A Weekend Affair: The Maher Project
It's official – we bought a house! That's right folks, the hip downtowners are moving to the burbs... well, the closest suburb ring to the city anyway, that still makes us half cool, right? Moving away from the downtown lifestyle will definitely be an adjustment for us - we've had some amazing years exploring Minneapolis on foot and will definitely miss it, but luckily we won't be more than 5 minutes from the fun at our new home. More on why we've loved our downtown years later!
So, why are we moving? Maybe it's the northland in both of us that was craving a little more space (inside and out). Yes, are are exploding out of our once "airy" downtown loft and were craving some green space to hang out, entertain in and let our little baby FrenchBo run free in.
We have always been intrigued by fixer uppers and the idea of renovating homes - we LOVE HGTV... For years, we had thrown around the idea of finding a midcentury gem and modernizing it for our next home. After browsing, hunting and a few offers, we really did find THE ONE - no regrets here; midcentury walkout rambler with charming architectural details, sprawling main level, corner lot and and overly sized yard. We found the home in January and officially closed on the property in April - coincidentally, the same month we closed on our condo!
From there, we went through a ton of research in finding the right crew to help us to the finish line. Through much evaluation on a tight timeline, in the end we decided to hire a General Contractor to tackle the manual labor and we took on the more proactive role of "designer" in our project instead of hiring out. We quickly realized that we already knew what we wanted in a home - why not take it on ourselves? We wanted the gratification of really having a hand in selecting things for OUR home. We had put a lot of thought into how we could configure the home and changed our mind many times, but by the time we got to our final contractor, we had a good idea and really ended up doing a lot of the initial planning ourselves.
Enough rambling (pun intended) - let's get to the fun stuff! This is the beginning of our home renovation blog series; I'll be walking you through our full renovation in a series of posts. We didn't have intentions of this initially but we ended up doing a full on renovation - despite the great bones of this home, we went all out modernizing and refreshing the finishes – and knocking a lot of walls down...
Here are a few of the original "before" photos to give you an idea of what we're working with.
The exterior is a work in progress - but we loved the unique shape and layout of the home.
Previous kitchen (new bar area/extended kitchen)
Previous dining room (new kitchen!)
Entry with crazy paneling - ah! Stained glass anyone? Sure was something...at some point in time.
Developed from a combination of our own ideas and after meeting with a few contractors, these drawings reflect the original state of the home and also the newly proposed plan in which we took down walls and laid out a big reconfiguration, especially on the main level.
Original main level floorplan (red lines are walls we removed)
Newly renovated proposed plan for main level
Lower level original floorplan (red indicates removed walls, blue is added walls)
Proposed lower level floorplan
We're happy to be working with Grey Duck LLC to help us renovate the home. Design choices and selection by yours truly! Up next, I'll dive into the big baby... the kitchen reno! Stay tuned on this big adventure we took on.
