Exciting Developments At The Duplex: a house log

FOLKS. GET EXCITED. Plenty of major stuff is happening at the duplex. Like extremely thrilling developments that we have thought about and planned over the last year and at last… AT LAST!… they are happening. You last saw the duplex about a month ago when we shared that it was drywalled, and the latest progress has in short put me over the edge. I, The editor, am feeling what people refer to as “messy” about these recent developments. It means I am too excited and it is not a good look. But you know I cannot contain myself so I am simply gonna share it all anyway. GET READY FOR A CAPS LOCK EXTRAVAGANZA AND Plenty OF PICTURES!

That room above is the living room on the RIGHT side of the duplex in all of its painted and trimmed glory (remember, there are two identical – simply mirrored – fully separate functioning units in this house – they even have two distinct street addresses). The wall color that we chose for every last wall in the whole duplex is Sherwin Williams Spare White, which is a barely-there gray color with simply sufficient contrast from the Sherwin Williams Extra White trim.

With all the colorful tile (and doors! and stair risers! and cabinets!) that we chose for these spaces, it simply feels like the right backdrop to support those bolder choices. Even from the living & dining room’s extremely plain state in the photo above, you can already see the progress from what it looked like when we first laid eyes on it:

But before we get into things like that wider doorway at the back of the house (and that glorious indoor transom that we are adding!), simply FEAST YOUR EYES upon what is happening the second you walk in the front door. Our chippendale railings all the way from Richmond are in!

If you heard this week’s podcast, we talked about how we demo’d the railings off of our porch back in Richmond (simply to open things up before we paint the house white) only to discover they were a ideal fit for the stairs in the duplex!!! If that is not fate, I am not sure what is.

There is one at the bottom of the steps on each side of the duplex. Remember we opened the stairs up because they were originally fully closed in and dark. This is the old framing. Picture drywall covering the whole staircase from both sides.

This helps you see what it looked like from upstairs looking down. There was simply a compact doorway to squeeze through to see into the living room.

It is so much nicer to have the bottom five stairs opened up to the living space – and it still blows my mind that the railing that we needed happened to be the exact railing size that we had in Richmond from our porch! There were also two straight railings that we took out from the sides of our porch back in Richmond, and they are virtually the exact length that we need for the top of the stairs on each side of the duplex. Literally simply some trim pieces need to be brought in, but they are going to be a ideal fit as well. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

In summary: It was RIDICULOUSLY THRILLING to see that the railings at the bottom of the steps truly do fit perfectly and that they do exactly what we hoped them to do for this house’s interior: which is to add a little bit of geometry and interest. We still might tweak the newel post situation (I call the round thing at the top of the post a “hamburger” and I’d like to cut it off and add a more square top there) but I am not gonna let that rain on my railing parade.

But back to the back of the house – because there is plenty of good stuff happening there too. First of all, Sean mocked up the transom window that we are adding to the (now much wider) doorway into the kitchen. It is simply two 1 x 6″ boards nailed in to create the base of the window and check the proportion, and thanks to that exercise in mocking it up, we all agreed that it would look better if we made that bottom trim a little narrower, hence the 1 x 4″ note written on it by Sean.

We think that will assist the glass-to-trim ratio feel a bit more balanced (more glass, and trim along the bottom that is the same size as the trim on the sides). But again, I am not gonna let that little need for tweaking rain on my parade… which is now a railing AND transom parade, in case you are keeping track.

Nearly all of our primed solid wood five-paneled doors were hung too and – as you will see in a minute – some even got their first coat of paint (hint: they are not staying white… so the one below has not been painted yet). But it was truly excited to see this view start to come together. The fairly paneled doors, the transom window, and the exposed brick chimney back in the kitchen all feel like “something special” – and they all seem like they could have been here all along, which is consistently the goal.

Since this house was a rental for so many years, it had a lot of small & low-cost upgrades and patch-jobs over time, so there was significantly less original stuff to salvage than the pink house (nearly all of the doors, lights, and hardware were replaced by newer and less cool things). Which is why our goal to bring back some of that older feeling charm with things like the transom window, the exposed brick chimney, and pleasant solid wood doors are so exciting to at last see in the space.

The kitchen itself is crammed with boxes at the moment (they are our bathroom vanities) but it is going to be such a pleasant space in the end. It feels like the ideal size, and we enjoy how balanced it feels with that wide opening to the dining room and those pleasant double pocket doors that lead to the laundry room/mudroom. It’ll have even more lively details – like a wall full of tile to the ceiling – which you can see in this post about our tile choices.

The pocket door glass is not frosted, it is simply covered in a protective paper for now – but look how pretttttty this area is becoming with the addition of these doors. We have been going back and forth on whether or not to paint the pocket doors. I enjoy the wood, but John thinks that we might have trouble staining the pockets to match the color of the diamond door (they are distinct base wood types) plus we are doing blonde wood cabinets in the nearby kitchen.

So even if we can get them to match the diamond door, they will not match the lighter wood cabinets in the kitchen… which is why John’s voting that we paint them (but not white… more on that in a second). We certainly want to stain the identical pocket doors on the other side of the duplex (since that kitchen will have blue cabinet doors and that diamond door is already painted). So in the end both kitchens will have a mix of wood and painted accents.

Speaking of painted accents, Sean’s crew began painting some of the interior doors upstairs and they are EXACTLY what we were hoping for. On this side (the unit on the right) all of the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams Oyster Bay, which is sort of a gray-blue with a hit of seafoam in it. It is quite neutral, but still pops nicely agains the white walls and trim. I could not be more in love with this wall/trim/door combo, folks. If I could give it ten jazz hands I would.

Plus, look how charming they look with the shadow of my diamond paned windows reflecting on the floor in the front bedroom!!! I DIE.

On the other side of the duplex (the unit on the left) the doors are getting painted Sherwin Williams White Truffle, which – despite the name – is not white at all. It is a soft muted pink that also pops nicely against the light walls and white trim without being like a crazy hot pink. WARNING: THESE DO NOT LOOK Remarkable YET BECAUSE IT IS Simply ONE COAT (and the walls look green here because leafy trees were reflecting in the window) but hold out for the final look. It is gonna be strong. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES.

We are headed there this weekend to – cross your fingers everybody! – hopefully start tiling. I KNOWWWW! WE ARE AT THE TILING PHASE! That means all that is truly left after that is floor refinishing and assembling the kitchen and hanging the lights and installing the bathroom vanities. BUT WE CAN TASTE THE FINISH LINE!!!! I told you this post was gonna have a lot of caps lock. And I feel like they are warranted. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates and progress as our little twins start to feel more and more like real houses. And to catch up on everything we have done to get the duplex to this point, you can read all the previous posts here. And you can listen in on how we could even afford to take this project on (in the middle of finishing the tile at the beach house) in this podcast, if you are interested in investing in vacation rentals – or simply houses in general.