Demo Day Two: Whoa! A Few Changes!

The demo stuff goes pretty quickly.

The demo team only has a little bit of work left to do on Monday... And then their portion will be done.  After being trapped at home all day waiting for my new phone to arrive, I was finally able to head over to the place to see what all they had done.

The first two things I noticed were a new porta-potty right in front of the house (which will remain there for a few weeks), and the horrible pink flowering tree was cut down.

While I know it is cruel to cut down living things, I can't help it. It had to go. As do all of the palm trees. (Which may be useful to charity. If only Habitat for Humanity would call me back already!) The pink tree was bad Feng Shui, though. It was large and intrusive. And it was blocking the flow to the front door.

So it had to go.

I loved walking through my front door and seeing the progress.  I imagine contractors are always curious to see what is happening within the skeleton of a house. Where load-bearing walls exist... Trying to figure out why things may have been built or styled a certain way... It can be baffling. I know, after walking through the place yesterday, that I was baffled myself.

Still, I was pleased to see that the kitchen was fully gutted...

Now that the hanging "L-shaped" cabinets and counter are all out, it's nice to see how much light can actually filter in from the kitchen into the dining area.

My contractor and I spent a bit of time discussing the layout of the kitchen. We changed a few things around. We're getting rid of the french doors you see there. The left-side door will be replaced with a wall with a lower cabinet and picture window above it. There will be just one door, windowed, instead. I also decided that for my every day dishes and glassware, I wanted open shelving instead of a cabinet. And we're moving the pantry cabinet to the wall area that was labeled "blackboard wall" in one of the photos. It will be right next to the fridge.

So we're making much better use of the space.

The rest of the first floor living space is being opened up more.

The space to the left, in the photo below, will be open shelves and a wine fridge with a counter above it...

And the little strip of ugly yellow-brown wall that you see next to it? It's going. It serves no purpose.

Upstairs, though, is where some of the most amazing transformations are happening.

It was great to be able to walk into the space where the new bathroom is going to be, and get a sense of what it will feel like...

Right where the two eight-foot closets in each bedroom were (which is where the silver foil air tube is) are becoming a new three-piece bathroom.

Perhaps I am insane and learned through many moves over time that you need to constantly purge the crap you don't need... But I don't understand the need to hang on to so much stuff that it necessitates you needing an eight-foot closet in each bedroom.

Sure, I collect stuff. I keep things for sentimental reasons. But I am always asking myself, "Do I really need it? Am I actually going to wear it? Is it worth a lot of money now, or will it be in the future?" If the answer to those questions is, "Yes"... Then it stays.

I was also excited to get a feel for the revised master suite...

The closet expansion, all the way to the white railing you see in the photo above... Imagining an entire wall going there...

Knowing that the space will be streamlined and clean. No horrible carpet... But hardwood and rugs...

I could feel it all in that space.

I am still trying to imagine the deeper tub though...

I made a promise to myself - after living in my place in Boston - that a deep tub was all I would allow. No exception. I live for baths. I'm not a fan of jets in the tub... I just need it to be a deep tub, for soaking. I haven't soaked in a deep tub since...

Budapest?  Yes. It was Budapest. My hotel there had a very deep tub. Gosh... Three months ago!

Walking back down the stairs, realizing they would be stripped on Monday, eventually to be stained lighter...

Nice toilet brush that the crew left there, by the way.

My contractor and I made some key decisions about the downstairs bathroom...

The previous owner, in her hasty approach to cleaning the place up for sale, threw in a gosh-awful shower plate shower in the bathroom downstairs. 

It was originally just a large powder room. Too large, in fact. In my opinion, and my contractor's, it was taking up a lot of space for no reason.

We momentarily discussed potentially turning it into a full three-piece bathroom downstairs... Making the house a "three-bedroom, three-bathroom" place. But I felt like that was just too indulgent. As it was, the tub in the upstairs guest bathroom was barely ever going to be used. To add a third one, downstairs, was just crazy. I did think about turning it into a dog-showering station - because I do intend to get a dog... But even that seemed too indulgent when this is Southern California and it's nearly always Sunny... And I can easily hose my future dog (whose name will be "The Dude") outside.

So we decided we were going to make the powder room smaller, and open the space up to the living room, which is great.

We'll move the toilet next to the sink on this wall...

And it will be just a small powder room.

So more walls to come down. We're just tearing down a lot of walls this year, aren't we?