Tag: House Tours Page 1 of 5

If the star of our 2019 renovation was the master suite, the ranch house has seen many stars in 2020. Like most Americans, we self-isolated at home for the whole Spring and Summer. With the time saved from commute and socializing, we were able to complete many projects more than expected, and truly improved the way we live in our little house.

1. The Basement Utility

We kick-started the 2020 renovation in the basement utility. It was the last unfinished space in the lower level, and we were dying to have a dust-free living quarter. The utility room was completed in late Spring, consisting of a laundry nook, a utility closet, and a storage closet under the stairs.

The utility closet houses our furnace and water heater:

The laundry nook:

The left side of the room:

The storage closet with a pocket door:

The whole utility room:

Although a simple room, it involved some major utility work, including moving a floor drain and upgrading most of the water lines. We framed in the unsightly furnace and water heater, insulated the exterior walls, brought the LVP flooring into the utility room, and installed a pocket door on the storage closet.

2. The Basement Trims and Baseboards

After the utility room was completed, we proceeded to install door trims and baseboards throughout the basement.

All the basement doors got as craftsman style trims, including the basement entry door:

The bedroom door:

And the bathroom door:

 

Due to the ceiling height we did a simple trim profile for the bathroom pocket door:

After installing all the door trims, the baseboards were installed. We picked a simple but beefy style for the basement, which worked really well next to the wood-tone LVP flooring.

3. Furnishing the Media Room

Once the trims and baseboards were in place, we started bringing furniture into the media room, starting with a TV and a media console:

next we moved downstairs Slav’s record collection and record players.

I ordered this commission portrait for Slav’s birthday last year because no mancave is complete without a grand portrait. Right?

Charlie was the first to move into the basement. I guess he wanted a mancave too.

Due to the concern of delivery-related COVID transmission, we did not purchase any furniture for the media room for a while, and instead furnished the room with pieces we had. So the basement looked a little bare over the summer:

But coming into the Fall, after the risk of transmission had died down, we pulled the trigger for a big L-shape leather sofa Slav always wanted.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Terrific Broth (@terrificbroth)

The sofa really completed the media room. Since it was in Slav has been using the media room every night! This is exactly the outcome I was hoping for by renovating the basement – to create a cozy and relaxing space for Slav to wind down after a day of busy work.

4. Fluffing the Garden

The pandemic picked up in the States right around the beginning of Spring. While Slav was busy working in the basement, I focused my energy outside. 2020 was a great gardening year – it was not only the first season I got to watch perennials waking up in Spring and flourishing in Summer, but also the first season I could wander around and really think how I want my garden to feel. After two years of busy planting, my taste for garden design and plant selection had definitely evolved. I also had a lot more knowledge regarding the growing habits and companionship of plants. During this growing season, being able to watch my own garden changing day after day gave me a great opportunity to come up ideas to fine tune it, “fluff” the garden if I may.

The first big change I made to the garden was to carve out a patio around our garden shed. I’ve been thinking about how to elegantly address the steep slope towards this corner of our yard for a couple years. At the end, all the options and inspirations brewing in my head finally birthed an adequate solution – a terraced garden over a flagstone patio with a seat-intergraded retaining wall.

With the blueprint in mind I started digging into the hill to create the terraces.

The edge of the existing garden bed was also changed to follow the curve of the future patio.

And this is more of less how the new patio garden bed looks like:

Due to the lack of building supply, we did not actually pave the patio, nor build the retaining wall around it. All I’ve done was to form a temporary “retaining wall” with wood stumps, just to hold up the terraced garden, and covered the future patio space with black plastic for weed suppression. But it was good enough to start planting.

The first plant went into the terraced garden was this apple tree called “transparent”.

And the second one is a ginkgo Tree.

As the garden becomes fuller, I was more and more clear what plants I really wanted. Maybe it is just my Chinese heritage speaking, but peony and chrysanthemum are the most elegant flowers to my taste. I planted a hedge of peonies this year in the new patio garden space. And I hope to eventually add chrysanthemum into my garden as well.

I’ve long wanted to add seating and planters into my garden. This set of planters with seating I built for the patio area was undoubtedly my favorite wood working project to date. The cherry on top was that it was built with leftover cedar planks from our 2018 fence build! Talking about one stone two birds here…

Encouraged by how nice and useful the new patio planters were. I built a potting bench/outdoor kitchen also with leftover cedar plank trimmings:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Terrific Broth (@terrificbroth)

Followed by another planter located in the front yard:

And a small fence to hide the HVAC unit from the view of the master bedroom:

The ugly AC unit was no longer visible from the bedroom window:

These cedar pieces echo our horizontal fencing and really added dimensions and interests to the garden. I enjoy looking at them this year. Towards Fall, with Slav’s help, I completed the most physically demanding garden “fluffing” project – edging the vegetable garden beds and mulching the walking paths with pea gravel.

5. Automating the Irrigation

One of my personal goal of 2020 was to reduce stressful and time-consuming work for ourselves. We all have limited time which should be reserved for creative projects and relaxation, but not house chores! In our garden, the most annoying, stressful, and time-consuming task has been watering. Our property did not come with sprinklers, so the precious summer nights were often consumed by dragging hoses among flower beds, vegetable garden, and lawn space, as well as adjusting yard sprinklers every 30 minutes. Therefore, I was determined to automate the whole irrigation process.

The first I did was to install drip emitters for our front yard lawn space, which enabled automatic irrigation for the lawn grass:

Then I connected all the drip irrigation grids, including the ones installed in existing flower beds, to two battery-powered water timer, one for the front yard:

And one for the backyard:

Since the completion of the automatic irrigation grids, we have not needed to spend any time or effort to even think about watering. The entire front yard, including the flower beds and lawn space, as well as all the flower/veggie beds in the backyard were taken care of without our attention. This upgrade, which took a couple hundred dollars and a couple weekends of time, greatly improved our life quality and reduced our anxiety during growing season.

6. My Retreat Room/Home office

After a whole Spring of basement work and a busy summer in the garden, we turned our attention to the main floor of the house. We still have a number of rooms to renovate on the main floor, including the kitchen and the main floor bathroom. But before getting to the tough jobs, we decided to convert the spare bedroom into my office/retreat room.

Over the Fall months, a desk was built, the two existing closets were reframed to accommodate a murphy bed and a winter gear closet. This room will be used by overnight guest as a bedroom.

I just realized that I have not given you a full reveal of the room yet. It is currently decorated for Christmas, so maybe after the Three Kings day when we take down the Christmas decorations, I will take you on a tour. So stay tuned, friends!

7. Starting the Main Floor Bathroom Renovation

The last major renovation project we at least started, is the main floor bathroom. It is currently ongoing but slowly due to Slav’s busy work schedule. Without getting into it too much, I’d say that we have completed the demo and electrical upgrade, and are anxious to start the plumbing process. You can check on our inspiration and design post here to get an idea what we are working towards. It is gonna be a long journey!

To summarize…

2020 wasn’t the year I expected it to be. But maybe, it’s the year I needed. I am grateful for what we’ve learned to appreciate during this unprecedented year. Patience and tenderness, growth and reflection, generosity and sacrifice, all led to strengthen and refine. 2020, I will remember you!

It has been two months since we moved into the basement master. This move did not only grow the square footage of our living space, but also dramatically changed our way of living. In today’s post, I’d like to show you the current status of our ranch, and bring you up to date on our 2020 renovation plan. Are you ready?

The Basement Master

The biggest change inside the ranch since our last house tour, is in the basement. We placed a brand new master suite in the previously unoccupied basement, and finished the big living space as our future media room. This basement was “finished” when we got the house, but it was in such a rough state that it required an total overhaul:

We demoed the whole basement to studs, combined two small bedrooms to create the new master, and installed a new bath.

The adjoining living space was renovated too and will soon become a media room for movie, music, and games:

To be honest, I never had high hopes for the basement before it was finished. Its low ceiling and lack of lighting convinced me that it would never be as comfortable as the main floor. But adding recessed lighting and installing new drywall made it spacious, minimal, yet cozy. It looks and feels a lot better than our main floor now.

I love spending time in our new bedroom. I take long and hot showers, care for my skin and hair, stretch, read, and daynight-dream. Slav gifted me a massage chair and I love using it in the evenings. This space helped me so much to rejuvenate and relax at the end of each day.

The Main Floor TV Room

As a result of the move, our old bedroom was suddenly empty. Since the holidays, it became a Slav’s TV room. Slav always likes to watch videos and play music at home, whereas I prefer quite evenings. So, he has been wearing headphones in the evenings. Having a TV room where he can let the volume loose has been great for us to relax in our own ways.

I always loved this room – it locates at the back of the house and has a big east-facing window overlooking our garden. It is private, it is bright, and it is… perky. The morning lights bounces among all white walls and fills the room, making the house plants happy. One day the bedroom furniture and TV will leave the room (after we set up the basement media room), and this room will become mine. I always wanted a grey+pink office. A yoga/tea room filled with indoor plants also sounds good… The possibilities are endless and I cannot wait to create here. It also needs to function as a guest room for weeks at a time, so making this room multi-functional yet minimal will be a design challenge for me.

The Main Floor living

The rest of the main floor did not change much, except most of the house plants went into the TV room. We just took down the Christmas tree and I am thrilled to have this unobstructed view into Slav’s office again. I like empty space. Leaving void is big in Chinese culture as it represents possibilities, growth, and inner peace. And the ability of doing so often require restrain and strength. I think the same principle applies to interior design. After gaining 600 sqft finished space, we’ve been careful not to acquire any new furniture, but let the new space dilute the pieces we had so every room now has more breathing room.

The Basement Media Room

What happened the new media room? We had plans to furnish it with a big leather sofa and bring down the TV, speakers, projectors, and records. But considering the upcoming utility room renovation (more on it later), we decided to halt the plan so we do not expose electronic to drywall dust. For now my new massage chair is holding down the fort, and of course tools.

Oh, and this painting. Can you tell whose portrait it is? Slav was borderline upset when I gifted him this portrait as an anniversary gift. But this is something I wanted for years. It represents everything of Slav that attracts me: handsome, intelligent, dignified, and strong.

I am glad we did not just go out and buy a big L-shape leather sofa it was really tempting. Nowadays it is so easy to spend money just with a few clicks. But every time we waited, better ideas and choices came along. Being patient is so important part in home renovation, and so is in life.

The Basement Utility Room

This utility room is the last unfinished space in our basement. And I think it will be our next renovation project. We need to update the old plumbing, and we would love to put a kitchenette for serving drinks and snacks downstairs. With all the demo and new electrical this room has improved so much already, but I want to make it the star of the basement. It will be finished with color and texture. I want it to be unexpected. Then we can officially close the curtain on the basement renovation – who cannot wait?

The main floor kitchen and bath

You may notice that I did not show you our kitchen and the main floor bathroom – we have not touched them at all since the last house tour. With their close proximity these two rooms will be renovated at the same time, which means the renovation project will take months, cost thousands, and turn the whole main floor into a complete mess. The plan is to tackle the utility room first so we can a completely finished basement to hide while renovating the upstairs kitchen and bathroom, maybe next year.

Strategize the 2020 Renovation

The renovations in 2020, namely the basement utility room, will be mostly hired out. 2020 is a year both Slav and I want more professional growth, so we will try to trust and manage instead of DIY. The truth is, renovating a house requires many different expertise and experiences. If we want to have high quality results without living in dust forever, we need professionals. Looking back, I am actually thankful to the bad experience we had with the previous GC in 2019. It revealed my strength and weakness in project management, and show me exactly what triggers my stress response. I am not stressed over financial challenges, unexpected technical difficulties, or making decisions in an emergency. Years of the laboratory experience has trained me to make the best possible snap decisions without overthinking or regretting them later. What I cannot stand is incompetence and lack of communication. And this was exactly how our last GC was. But as soon as I started interacting with experienced subcontractors and focus on one task a time, I did not feel stress only excitement. So the key elements of a successful 2020 ranch reno will be to identify contractors who are knowledgeable and responsible.

The 2020 Garden

With the interior work hired out, I will be focusing on the garden in 2020. We have some hardscaping projects for the backyard, and I would like grow a better vegetable garden. We planted so many trees and shrubs during the last two years, and this is the year all of them needs pruning, fertilization, and training. I also want to iron out the irrigation. These are big work and will surely keep me busy and fit for 2020.

In 2020 we are hope for a year of growth, both professionally and personally. What is your 2020 goal?