Real Family Remodel Stories
Category: Newsroom » Remodelers ShowcaseSM » Remodelers Featured Stories - September 14, 2010
Here's what three families had to say about their remodel experiences
You love your neighborhood...and your neighbors aren’t so bad either. But your house...it just doesn’t fit your lifestyle or your family any longer. What do you do? You remodel. See why and how these Twin Cities families renovated and turned their old houses into their new dream homes.
The New Family
by Fran Howard
Many of today’s families headed by members of Generation X are deciding to abandon their formal dining rooms to gain an open floor plan and modern kitchen. Maritt and Nick are no exception. They moved to Woodbury from Saint Paul’s Highland Park in May 2004, but after living in their two-story for six years, they decided they needed a change.
“We moved to the suburbs because we could gain a lot of space, but we knew we would be sacrificing character,” says Maritt, who had just had her second child at the time. While she and Nick liked their new house, they also knew they wanted to update the kitchen someday, and add character to the home. “I don’t feel that people my age use a formal dining room in the same way our parents and grandparents did,” says Maritt. “We rarely used ours. When we had people over, everyone gathered in the kitchen.”
The couple took the remodeling plunge when their youngest child started school and hired Stonehearth Custom Homes, in Champlin, to open the floor plan. Stonehearth removed the wall separating the kitchen and dining area and reconfigured the entire space into a spacious kitchen that opens to the living room and family room. To add character, Stonehearth installed rich, hardwood floors throughout the entire main level.
“It’s a better flow, much more open,” Maritt says. The kitchen now has a large center island with an eating bar, and plenty of storage, including a wine rack. Other cool features in this kitchen include two deep drawers for pots and pans, soft-close drawers, a pullout spice rack, and a “mail station” where the family can drop mail, keys, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
“We love the openness of our floor plan,” Maritt notes. “Now when we have parties, it feels like there is room for everyone. When I’m in the kitchen, I can visit with guests almost anywhere on the main floor of my home. Everyone feels like they are a part of the conversation without being cramped or crowded.” The couple takes turns hosting a once-a-month game night when about 20 friends gather to play board games, cards, or an outdoor game of kickball.
“Before the remodel, it felt very cramped having them over,” says Maritt. “It was very stressful. Now I enjoy it.”
Nick and Maritt also regularly entertain family, which is why they decided to keep their formal dining room table, which when fully extended can seat 12. To fit the table in the dinette area of the new kitchen, Stonehearth extended the space about a foot into the family room. Together the family sits down at the table for a “formal” meal about three or four times a week. The rest of the time, they use the island’s eating bar. “We are a busy family. We both work. We have two busy kids,” says Maritt. “When we come home from work and school and the kids have activities such as soccer or dance class, we can all sit down at the island to eat. It’s easy and convenient on a busy week night.”
Out of the Ashes
by Fran Howard
On a warm day in April 2009, Ron opened the doors to his house and went out to begin spring clean-up in his yard. All of a sudden his neighbor cried out, “Ron, your house is filled with smoke!” When Ron tried to run into the house, he was thrown back by the force of the draft.
The cause of the fire was linked to a kinked wire, but the intensity and how quickly the fire spread was likely the result of both doors being open at once. “The fire shot up from the utility room to the first floor to the second floor, and within 10 minutes, it was over,” recalls Ron. Luckily his wife Cindy was out, but the couple lost their cat and bird to the fire.
Ironically, two other houses in Ron and Cindy’s neighborhood suffered damage from separate fires in recent years. That coincidence along with the trauma that resulted from their home being engulfed in fire made Cindy pause, but Ron knew he wanted to rebuild. “I grew up on the lot,” he says. “When my folks passed away, I tore down their old house and built a new one.”
At that time, Ron designed his former 3,000-square-foot home to fit the lot, which flanks the shore of White Bear Lake. The lot is only 50 feet wide with 10-foot set-ins, with a steep hill leading down to the lake. “The workable footprint is preordained,” Ron notes. “It will only accommodate a tall, narrow structure.” Once Cindy agreed to rebuild after the fire, Ron called Cary Becker of Becker Building and Remodeling, in New Brighton. Ron liked the quality of Becker’s work, and the remodeler came highly recommended by a friend of Ron and Cindy’s.
Limited once again by the lot, Ron and Cindy decided to build a nearly identical house, with a few improvements. Compared to the original floor plan, Becker bumped out an exterior wall, which added 175 square feet, and then designed a turret where the deck once was for an additional 125 square feet of living space.
“The exterior is very different from the other home,” says Ron. “We changed the pitch lines of the roof and the materials.” The home’s former gray vinyl siding was nothing Ron and Cindy cared to repeat. Instead they chose a soft green Hardie board with cedar shakes and white over-sized trim. They also eliminated skylights and vaulted upper-level ceilings, which helps keep the space warm in the winter.
Perhaps the most important change, though, lies in updated fire codes. Today’s wires are installed in such a way that a kinked wire—like the one that sparked the fire—becomes highly unlikely. Code also requires a firewall be built between each floor, which reduces the odds that a fire will spread from floor to floor.
Despite having endured the trauma of fire, Cindy and Ron slept soundly the first night in their new home. “We spent a year in a rental about four blocks from the house,” Ron says. “I could stand in the middle of the bathroom and touch all four walls. The first night in our new house was like being in heaven.”
The City Life
by Fran Howard
Urbanites by nature, Anne and Lance decided to move into the heart of Minneapolis once they determined they would be sending their children to private schools. Lance grew up in Chicago and Anne spent her childhood in a Detroit suburb. “We wanted to be in the city near the lakes,” says Anne. “We like the lifestyle, the activity. People are out enjoying life, exercising. People snowshoe and cross-country ski in winter and walk the lakes year round. We feel more alive when we are around active people.”
After selling their Edina home, Lance, Anne, and their two children moved into a stately colonial on Lake of the Isles with the intention of remodeling the kitchen and adding a family room, but leaving the home’s formal dining area and living room intact. Lance and Anne’s third child arrived about nine months after they moved into their new home. Before taking the remodeling leap, the couple interviewed five builders, narrowing their selection to three. In the end, Lance and Anne chose Vujovich Design Build, in Minneapolis, for the project.
During the six-month remodeling process, the family rented a house on the shores of Lake Calhoun. Instead of visiting the site often, Lance and Anne communicated with the project manager via e-mail, receiving both updates and schedules. Anne visited the project site once a week, and Lance was onsite about every other week. “Vujovich was very organized, very professional, friendly, respectful, punctual, and easy to work with,” says Anne. “Having young kids, I did not want to be involved at all with the management of the project.” And Lance was too busy with work.
In some ways the remodeling project was fairly routine. Vujovich removed a mud room and added a backyard addition to make room for a powder room, family room, and breakfast room. Vujovich also enlarged the kitchen by removing a defunct three-story chimney adjacent to the kitchen. In an earlier remodel, the chimney was covered with faux cabinets, which Vujovich also removed. The remodeler replaced a C-shaped island with a 10-foot island that required an entire slab of granite for the countertop. On the second floor, Vujovich remodeled a bathroom and added the baby’s room.
The challenge came in the lower level, where the remodeler added a workout room as well as a cool exercise pool that requires less space than a traditional pool because it allows swimmers to swim against a current. “The biggest challenge was the pool,” says Anne. “It was a major undertaking.” The pool required separate mechanicals with a heater and air-exchange system.
The family moved into its remodeled home in March 2010. Anne and Lance now have the perfect set up. They relax and play with the kids in the large new family room, but entertain and enjoy adult companionship in the home’s formal living and dining rooms. And the family continues to enjoy the city life, riding bikes and scooters around the lakes, throwing fishing lines into Lake of the Isles, paddling the lakes in canoes, playing ball on the soccer fields across the street, grabbing a bite to eat in uptown, or heading off to a play, concert, or sporting event in nearby downtown.