Case Study 02 - Post & Beam House Remodel

About a year ago, my husband and I left the city and moved to the wilds of Weston, CT.  We love our new area - complete with dirt road, a couple acres to roam around, and pond-front property.  The clincher for us are the cultural aspects of the area - which, for me, includes a gourmet food scene, vibrant community theatre, and enough of an upscale granola vibe that we don't feel like we're in the middle of the burbs.  Weston prides itself on being the "exurbs" and its "rural and residential" character.  No big box stores here!

the pond

our house through the trees above the waterfall

Prior to moving, Andrew (hubby) was browsing the internet trying to find out where people actually live when they go to work in Farfield County.  He came across an old real estate listing for a barn-style exposed post & beam house that had been on and off the market for a few years. It was unclear if it was in fact available at the time though.  So, we contacted our wonderful real estate agent, Laurie Crouse, who started doing some homework for us.  Turns out it was not on the market, but it was going into foreclosure.  Sad for the previous owner, but great for us that it would be for sale soon!  

As Andrew and I took off on a two-month stint traveling around Southeast Asia (we were both changing jobs, and you're only young once, right?), this house transferred from the previous owner's hands and into the hands of People's Bank.  The very first day that the bank had ownership, Laurie went into the house and started documenting so she could email us everything.  Her list back to us looked something like this:

- no kitchen (removed?)

- no lights (inside or out)

- no hardware

- no guard or handrails at the stairs

- unclear what else is missing?

- only ONE enclosed bedroom

Apparently the previous owner built his or her dream house (no kids - which explains only enclosing one bedroom even though they could have built a few more), spent way too much time and money building it, tried to sell it for a few years, got offers but didn't accept and rode the market down, eventually foreclosed and took everything with them on their way out.  It's a sad story, but a great opportunity for us.  Fortunately, a little construction never scared us away. No kitchen?! No problem!

From our hotel in Cambodia, we started doing OUR homework.  Years of creating spreadsheets came in handy for both of us - for me in the form of a detailed renovation cost estimate and for Andrew in the form of a comparables spreadsheet indicating the exact price per square foot the house should cost.  By subtracting the construction estimate total from the completed house cost, voila! We got the exact number we gave to our agent as our first offer.  No, we had not yet seen the house ourselves!

Over the course of the next few weeks of negotiating with the bank (from a remote ecolodge near Sapa, Vietnam and then from a farm-house in Bhutan) we had family members go visit the house, just to make sure we weren't completely crazy.  Fortunately, they said, "you're crazy but the house is great".  We moved to CT in January of 2011, promptly saw the house, and after a detailed home inspection (more on that in another blog post) closed on the house in early March.

And now for the fun part... renovation! I understand most people would never want to buy a home that would require as much work as this one did.  Had I not been able to do that renovation cost estimate myself, and had Andrew not been so willing to trust me on it AND do his own homework on comparables, we wouldn't have been able to buy this house.  Or, we would have just had to hire someone to do everything for us.  Knowing exactly what we were getting into was critical.  

Here's a brief glimpse of some photos before we renovated:

exterior BEFORE

living/great room BEFORE, antique brick central fireplace chimney 

kitchen BEFORE, which was removed by the previous owner 
(photo taken from old NYTimes real estate listing)

master bedroom BEFORE

master bath BEFORE

master bath BEFORE

powder room BEFORE

Photos of the renovation in progress:

reclaimed oak mantel & custom iron brackets

new white kitchen cabinets to contrast surrounding wood

new bar/coffee area wall cabinets, showing cut-out back of upper cabinets to expose brick

new guest shower, pebble tile shower, blue "cascading water" mosaic

new guest bathroom sink area, wall-mounted cabinet & one-piece sink/counter-top

Being in the design & construction industry of course has its many advantages when doing your own renovation.  One of the pitfalls though is that I never consider it "done"!  Professional photography would really do the place justice, but that would require admitting that we've come to a certain stop-point, which neither of us is quite ready to do.  Here are some of my (less than professional) photos of the "completed" renovation:

exterior after refinishing siding & repainting trim

new custom reclaimed wood barn door, new tempered glass guardrail