New Plans

And here are the new plans!  Our favorite features: an open plan kitchen/dining room in the addition and a huge master bedroom/bathroom on the second floor. Our current kitchen is a galley with barely enough room for one; our new kitchen will be open with plenty of counter space. Our goal is to make the house look and feel like the addition is part of the original house and we had to work around the location of the current staircase and other structural constraints.  Our solution was to tackle the addition and the second story first...and we'll think about rearranging the rest of the first story later to switch two small bedrooms out for a guest suite with en-suite bath. The final house will have 4 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths on the first and second stories...and after all that, we'll finish the basement for a family room space and perhaps an additional bath. All of which just means that our 2 year estimated time line may actually be overly optimistic!

Pre-renovation

Current views of the house and the current as builts.  Things we like about the house: moderately-sized lot (at least by Arlington standards), livable shape currently (if a bit small), and a yard with nothing in it (and nothing to harm during construction).  Things we can't wait to change: adding a proper sized kitchen and a bathroom big enough for a proper sized sink.  We plan to live in the house while we renovate.  We'll be without a roof for a couple of weeks and without a kitchen for quite a bit longer than that.  It sounds manageable in theory...this blog will track how it goes in reality!