Tag: home design

This past week we finally received our building permit which officially marked the end of demo and shift to construction phase. We’ve settled into a routine where Laura walks the main floor of the house each morning to either disrupt or confirm Peder’s plans. The beauty of doing the work ourselves is that there really isn’t a penalty in the form of a change order if we make changes along the way. Instead, we are able to embrace iterative design.

These choices may be very simple, such as to paint or not paint accent bricks black. In this case, we simply painted one of the sills and confirmed this is the look we want. Worse case, we could just simply paint over it again in white or another color.

Other decisions may require a bit of imagination to envision how the space is going to look. This past week, we used a tape measure, blue tape, boards, and some foam insulation to help with visualizing the dining room space relative to future placement of our couch in the living room. Since this will be an open concept mixed space, we want to make sure we are maximizing sight lines and flow. As Laura ”sat” in various seats around the mock dining room table, we realized that where we had planned to open a wall to create easy access to the hall bath would better serve as a dry bar and side board area. Had we left the design as originally planned on paper, we would have been left with that awkward bathroom door in sight of the dining table.

Over the past couple of weeks, as we’ve waited (somewhat impatiently!) to see this purchase through, we’ve done a lot of researching on ideas, drawing and redrawing plans, reviewing the photos and videos Laura took during our few brief visits to the house for inspections and such. We started saving ideas to a new OlivePit2Perfect Pinterest account and will be using this blog site to capture others. Our biggest concerns are creating the right vibe to the house, when we don’t really know what era to really capture. One thing the house has going for itself is lots of windows. So, ideally, we want to capitalize on that light and create a home that is comfortable and welcoming.

If we had an unlimited budget, we’d hire a professional architect and design team. Instead, we are relying on Peder’s 35+ years of home construction and remodeling expertise, five personal home renovations, and Laura binge-watching HGTV!! Laura’s color pallet preferences are definitely evident in our current home — gray, white and black — leaving the color to the art hanging on the walls.

Over the next several weeks we are going to be pressed to make some decisions about where to take down walls and where to put them up, what paint and flooring is right, and how to improve the outdoor living areas and landscaping. Our guiding principle will be to choose things we like but also feel will appeal to future owner(s) and to keep our total investment at a point where we can make a profit when we eventually sell.

Our biggest choice has already been made…jump in with both feet!