This is a typical Church Hill, Richmond,VA, Back Yard. Twenty Eight feet wide by 150 feet long, which includes the footprint of the home!!
Right after you walk out the back door, you couldn’t walk directly out the back door, you had to walk down two awkward steps then navigate over this awkward step that you had to step up and over EACH way. (image on left)
If you live in a Church Hill Property, you already know that if you don’t have attic or crawlspace storage (as is pretty common in these historic properties) then you have to get quite creative with ways to store your out of season or sports type
gear. The small shed was no longer cutting it.
The plants were quite overgrown for the space and there was no place to sit and enjoy the outdoors while also being sheltered from the elements.
The side pathway along the home was a soft pea gravel and it was difficult to get the garbage and recycling to the curb.
I know, I know, I know — you, like me, we work with what we have — BUT — All spaces can be improved to better suit your life!
I don’t believe in cookie cutter design. Each and every single space I come across carries its own needs and wants that is based on the character of the neighbourhood and most importantly the needs and wants of the people who inhabit the space
And here is the front of the property:
We started the project with some stump grinding, as TWO neighbours had very large trees removed in the previous year.
Next up, came the new fence installation, along with some grading where we found MASSIVE roots from the two neighbours trees!
As you can see from the images, these were plentiful, and in most cases they were also larger than the diameter of my thigh! So massive — uh, not my thigh, but the roots 😉 !!
This is a great time to mention that when you work on properties with limited access, meaning you can’t get machinery in the back yard, you need to rely on hardworking and creative contractors who can navigate the 27″ access points and who have the skills to think outside the box.
The design intent was to give the homeowners a space where they could relax under the shelter of a roof, with the option to enclose the space with mosquito netting. As Church Hill is a city neighbourhood, privacy is also a consideration in the design.
The clients 1889 Victorian has this STUNNING millwork on the front porch, and as a nod to the properties historic roots I brought a little of the history into the design of the pergola.
(Aside; if anyone knows of the original designer of the 1889 scrollwork, I’d love to know!)
We simplified the scrollwork a little, and the carpenter hand-cut (with tools) all of the pieces on the pergola!
Ok, back to the fence! The fence framing was completed concurrently with the pergola.
Next the custom sized shed got built while the roofed pergola received some interior details. This shed has 9′ walls allowing the clients to have ample storage in this postage stamp yard. I faced the door towards the side fence so that the beautiful cedar sides could be seen and admired from the home and rest of the outdoor space.
The homeowner decided on a copper standing seam room for both structures! They have a second story porch where they can enjoy the changing beauty of the copper!
All of the copper was formed and cut to size on site.
With the main portion of the two structures complete, we moved on to the next portion — prepping for the hardscape!
The large stack of bricks are stored here to use on the front walkway!
The homeowners had been having some drainage issues, so I definitely wanted to make sure that this got taken care of before the hardscapers arrived to build the walkways, patio, ramp and walls!
Here you can see why the drainage wasn’t working!
If you are doing your own drainage, please DO NOT use this floppy, flexible drain line! They get crushed, they get clogged and they fail 100% of the time, most of the time within 10 years!
This particular drainline didn’t have a properly created french drain around it. A french drain should ALWAYS have gravel surrounding the drainline, then also have fabric around the entire drain so that it doesn’t get clogged with dirt and sediment!
What you can’t see from the photo, is halfway through the drain, instead of being on a gentle slope to the exit, the drain sloped down, then UP, then down again! No wonder the drainage wasn’t working!!
We took care of the drainage and got ready for the next transformative stage!
Stay Tuned for PART TWO!
I’ll share what design we went with for the patio, walkways and plantings!!
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you, tell me below in the comments what portion has surprised or delighted you so far!
This week I want to talk about the cabinet drawers, making our full sized fridge work in our space as well how we are keeping our open shelving functional!
We started with a room that wasn’t ever a kitchen before.
It has three large (but low) bay windows filling one whole wall, a doorway leading to the front entrance, a fireplace, french doors leading into the living room and another doorway leading into the back mudroom/laundry that is beside the built in pantry.
It looked like this:
And ended like this:
First the cabinet layout:
We have three outlets on the island, one on each side (except the range side). I’m very happy with the placement of these. Don’t forget outlets on your island, and place one more than you think you’ll need. I’m going to upgrade the outlets to a colour that blends in more with the grey wood than the stark electrician white!
The island cabinets are different on each side. This cabinet layout (as shown in above photo) has two shallower drawers and 4 deeper drawers. One of the shallow drawers is my own personal ‘junk drawer’ and the other shallow drawer holds typical things you would find in a shared ‘everything’ drawer along with a few kitchen gadgets.
I used expanding bamboo drawer dividers and this allows us to customise each drawer.
This is one of the deeper drawers where we store our large dinner plates, our tiny food prep or sauce bowls plus a few bowls that don’t match the others!
On the other side of the island we have one shallow drawer, two deep drawers and a pullout garbage and recycling drawer. The bins pull out and it’s super easy to empty the recycling.
At the front of the island, on either side of the range there are two slim cabinets. The one to the left is a pull out spice drawer, and came with four shelves. I don’t keep my spices in the typical cylindrical jars, so I removed two shelves plus I really wanted to use this pull out to hide all of our spatulas and wooden spoons!
I use hooks with magnets to store our oven mitts and this great little pan scraper, that also works on the range top. Tools that have more than one function are amazing!
The other side we store cutting boards, baking pans, pizza paddles. I have some metal dividers that still need to be installed to keep them all separated.
On to the elephant in the room…..
The refrigerator.
Placing the fridge in this room was a challenge with all the doors, windows and the built ins.
My logical mind thought that we should get a counter depth fridge (they are shallower) so we could extend the island by 6″. My pragmatic husband weighed in and thought we should get the full sized fridge instead as we love to entertain and could fit more beer and appies! (Canadian for appetizer.)
In my initial design I had the fridge facing the front door because we were going to flip the way the doors opened into the living room. We ultimately decided not to go that route and had enough room that the fridge could face the window.
Looks like it fits really nicely right? It does, until you open the doors! And it didn’t quite make it through the reno unscathed, the bottom now has a couple of dents!
We knew that the door on the left would not fully extend while the fridge is pushed back into place. The photo above shows how far each door opens. The right side is the full extension.
I haven’t found this to be much of a constraint on how we use and clean the fridge, but this could be a no go with some clients. Our tradeoff is we have ample room for entertaining and storing foods.
Keeping the counter and open shelves functional
Here is the styled shot you saw earlier in this post:
Here is how my counters look today. I used items I really do use everyday to style the shots. The copper compost bin was in front of the acacia wood lazy susan that you see here.
I like, erm need, items to feel neat and organised. I can’t stand coming down to the kitchen and seeing a mess. Having all the items we use everyday on the lazy susan, keeps everything accessible to both of us while working on opposite sides of the island. The huge bonus — the lazy susan keeps everything orderly for me!
After styling the lower shelf, I decided I loved having the two books on the lower shelf. They are the “Flavor Thesaurus” and “Kitchen Hacks”. Beside them are two canisters that hold flour and sugar.
The only thing that I changed on the lower shelf is removing the blue sorbet bowls and giving the black bowls their own place. We use the plates, glasses and measuring cups nearly every day.
On the counter we have our instant hot water heater, that I would prefer to be over on the dog feeding station. It’s leaking a little so while the new one is on the way, the heater stays on the counter.
Obviously I removed all of our scrubby brushes from the styled shoot, but real life wins the everyday styling. I didn’t want the brushes lying in the sink, or on the counter, so this tub saddle allows us to have them accessible but not in the forefront. If you scroll back up to the image above you’ll see them peeking out.
Our dogs are pretty active. O-Ren below loves to hop up on the window sills and catch flies or watch (aka, bark loudly) at the squirrels.
Active dogs = supplements! As already mentioned I can’t stand clutter, so decanting their food into prettier containers and hiding the rest in the drawer does the trick!
I still need to find a pretty bottle for the fish oil, but for now it sorta blends in to the white wall.
The top and the part of the drawer hold the items we need to make our pups food every day. Ideally the hot water dispenser would be here too, and will be once the new (non leaking) one arrives. In the meantime the cutlery which still doesn’t have its final home is sitting in its place!!
I’ve been collecting pretty dishware for some time and love that I get to showcase it on our open shelves. If that’s not you, then closed cabinets are perfect!
The moral of the story is: design and organise based on how you and your family actually use your kitchen (or want to use your kitchen)!
I offer e-design services for those of you not local and in-person consultations and design if you are in the RVA (Richmond, Virginia) area.
If you are stuck in a rut or need some help, email me, I’d love to work with you.
Curating what photos tell the story of the space is one of my favourite parts of project completion.
And so, here is the full reveal of the finished Light Filled Folk Victorian Kitchen for the One Room Challenge™.
Come on in.
I could sit in this kitchen and stare out the windows for hours.
The white walls, natural materials and plants give the room a Scandinavian feel. The pendant lights still need to be moved over. That’s a long story for another post!
An opportunity arose for a plant nook where the bay window juts out.
I chose this slab of ash to make the shelves out of because of the worm eaten edges. We have similar worm marks in our floors and carrying this pattern into something new helps keep it in character.
If you remember the second post in this One Room Challenge™ Series, there are three entryways in this kitchen. Though each room connecting to the kitchen is its own separate entity, to provide a feeling of flow and continuity, the rooms need to relate to one another.
The bright salmon entry is definitely a statement! As you walk into the kitchen you’ll notice the rugs, plants and books picking up that colour. This relates the white and black kitchen back to the entry so that they feel as though they belong together even though they are designed to have a different impact.
Here is what the kitchen looks like from the front entry.
There is a clear line of sight into the laundry/mudroom at the back of the home.
The front door is painted a vibrant teal and you’ll find this brilliant blue as an accent in all of the rooms on the first floor helping to create a cohesive colour scheme. The orange colour on the visible laundry room wall complements the salmon of the entry.
I have added copper pulls to this original built in pantry and the copper on the wallpaper really pulls this wall together.
We don’t often use the microwave, so putting it into the pantry was perfect!
The built in pantry also has a passthrough that goes to the walk-in pantry. The colourful cloth is hiding the square hole because I didn’t want you to be distracted by the mess that is hiding back there! Once the walk in is complete, I’ll open the peekaboo hole up and you’ll be able to see right through.
If you look closer at the details you’ll find many mentions of what makes us feel at home; the Canadian teapot in the pantry, the painting of my very first dog Jules who has long since passed, the cookbooks that we’ve collected over the years featuring adventurous cooking and materials that bring us joy.
A huge part of the charm of this house is the original features, like this Charles Eastlake latch that is on our pantry doors. We have similar original hardware on our front door and Eastlake inspired fireplaces in other rooms of the home.
While we have modernised this kitchen with updated wiring, plumbing and appliances, a lot of thought and consideration went into making sure to preserve the history this house offered us. We’ve kept all the porcelain door knobs, as much of the original wood as possible and re-created what was damaged. We love the old (mostly original) windows and will not be replacing them with vinyl or any such tragedy!
My perspective is a home isn’t ALL about the looks. It really needs to consider how each person uses the space and what elements to include to ensure that you enjoy your life being at home in your home.
O-Ren and Mags say they like their new kitchen too!
Candis & Andy, from Home Love Network are scouting the guest participants and two will be selected by Better Homes and Gardens to participate as featured designer during the next round.
This was my first time participating as a guest and I am hooked! This was a motivating kick in the pants to finish the details and write about the process. I personally find it easier to speak about the work I do for my clients than the work I do for my own home. Thank you to all of my readers and commenters, I’ve really enjoyed the process and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too!
Last week in the One Room Challenge™, the trim had just been installed. This week we had the cabinets installed and the counters put in!
I didn’t have time to paint all the trim before the cabinets came in, so I painted the lower corner by the far left window that would be difficult to paint after the cabinet install.
The appliances and lights all got delivered and are all stacked here awaiting installation by the electrician.
One of the cabinets came with an extra hole in the door that did not get caught by the cabinet makers quality control team, so they are making me another door.
I got all the trim painted, woo hoo! Next are the final coats of the white wall paint.
I primed the fireplace (and all the doors) with an oil based primer so that subsequent coats of paint stay without scratching or flaking off.
I haven’t mentioned the lighting in any previous posts, but these images below capture the spirit that I was going for. The lights will look similar, but will not be exactly the same as what is pictured below!
I am saving the full effect for the big reveal next week, but here is a glimpse along with our first meal in this house not made on a campstove or the grill outside!
And yes, we used the oven.
Here is the ash slab that I am making the live edge floating shelves out of for the kitchen sink side of the room. It looks a little rough here, but after lots of sanding they look pretty great!
I’ve mentioned the pantry several times over the last few posts, but I highly doubt it will get done in time. Do look for it in a future post though.
That’s it for this week in the One Room Challenge™. Next week I’ll show you the whole kitchen.
The drywallers came in and gave us some new walls! The dust that sanding drywall mud creates is just as fine as plaster dust, but it doesn’t spread as far as the plaster dust did.
The fan shown in this photo will be moved to another room. These old fans with only four blades are definitely unique to the era and we like the look of it when it has its schoolhouse globe on!
Next the whole space got primed.
The blue tape shows the drywaller the areas he needs to finesse before the paint goes on.
Let’s just say that my attention to detail is far more acute than the drywallers! Eventually we made it through the touch ups, but this portion of the job was agonising.
Just the ceiling to go!
And now for the floors.
I mentioned that my husband and I decided to do the floors ourselves in the first post of this One Room Challenge™. series. As a reminder here is what they looked like.
All of the grey is glue from a previous surface glued to the hardwood. Our floor sanding crew was myself, my husband, my brother and my neighbour.
This is me in the adjoining living room sanding this room at the same time as the kitchen. This is one of the machines we used.
Floor sanding causes the worst dust out of all the dusts I’ve introduced to you so far! As the fine wood dust lands on your skin it sucks the moisture right out of it. I changed my face mask nearly every hour as the fine particulates would clog it right up.
This sweeping compound helped keep the dust on the floor while sweeping between each sand.
It’s getting there. The grey you can still see on the floor is glue still stuck on the floor. Because this home is so old, the wood on the floors is cupped, which basically means some areas are lower than others and we must use different tools to remove the remaining glue.
Ready for stain!
Now before you say, “wait a sec Lora, you missed a spot!” I opted to leave the portion in the top left corner as is, as it will be under the cabinet. Seriously the glue removal was something else!
Here is the stain going on. Floor staining is rather meditative for the first 30 minutes, after that my inner child starts whining, “are we done yet?” Ha!
Here is that same shot of the bare floors now with stain and poly on it!
And on to the Trim!
When the wood trim was removed, it came apart in pieces.
Some of it was salvagable, but most of it wasn’t. A big part of the charm of this Folk Victorian is the millwork! The entryway, living room and study all have this same gorgeous trim.
I went down to a wood shop that specialises in architectural trim and they had a knife already cut that is so close to the original it would be hard to tell them apart. See photo below.
The new trim arrived and got installed.
I’ve also chosen my granite slab and had it laid out at the granite suppliers.
Here it is, you totally guessed right! The movement in this particular slab “had me at hello”, so I was 90% sure I would choose this one. In fact, immediately after seeing the cabinet maker and seeing the samples I called the granite supplier and asked her to hold that particular slab for me!
That’s it for this week in the One Room Challenge™. Next week we’ll have the electricians installing the lights and appliances, and the cabinets and granite counters will get installed. I’m busy doing the final painting and making some live edge floating ash shelves.
I find it fascinating how a house works from the internals out and incorporating the parts we see (switches, faucets and lighting) to be an integral part of the design process. I liken wiring, plumbing and HVAC lines to be similar to veins and arteries in our bodies.
I mentioned in my first post in this One Room Challenge™ Series that my Dad was coming down to help me run the line sets, for the mini split HVAC system — here we go!!
Line sets are two copper pipes covered in insulation that carry the Freon from the large condensing units outside to the small head units placed in each room, an electrical wire, and a line to drain the condensate the small head units make. See image below.
Here is a short video of me feeding a line set through a wall. It was three seconds long, but I slowed it down to show 10 seconds.
My husband was in the crawlspace feeding the line up through the floor, as he would feed it through I (who was on the first floor) would pull it up from the floor then our friend who was on the second floor would feed it from his floor and my dad would pull it up into the attic. The whole time each person would need to speak to the person above or below them, but we had to shout to be heard through the thick walls!
We installed all 8 line sets, with four lines running through the kitchen walls. It took a lot of persistence, this old house has some massive wood used as studs!!
Then, I labelled each line at each small head unit as well as in the basement where they will be connected to the two outdoor condensing units.
It’s taken the electricians 3 weeks to install all of the rough-in electrical throughout the whole house and some of the kitchen wiring will happen after the cabinets are installed.
The drywallers will be in next to repair the holes the electricians had to make in various rooms, along with adding new sheetrock throughout the kitchen where the wood paneling and plaster was removed.
These wires are for our disposal and outlet by the kitchen sink.
And here is the plumbing getting stubbed out for the sink and dishwasher.
Speaking of sinks….
I went to the granite supplier and looked at the slabs that they had available and while I was there I checked out their sinks so that we could decide on the configuration we wanted. Initially I was going to just do the standard 50/50 sink, but as I like to cook and make preserves I decided to go with the 60/40 sink as it’s larger and deeper than a standard 50/50. In the 70/30 or 30/70 sink a full size plate wouldn’t fit flat like you see in the 60/40 sink image below so that sealed the deal for me!
Counters and Cabinets
The cabinet dimensions are all sorted and now I have to choose a colour! I find white cabinets to be beautiful in principal, but in our family where we actively cook and make messes, I’ve found that it bothers me to no end when the cabinets don’t get wiped down after every meal. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense!
Image #1 shows the picture I sent to the cabinet makers. Image #2 is one of the samples the cabinetmaker did for me, along with a few cabinet pull selections. They got pretty close and are doing a darker sample for me too!
Image #3 and #4 are the two granite types I’ve narrowed my options down to.
What do you think, will I choose the white granite or the black granite?
Next week, I’ll share some of the pantry, the drywall and some lighting fixtures along with some more progress in the One Room Challenge™.
Right after you walk out the back door, you couldn’t walk directly out the back door, you had to walk down two awkward steps then navigate over this awkward step that you had to step up and over EACH way. (image on left)
