From Box to Home

The house we bought was basically a 1970's vintage box, that has had very little, if anything, done to it in the past 30 years. It had been well maintained, but that's about it. When we looked at it, the colors, furniture, fixtures and applicances - except some cabinet refacing in the kitchen - hadn't changed a bit.

The good existing features of the house:

• More than 1/2 acre lot, plus an adjacent few acres of land-locked forest and wetlands.
• Overlook a creek
• Deer live behind the house.
• Great in-town location - close to schools
• Large home (over 3600 sf), but a humble front elevation since its a daylight ranch - no McMansion for us
• Simple truss construction with only one internal load-bearing wall, allowing re-design flexibility
• Adult area upstairs, kids area down
• Fully excavated under the garage to make a 1300 sf family room down stairs
• Fireplace in the center of the house
• Large kitchen area
• Lots of deck space
• Solar friendly design
• Good insulation for the time it was built
• Original owners took good care of the place
• Two water heaters - split baths on one and kitchen / laundry on the other
• New 40-year roof

Some of the not-so good things:

• Low quality kitchen cabinets that were refaced - nice new doors though
• Very small master bath - 8x7 sf
• Upper floors out of level in places
• Long-dark hallways leading to the bedrooms
• Hardly any closet or storage space
• Sprinklers shooting into the house everywhere causing dry-rot in some small spots
• Leaky, tired aluminum windows
• Harvest gold and power blue tubs, showers, toilets, ...
• 30 year old heat pump / furnace / water heaters (two of them)
• Cheap trim and finishing
• T-1-11 siding with various small problems

So we took the place as a "starting point", and we have started to renovate it into the house we really want. We are not dedicated to restoring it to any period, but to a comfortable style.