I met Terry in April 2020 and we were moving in together by July of 2021. After a year and a half in a beautiful but under-maintained turn of the century home, we finally found a home of our own. It’s a pretty standard mid-century ranch on the east side of Madison; in fact, one of our friends has the same layout!
I think our realtor was surprised when we told her we wanted to make an offer because honestly, the house didn’t show very well. It was in need of a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint. And then they staged it with sporadic blow up furniture and a too-big dining table.
– listing photo –
– listing photo –
Also, there were some fundamental problems with the layout. A full height wall right inside the front door made for a claustrophobic little hallway. Well, that and the stairs to the basement in the middle of a living room wall.
– listing photo –
So yeah, pretty sure she was a little surprised.
But what we saw was that they had flipped the direction of the stairs to make a pantry space in the kitchen. So if we were to flip the stairs back and remove the entry wall, the main level would be more open and function better overall. [This is where having a background in remodeling was a blessing and a curse. Because I was all “oh, yeah. We can flip the stairs back easily and open this up for a better dining room.” Which is true, but apparently the cost of remodeling has gone up a bit in the almost decade I’ve been away. But I digress…]
And we also saw that there were already two full baths AND the basement was fully finished. Did I mention that it was also close to the lake, bike path, and our friends? Why would we ever pass it up?! So when our offer was accepted, we felt like we really lucked out! Thankfully, this house also happened to be the lowest offer we had made. So that helps with the remodeling budget. Now armed with a solid space plan, a decent amount of paint, and a bit of elbow grease, we will have managed to get ourselves a pretty dreamy little house!
What all are you remodeling, you ask? Well, someday we will replace the kitchen and enclose the laundry room, but for now our plan is to:
- Remove the entry wall.
- Align opening to dining with entry.
- Move closet next to new dining bench.
- Reverse direction of stairs.
- Lower stairwell walls to half walls.
Where are we at now? Well, we have met with several remodeling firms but did not find a good fit. At this point, we plan to lean on my experience in managing remodel projects and will get individual bids to coordinate the trades ourselves. In the meantime, we will be sharing our plans with you, room by room. Stay tuned for our first big reveal . . . the primary bedroom!
