House reno...need ideas.

[iGas]

I just purchased a house, and I like to do some reno (kitchen, bath, flooring, perhaps remove walls).
I'm still figuring out where I should have a closet near the entrant for coats and shoes. Perhaps, move the washer & drier so that I have room for closet space in the bathroom.
And, I'm doing most if not all of the work myself.

Please give me some ideas.

Original house with hall going from kitchen to bedrooms, and bypassing the dinning/living room.
Linoleum in kitchen, laundry, pantry, and bathrooms.
Laminate in family room, and hallway up to tiled entry.
Carpet in dining/living room bedrooms, and bedrooms hallway.

Walls are taken down for open space look and better use of space.
Hardwood floor yellow area (Jatoba, Ipe, or bamboo).
Tiles brown area (travertine, or possibly slate).
Grey area will be new linoleum, or upgrade to traverine tiles.

 

[Imp]

I would redo the kitchen. Longer counter along wall, then throw in a big island with bar.

Not sure about opening the family and dining rooms.

Land must be cheap there... That house has a huge footprint.

 

[iGas]

I would love to completely redo the kitchen and all of the bathrooms as well. However, renovating over 3600 sqf is quite expensive as it is. And, I'm lucky that I found great deal (almost 1/2 acre), because Victoria BC. isn't exactly cheap.

Victoria is the third most expensive city in Canada right after Toronto as the second place, and Vancouver took the top spot for the most out outrageously expensive city.

 

[NoTine42]

Random thoughts:

Are you in the mild or cold part of Vancouver? In the cold part, you probably need the airlock so you don't blast the living space with cold air.

You lost a coat closet.

The pantry seems excessively large. (Pantry are nice and all, but I don't think you gain any market value going from a good pantry to an excessive one. A walk-through butlers serving pantry with wet bar would be better, but I'm not sure the flow works.

Most people would want a study that can be closed off from family noise.

I would extend kitchen cabinets up from sink, move dishwasher next to sink, and possibly do an island instead of the peninsula.

It would be nice if you could figure out a larger master bath without losing a bedroom.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Here is an idea, lay off HGTV

😎

 

[IronWing]

Stick with a good quality linolium in the kitchen. Tavertine is porous and even when sealed is hard to keep clean. Linoleum is also a bit more forgiving of dropped dishes.

 

[Humpy]

If this will be a longer term residence then maybe don't do anything major yet. Live in it for a year or so to get a sense of how you want everything to work for you.

 

[CPA]

Stick with a good quality linolium in the kitchen. Tavertine is porous and even when sealed is hard to keep clean. Linoleum is also a bit more forgiving of dropped dishes.

While i can attest to the downside of travertine (porous, easy to chip, easy to scratch, etc.), I would go with porcelain before ever thinking of linoleum.

 

[Vdubchaos]

If this will be a longer term residence then maybe don't do anything major yet. Live in it for a year or so to get a sense of how you want everything to work for you.

To me it's a little weird that people buy houses that's not to their liking then spend 6 figures renovating.

Why not just buy land and build exactly what you want?

 

[ReggieDunlap]

I'd advise staying away from hardwood floors if you have young-ish children. I have it in my home (live in italy) and had only 1 child of 4 or so when we moved in. Since then, twins and the oldest only being 10, the hardwood floors are marked and dented and all kinds of blemishes.

Aesthetically, I love the hardwood look, but from a functionality viewpoint, we should have gone "pavimento" (ceramic/? tile) for the flooring.

 

[KeithP]

Closets on outside walls, are there heat registers in them? I am guessing not, so there is a project for you.

-KeithP

 

[cbrsurfr]

Spending all that money but then only doing the kitchen floor seems unwise. I would forego some of the other things like flooring in the baths, laundry, moving the W/D, and central vac to put that money in the kitchen. At least extend the island portion out to match the wall if not even go into the dining room a little. There's plenty of options. If you are DIY, some unfinished cabinets are pretty cheap. Then just finish them yourself with paint or stain. You could also just add a few cabinets and re-face them all.

I re-did the kitchen in my rental house years ago for under 2K. Granted it's a pretty small kitchen and I re-used the appliances. Cabinets were like $800 (I stained them), flooring and trim was $700, the rest went into sink, faucet, lighting, and laminate counters.

Since the pantry is so huge why not french the fridge/freezer into that space to enlarge the kitchen?

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'm guessing the walls you're wanting to remove ARE load bearing. Despite the fact that the house is likely constructed of pre-fab roof trusses, I wouldn't remove those without putting in a support beam from the family room to the bedroom.

The problem is when a house is constructed, the foundation will naturally settle... If you go removing those walls, it could potentially screw with your shingles and roofline. The cost vs risk vs benefit is not going to payoff simply because you're not adding any square footage to your house. You're just wrecking an otherwise functional floorplan.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I was looking for a entry-way closet and you have one in the hallway. I was looking for bathrooms to add and you have those distributed properly as well. It's a good floorplan.


I disagree about the hardwood. Nicks and dents and scratches in hardwood give the house character. They can be refinished if you get REAL hardwood....but that's only if your home isn't built on a slab. In that case you'd likely get engineered hardwood...which can only be refinished a few times....it's still better than laminate, which can scratch easily (despite what the manufacturers claim).

Hardwood > Tile/Engineered Hardwood > Carpet (cringe) > Laminate (double cringe) > Linoleum

If you decide on Hardwood, order direct out of state and save on tax and pay to have it dropshipped. I suggest checking out the flooring specialists in Dalton Georgia. There may be other flooring meccas, but they can often drop ship cheaper than local taxes and beat your local prices easily. Tile is my preference anywhere you have a sink or water fixture. (bathroom/kitchen/laundry)

 

[DrPizza]

I'd advise staying away from hardwood floors if you have young-ish children. I have it in my home (live in italy) and had only 1 child of 4 or so when we moved in. Since then, twins and the oldest only being 10, the hardwood floors are marked and dented and all kinds of blemishes.

Aesthetically, I love the hardwood look, but from a functionality viewpoint, we should have gone "pavimento" (ceramic/? tile) for the flooring.

As Scarpozzi just pointed out, hardwood can be refinished. Given the job he's going to do, he's probably more than capable of refinishing the hardwood floors when the kids are grown and gone.

Re: Scarpozzi pointing out the possibility of load bearing walls - you may be able to put a load bearing beam above the bottom of the trusses, and use something like hurricane ties to hang the centers of those trusses from the beam.

Also, Scarpozzi, any particular websites for the flooring?

 

[Ken g6]

I'm guessing the walls you're wanting to remove ARE load bearing.

Yeah, I'd guess that too, particularly the entry walls. It would be nice if the dining room-family room wall wasn't. My plan would be to:

- Wall off the door from the "pantry" to the kitchen.
- Put a desk where the door was, making this a study area.
- Knock out part of the wall on the dining room side, away from the family room. If it's load-bearing, and it likely is, it will probably need an archway.
- Maybe put a sliding door in there so the new study area can be closed off. Or not if you don't want it closed off - it's in a nook back there.
- The closet opposite the garage could be some of the pantry. If you need more pantry, you could close off part of the study area, make a door in the hall, and make it a closet just like the coat closet next to it.

I see you have a separate freezer from the fridge. I don't think your kitchen is big enough to support that. If you want a separate freezer, it should go in the garage. (Which is probably unheated? So that would help efficiency.)

 

[purbeast0]

To me it's a little weird that people buy houses that's not to their liking then spend 6 figures renovating.

Why not just buy land and build exactly what you want?

because not everyone is poor and lives in a delusional fantasy world like yourself.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I truly see no advantage to removing the wall between the family room and the living room. It is without a doubt a load bearing wall. I do like the idea of enlarging the pantry.

 

[stormkroe]

Those walls shouldn't be load bearing, 24 feet is a breeze to span for trusses. Go into the basement and see if there are any beams, poles, or doubled/tripled floor joists under any of them, if not you should be fine.
Pantry is too big, kitchen is too small. Extend counter to flush with 'north' pantry wall, put freezer in pantry, put cabinets where freezer was.

 

[Vdubchaos]

because not everyone is poor and lives in a delusional fantasy world like yourself.

So based on your analogy, unless you spend 6 figures on renovating a house, you are poor?

Besides, go ahead, tell us, what is wrong with being poor?

I truly see no advantage to removing the wall between the family room and the living room. It is without a doubt a load bearing wall. I do like the idea of enlarging the pantry.

Standard HGTV/average American answer - "it will be great for entertaining"

🙂

 

[Vdubchaos]

I'd advise staying away from hardwood floors if you have young-ish children. I have it in my home (live in italy) and had only 1 child of 4 or so when we moved in. Since then, twins and the oldest only being 10, the hardwood floors are marked and dented and all kinds of blemishes.

Aesthetically, I love the hardwood look, but from a functionality viewpoint, we should have gone "pavimento" (ceramic/? tile) for the flooring.

Ummmm

I recommend the opposite.

Hardwood floors or quality Laminate is the way to go.

I have 4 kids and have "original" Pergo laminate floors in the whole house.......15 years later they still look like new.

I would recommend hardwood floors if you can swing it, mostly due to the fact that they are forever and can be resurfaces (again, assuming you get quality THICK planks).

Entire market has lots of crappy "hard wood" and laminate flooring at this point. Be careful.

Noticed even Pergo flooring is not as thick and just seems more flimsy now days.......

 

[vi edit]

I hate hallways and the original floorplan feels like 1/3 of your living space is a hallway.

Definitely like how you open the layout up with the 2nd image. I'd consider doing tile in the kitchen and into the dining area. Also around the entry way. If you had a formal transition from the kitchen to the dining area it wouldn't be so bad, but I feel like it would look better if you carried the tile all the way to dining nook. If you are constantly sliding chairs in and out I like having tile. It just wears better and cleans up easy. Plus with it coming off the balcony it's just a better material for whatever elements you drag in with you if you are on the back deck grilling or taking a smoke break.


I'd also carry the counter out further and give you more counter space to work with. Pull it out and put a nice breakfast bar there to put stools at.

 

[purbeast0]

So based on your analogy, unless you spend 6 figures on renovating a house, you are poor?

Besides, go ahead, tell us, what is wrong with being poor?

so much fail in your reply. i never said anything that you are inferring. perhaps reading what i posted instead of spewing a nonsense response would do you some good.

 

[DrPizza]

Entire market has lots of crappy "hard wood" and laminate flooring at this point. Be careful.

"hard wood" refers to the type of trees - mostly deciduous trees if you're not in the tropics. Soft wood comes from gymnosperms (conifers and a few others.) It really doesn't refer to the actual hardness of the wood; some woods are much harder than others, and hardwoods aren't necessarily harder than soft woods.

 

[jaedaliu]

To me it's a little weird that people buy houses that's not to their liking then spend 6 figures renovating.

Why not just buy land and build exactly what you want?

Because location is typically the most important thing.

In more desirable locations, securing empty land is typically difficult, and will take longer and cost more to build new than making small changes.

 

[iGas]

Wow, so many good ideas. Perhaps, I will re do the kitchen cabinets as well.