I’m sure you probably heard about the epic ‘Texas Freeze’ we had here last month. It made national news on the account that we hadn’t seen snow like this in a century (if ever) and many people lost access to power and water. The temperatures hit record lows and houses down here in Austin just aren’t built for that. So, the perfect storm of low temps and Texas construction caused havoc on many people’s homes. We had friends with busted tankless water heaters, burst pipes in exterior walls, and then, we had my friend Monica.
Her power was out for days, so her family traveled across town to stay with family. When her husband stopped by their house 24 hours later, what he came home to was nothing any homeowner ever wants to see – a waterfall gushing from the ceiling.
He quickly turned the water off to the house but the damage was already done. Water had made its way into every room sans the bedrooms and bathrooms. And since there were three leaks (two in the ceiling and one in the laundry room wall), much of the drywall in those spaces was unsalvageable. Not to mention broken appliances from water literally pouring on them for some period of time.
But what is there to do when life hands you lemons? Make lemonade, of course. Monica has always given her kitchen layout the side eye, so in order to give this situation a positive spin, she vowed to build back better, more functional common spaces for her and her family.
So, she enlisted the help of myself and an architect she has worked with in the past, to design a better floor plan than their house had before ‘snowmageddon.’ On her wishlist were the following:
- Move the kitchen towards the fireplace for closer proximity to dining area and living room, and to ditch the galley-like kitchen
- Move the garage entry to the opposite end of the garage for better flow
- Create a play ‘room’ in the old kitchen area
- Create a mudroom/drop zone space on the West side of the old kitchen, where the new garage door will be
- Add cabinetry and shelving for increased storage in the laundry room
- Replace flooring
- Update lighting
This is a large wishlist, but with the insurance adjuster confirming the amount of water damage, the common spaces of the house are essentially gutted and all thats left is a blank slate for starting fresh. The old layout of the common areas looked like this:
Monica, her architect, and I worked through many revisions of new floor plans until settling on the layout below. The kitchen will shift towards the fireplace and will now be housed in the area between the living room and dining room. This area is currently underutilized by Monica’s family and this will allow the kitchen to feel less isolated from the dining and living rooms.
Our hope is that by moving the kitchen into this space, Monica and her family will utilize the dining room more often and that all three of her children will have a seat at the island (as opposed to the two seater breakfast bar they had before).
We will remove the small portion of wall between the dining room and living room to create room to move around the island. The wall between the living room and new kitchen will be extended to accommodate the sink and refrigerator. And the range will be placed along the garage wall as a focal point across from the fire place.
New walls will extend behind the range and next to the refrigerator to form a corridor to the mudroom, laundry room and office. Tucked behind these walls, just a few steps from the main part of the kitchen, will be two pantries, one on either side, for tons of extra storage. Monica plans to store pantry items as well as small appliances and the microwave in these spaces.
The majority of the old kitchen will become a play area for Monica’s girls, and a new mudroom with entry from the garage. The space around the window, above, will be flanked with shelving and hooks, with a bench below for slipping shoes on and off.
The laundry room wasn’t much to look at before, but its going to be show stopping when this reno is over. The washer and dryer will shift slightly to be centered under the window, and cabinets, with countertops, will be added on either side. This room didn’t have any countertop space before so this is an added bonus for this room. We will also add upper cabinets to maximize the storage in this generously sized laundry room. I joke that my laundry suite is large, but Monica’s is going to blow mine out of the water when this project is done.
We’ve started to source materials for this project and we met with the cabinet manufacturer today. In just a few months, this will look like a whole new house! Stay tuned for more updates and an “after” post when this renovation is complete.
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