few things that we knew we could salvage was the concrete floor of the first bay (where our prop shelves live). The second bay (where our sofas now live:)) would need to be poured because it was rotten…