I have found that if something has a designated place, I am far more likely to put it away. This has proven to be a practical guideline for working on homes. At the beginning of the renovation process, we ask questions like, “Where will the vacuum cleaner and the broom stay? Is there dish storage near the dishwasher? Where will the towels go? Where will people hang their coats?

The new master bathroom features a walk-in closet.

The answers to these questions, and others, drive the plans for the renovation and our big goal of making homes livable.

In this home, each of the bedrooms has a walk-in closet, plus we have added a coat closet near the front door and a linen closet near the hall bath. The kitchen has new cabinets and features a coffee station next to the refrigerator. The laundry room also has a storage area.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Our Sweet Spot project has undergone most of its major transformations over the course of the last three months. The tile work has been finished and every single wall and ceiling surface has been painted. The hardwood floors are refinished and the kitchen completed. We are on to finishing touches and punch list items.

But before showing you more, let’s go back to tile. Whenever the existing tile in one of our project homes is good looking, we work to keep it. We faced a number of conundrums on this house. For example, what do you do when a tile now longer made? How do you keep the old tile, and make the updates look as if they were part of the original design? We presented our installer with these doozies and more this time.

Challenge 1, the existing full bath. The existing shower walls and flooring were from a pre-fab kit. While they looked fine at first glance, upon closer inspection we found that they were awful and had to go. However, the black and white mosaic tile floor, featuring a pattern we had not seen before, was in great shape. A standard white 4” x 4” tile wainscoting covered the walls and complemented the floor.
When we pulled out the old shower floor pan and accompanying vinyl shower surround we were left with a big gap in the flooring. Because the floor pattern was unique, we could not find a matching or complementary tile.
What to do, what to do?
We solved the problem by using oversized, black porcelain tile planks on the shower walls and adding white tile as an accent that picks up the pattern from the floor. Using so much dark tile in a small area is the opposite of my normal design tendencies, but in this case we decided to go bold. The installer cut pieces of the black planks to size to fill in the empty spots in the floor and to create a band at the top of the tile wainscoting. I held my breath during the installation, and breathed a big sigh of relief one the job was done.

Challenge 2, the former full bath turned laundry room. There was an oddly-placed full bath located at the back of the home away from the bedrooms. Really, who wants to run through the house to get to a shower? So we repurposed the space, and it is now a half bath and laundry area. In doing, so we pulled out a tub and once again were left with areas of the tile floor that needed to be patched. We found five pieces of the existing tile, but needed more to complete the patching.
The solution this time was to pop out some of the tiles and add back in a complementary tile to make a checkerboard pattern in the floor. Again, I held my breath until the installation was complete, and we are thrilled with the results.

Challenge 3, the new master bath. We created a new master suite in the back of the home, complete with a walk-in closet and full bath. Early on, I picked a floor tile with a really pretty pattern that would complement the stormy blue vanity we had chosen, but waited to purchase the tile until I could see the vanity in place and confirm the color. Well, everyone else must have thought this tile was pretty too as it was out of stock when we went back to buy it. So, the day before the installers were to begin their work, I was rethinking the bathroom flooring and shower surround.
In the end, we put together a really lovely combination of oversize planks and small hex tiles. By running the shower accent band and the planks vertically, the ceiling appears higher and the shower appears larger.

These low maintenance floors are looking super, even before cleanup.

Challenge 4, the kitchen and back hallway floor. Years ago, a former owner added on to the back of the home, and the floor took a strange and pronounced dip from the kitchen area into the addition. Because of this, before we began working on the home John and an inspector crawled all under the house to make sure that there were no structural issues. There were none; the floor was just wonky.
Our floor plan rework included creating a hallway to the back door so we had to level out the floors before laying the new tile floor. The tile crew added two inches of leveling cement to the floor before laying the tile. Saggy floor solved.
We chose to lay the tile on the diagonal and worked with the crew to make sure the pattern was centered on the doorways. And yes, I held my breath. And yes, once again our installer came through with great looking result.

I am glad we are finished with these installations so that I can get back to regular breathing.

We are back on it with a new project. In this crazy housing market, it took us a bit to find a property that would fit our model—right location, right size, right price.

After taking a little time for ourselves, we started working in earnest on our new project in July. This home is very near the Pink Palace so it is close to shopping and services (you can walk to Vibe Foods), the University of Memphis and East High School. It has a wonderful, shaded back deck along with a nicely landscaped back yard. We love the very quiet, tree-lined street and have gotten to know many of the neighbors.

Before stain

As always, our designs are guided by practical considerations — improving the traffic flow, upgrading or adding baths as needed, reworking the kitchen and creating storage all while making sure the renovations are pleasing to the eye.

Curb appeal is also key. One of our first decisions was to stain the exterior brick to match the existing siding — unifying the look of the exterior materials. Through a bit of research, we learned that staining the brick is a better choice than painting as it allows the brick to breathe, thereby holding the finish better. After John and Evan pulled off the very sad metal awning, the paint contractor got to work, first pressure washing the entire exterior then applying the stain. Now we have to figure out a welcoming front entry.

After stain

The floor plan is in the process of being overhauled so that the living spaces are more accessible and usable. Yes, it now has an open concept. Yes, it will have a great kitchen.

The house formerly had three bedrooms and two baths in a really funky configuration. When complete, it will have a master bedroom suite with full bath, walk in closet and working fireplace, along with a second bedroom with a walk-in closet. There is a laundry room with a half bath that has easy access to the very large back deck. And it has the new Covid-era necessity — a separate area just right for a home office.

If all goes well, we hope to have the home ready by mid-October.

Check!

We love seeing these stickers. The electrical and plumbing work for this house is being done under permit, and these stickers confirm that the work has been both correctly done and meets our local building code standards. I can’t tell you how many times we have opened walls and found scary, dangerous work that needed to be corrected. We work to get it right.

Next!

Our local building codes require that projects receive these approvals before closing the walls. After passing these inspections, our sheetrock crew came back on site and began their work. The walls and ceilings in the loft were really a challenge to complete because of all the angles. The space is now finished and is being painted today. I am so excited about the way the loft is coming together.

This is the final posting about the Sheridan renovation. This home has sold and is now being enjoyed by its new owner.

Here is a link to the finished project page.

When we bought the property, it had been a rental home for several years, and the landscaping was very overgrown. As we have progressed through spring, we have seen many beautiful plants come out of hiding and put on a show of colorful blossoms. We guessed someone who loved to garden owned the home at one time and have learned from long-time residents of the neighborhood that this was so.

This is the second pile of pruning from the week’s work.

This past week, I have been working in the morning hours while it is cool to reclaim the beds and front yard. So far we have removed fencing, cleaned up fence rows, pruned bushes and pulled weeds. Plants, including knock out roses, day lilies, peonies, iris and cannas, have been transplanted to new areas of the yard.

I have pruned back the holly and box woods and azaleas back to their original cutting lines. While they look severely whacked back right now, with luck they will have plenty of healthy new growth by the time we are ready to market the house.

The poison oak and poison ivy are gone. Where we were unable to pull out the weeds, we have sprayed. The clematis and climbing rose have been staked. The beds have been mulched. Things are coming along.

I love this lone purple spider wort growing the next door neighbor’s driveway.

The bride’s bouquet

An aside. Back in April, when the iris were blooming, a friend of mine postponed her wedding celebration because of Covid restrictions. Instead, on their originally planned wedding day, she and her fiancé choose to have a small private civil ceremony (Part 1) to legally tie the knot and rescheduled the larger, wedding celebration (Part 2) to the fall. I asked her if she would like me to make her a bride’s bouquet for the small event, and she said yes, mentioning that yellow was her favorite color. So, I fashioned yellow iris and ferns from the project yard, along daisies and rosemary from my own home, into a bouquet that became a part of the Part 1 wedding event. I believe the gardener who originally planted the flowers at the project home would be pleased to know her blossoms were part of this happy occasion.

One thing the Covid crisis has made clear is that having a dedicated place to work from home is more than a nicety, it is a necessity. We are believers. Being self-employed, we have a room set aside for this purpose in our home.

Early on when considering what to do with the former kitchen space, we decided to locate the laundry in part of the area as existing plumbing was available. We realized that the remaining space, approximately 8’ x 10’, would make a great home office. The area is next to the back door, convenient to the kitchen and away from the main living areas. It also has a great view of the backyard through the newly installed replacement windows. So, on one end of the room we will enclose a stacking washer and dryer in a cabinet so that it will not be distracting. The rest of this light-filled space will be devoted to office (or whatever the new owner chooses) functions. Tap on the photos to take a look at the evolution of this space.

One of our greatest pleasures is seeing the houses we work on being transformed. Often our memory is short; we look at photos taken at the start of the renovation process and think, “Wow, did it really look like that?” The gallery below is a great example of the existing garage’s resurrection. It was covered with a tangle of vines, and the exterior was in rough shape. However, the basic structure was good, even though it leaned a good 6”. John and Evan straightened it back up and strengthened the walls. Next came new exterior siding (we found material that would match the original wood) and the addition of two windows. The original doors had great style, but were in really sad and could not be salvaged. Evan built new ones of the same design and installed them. Tap the photo below to see how the work progressed.

Progress report - Lots of interior finishing has been taking place. Felipe and Walter covered the popcorn ceilings with 1/4” sheet rock, finished the new interior walls and made repairs to the existing ones. Mark and David have been painting pretty much anything that did not move.