Welcome to another Studio Journal entry in the Stoneleigh Series. We’re getting even deeper into the story of renovating #theStoneleigh23. This project forever changed me as a designer and gave me a fresh perspective as my own client.
In previous entries, we’ve covered the backstory of purchasing this beautiful old home, the budget, and the planned (and unplanned) renovations it required. Now we’re on to the fun part — the design. But, being a designer, this was more difficult than I ever imagined.
We’ll start with an essential: The bathrooms. We have three daughters. Showers, counterspace and product storage are a premium around our house.
There was a half bath in the basement, so we figured we would add a shower, and we could lay the new tile right over the old. Simple cosmetic fix, right? Well, no. The plumbing in this old house is old…even though this bathroom is obviously from the mid 1980’s (depicted by its mauve-pink tile). It turned out that the plumbing needed to be redone completely, so out came the jackhammers!
The design for this bathroom is a custom green, gray, and black plaid unglazed square mosaic tile by Daltile. I wanted to have a darker, relaxed vibe that had traditional patterns. Just wait until you see this one finished!
In the kitchen, another essential space, we opted for white oak herringbone floors. The original vertical grain heart pine floors were really beautiful, and, surprisingly, they were in amazing condition. The 2-inch wide planks were over 12-feet long — some even as long as 22-feet! It was amazing, but you’ll never find new flooring to match something this old. So we opted to change material as well as the pattern, setting the kitchen apart from the rest of the home.
Even though we had to change the kitchen floors, they were still easier than the walls. The Stoneleigh is over 100 years old, so the walls were originally plaster, with some sheetrock mixed in over the years. And you know there wasn’t any insulation.
But that was just the beginning, and one day, it became too much. I cracked. But in my defense, the house did first.
We had removed the temporary supports the night before, and I was so excited to see this old compartmentalized house become one big space. I have never been one to like the open floor plan, because I feel they lack charm and definition. But at this stage of our lives, we are looking forward to having fewer rooms, fewer boxed-in spaces, and a smaller home.
I walked into the house and finally looked up…only to see a crack in the one existing beam. I mentioned in a previous entry that I had never worked on a house with this particular structure before. So the crack really rattled me. I broke out into a cold sweat, even though my brain knew that this was most likely nothing. It was probably a surface crack, something many old homes have. But was it there before? Had I seen it? Did removing the temporary wall do this? That crack consumed me.
I called a colleague, another architect that keeps me straight when I need it and tells me the truth about all things work-related. Together, we diagrammed the structure to see what could be causing this crack. I consulted with the structural engineer later that afternoon. I asked everyone. Well, almost everyone.
I went through most of the day with dread and concern, covering all the back up plans I could. Most importantly, how I was going to tell the client (aka the hubby). But then I spoke to the lead carpenter. He said, “What crack? That one?”
Yes that one!
“It’s been there since we started, it’s on the trim,” he told me, explaining that it was made visible when they removed the plaster on the ceiling.
OH MY GOODNESS! Can you believe that? We just needed to talk to the carpenter! But we continued to do our due diligence in determining the structure and what to do. And the crack has not changed. If anything, the beam has come up by itself ⅛ of an inch. This was an SOS turned into a WOW.
Whew, what’s next? Stay tuned for the next story in the series…we’re almost to the final reveal!
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