After Five Years Of Living Here – We are Renovating!!
Cue the demo dust! After 5+ years of living in this house, we are embarking on a renovation! Of course over the holidays (because we are nothing if not consistent). We have tackled some sizable projects over the last five years here, like adding a pool in 2021, gutting & rebuilding our kitchen in 2022, and replacing all of our windows & doors with hurricane grade ones two years ago… but this is the first time since we moved in that we are removing walls and changing rooms.
The chaos you see above is from early 2020, but in fact some of those walls being open is a preview of the new view we will gain from our kitchen and living area downstairs! We are QUITE EXCITED.
So I am simply going to share a little reno overview here, since a lot of this is already on Instagram (I have been sharing in IG Stories – so you can see my Reno 2025 highlight for that).
Why This Reno? And Why Now?
The best way to describe the impetus for this reno is that when we moved in, we expected to add a second bathroom because we thought we could not live without one. Now it has been five years (the first of which we were all at home nearly all the time due to at-home-learning in Covid) and somehow we all have been simply fine with one bathroom.
Over the last five years of living here, two OTHER things have nagged at us far more than having simply one bathroom (remember we also have an outdoor shower, which certainly takes the pressure off simply one bathroom inside).
The first thing we have consistently had in mind to update at some point is that we know our son will need a bigger room as he grows (his used to be a laundry room. It is quite cute but quite small). He and multiple friends can hang out in here for hours, but it is a tight fit, and he will not be 11-years-old forever! So ever since we made this his bedroom (he was 6 when we moved here) we knew we’d eventually want to figure out a way to give him more space in his tween/teen years.
The other thing that has nagged at us is that the pool feels quite detached from the house. You go down a long hallway access it, but cannot see it from any of our living spaces at all. It is simply such a striking view, and we wish we could look out at it from the kitchen or sitting area and not feel so disconnected from it.
We knew there had to be a smart reno move that would come to us over time that might make those two “that would be so pleasant” ideas come together. And let me tell you, it took MANY YEARS of marinating.
Then one afternoon John was like “I have THE idea.” And within about three hours of sketching it out on graph paper and taping things out on the floor, we knew it would work. So we called a contractor that one of our friends has enjoyed working with, and he came over and worked up a quote for us.
We do not share floor plans of our house anymore, but essentially all it takes to accomplish 1) a larger room for our son and 2) a more open living space on the first floor that feels connected to the pool is…
(drumroll please)
… finishing the covered section of our front porch. Many other houses near us have done that to gain extra interior space, and as much as we like our covered front porch, we also have a covered side porch, a giant upper deck, and the uncovered area of this front porch that will remain. So we are not lacking in outdoor space (we also have our side yard with the hammock and of course our pool area with a firepit area and deck with a dining table). And converting that covered porch into an interior room will essentially take the house from this…
… to this (yes, I colored that on Instagram Stories with the marker tool):
It in fact feels pleasant and balanced for the front porch to be sort of tucked into two wrapped up areas (instead of having one side that is a wrapped up bedroom and one side that is an open porch). Also I know that gap to the left of the second floor railing looks weird. This is an old photo and I now have a giant fiddle leaf fig in there and all is right with the world.
But back to converting the covered porch into an interior room. What that’ll get us is a larger bedroom for our son, a big L shaped kitchen and lounge area instead of the i-shaped one that we have that is not overlooking the pool in any way… and it is in fact going to gain us an ensuite bathroom, because we figure while we are making our house more open and functional for our fam, it would be pleasant to have a bathroom attached to our bedroom, simply because… less walking in the middle of the night when I have to pee.
Plus let us be real, I get to pick some fairly bathroom tile now. And I found the coolest sink vanity! I am even into the toilet. It is a whole exciting thing for us.
How Exactly Will You Gain A Bigger Living Area?
This was how the big idea came to us… John literally said “if we enclose the covered porch and move our daughter’s room there (it’ll be slightly bigger than her room now, but otherwise nearly exactly the same), we could knock down the wall with the laundry closet that backs up to her existing room and make it one big L-shaped kitchen and family room setup.” Literally we’d simply move her existing windows to her freshly built bedroom and only have to buy a big glass door leading to the pool for the new lounge space.
Shifting her room over to the front porch area (and turning her old room into a family room/lounge that overlooks the pool and connects to our current kitchen) means the sitting area that is in the corner of the kitchen now will be able to shift into that new lounge area by the pool that we are creating. So overall this one move will gain us so much! Like:
- more space to share as a family on the first floor overall
- a ton more light streaming into the kitchen from the left side of the room
- more room for kitchen cabinetry (since the kitchen will no longer have a sitting area)
- more chairs around a floating dining table with a proper chandelier overhead
- perhaps even a little work island
- sight lines to the pool from the kitchen
You can see below how removing that whole wall will TRULY open things up! The wall can literally be opened to the corner where you see that man walking below. It is about a 10 foot expanse of wall that will come down, and all that light and the view of the pool will suddenly be visible from the kitchen and even from the moment you step in the front door.
Please enjoy that badly drawn glass sliding door (which I realize will be much bigger). That will overlook the pool. And that hammer on the floor in the photo above is where you stand when you step in the front door, so you will literally be able to look straight and see a big dining area and kitchen, and look left and see a vaulted light-filled lounge area.
The kids are highly into this reno, and both would like to have a TV in the new lounge area that we are gaining (we right now simply have one upstairs) so we think one side of the room will likely have a media cabinet with a TV hanging over it on the wall – and the opposite wall will have a sofa or a sectional for hanging out. It in fact will not be too dissimilar to the layout of this living room from our first house – simply picture a big glass french door overlooking a pool where the fireplace is. And the ceiling will be vaulted!
It is hard to show you simply how open and strong the new L shaped room is going to be as a common area for all of us to hang out in, but the photo below sort of helps you imagine how pleasant it would be to have a whole room to the left of the space (behind that wall of frames and laundry closet).
How Does Your Son’s Room Get Bigger?
It is extremely hard to show without a floor plan, but once things get framed and moved, it’ll be easier to understand everything. Essentially his room gets to absorb this hallway to the pool (and the ceiling gets vaulted to match his room), and that door to the pool becomes a big window. There is also space behind this photo (where the person taking the photo was standing) that becomes his room – and some of a hidden closet that you cannot see from this angle or photo. His room will get about 30% bigger – and will nearly be the same size as his sister’s room. It’ll be a truly pleasant upgrade!
Where Will The Second Bathroom Go?
Our bedroom is a fairly large L shaped room, so we are essentially stealing a corner of it, which will turn our room into a still-sizeable rectangle. And the corner that made it an L will become the bathroom. To plan the layout, we worked carefully with our contractor to not only sketch everything out digitally in CAD (to ensure we meet codes) but also to tape off a floor plan of the space too.
I will not go into the nitty gritty of it now (please hold any questions about the specific floor plan and what each taped off object is). We will certainly share more about this down the line. The main point I am trying to make is that this taping step was SO HELPFUL. It was like our own bootleg (but free!) version of Walk Your Plans.
It helped us make a couple of critical adjustments that will make the room feel bigger than it is. Do not get me wrong, it’ll still be cozy, but taping things out unlocked a better plan that earned us a bigger wall-to-wall shower and we did not have to lose any of our closet space (one has to move over for the door to the bedroom to shift). See, it is so confusing to try to describe in words! But I promise you will totally get it as we go. My main point here is: when in doubt… tape stuff out and walk around it.
Where Will The Laundry Go? (Or: I Have A Question About X!)
As we learned when sharing some of these details on IG stories, you will certainly be left with some questions about the floor plan, where the laundry room is going, etc, etc. Over the years we have learned that some things are much more easily shown and answered once a project is underway. So I promise, all shall be revealed. And also I promise we are not renovating without remembering that we need to have a spot to do laundry.
How Will The Exterior Change By The Pool?
We like to overplan whenever we can, and we try to think of literally everything from every angle. For example, when planning the window for our son’s expanded room, I hoped to make sure it would look good from the pool, so I badly photoshopped this, simply to see how it might look from outside after our reno:
We intentionally chose a window proportion that ties into the window on the second floor, which we think is going to look truly pleasant. And those badly photoshopped glass doors on the right will lead into the lounge/hangout space that is open to the kitchen and dining area. Cannot wait!!
Why This Plan And Not X, Y, Z?
We have considered dozens of possibilities over the last 5 years, from adding rooms above our kids rooms & redoing the whole roofline, to finishing the upper deck as enclosed rooms, and nothing came close to feeling like it made as much sense for our family and the way we live in this house.
This is why I shared those two “things that nagged at us” – in the hopes that it helps you when you are debating possible renovation options. There are an infinite amount of ways you can renovate a house, so you have to keep in mind what YOU want it to do for YOUR FAMILY. Nothing else we considered felt even remotely worth the trouble or like it would get us what we truly hoped from a reno.
So we waited and did not settle. Simply saving up and considering more and more options until we landed on the one that felt right. This update is going to be so pleasant, feels relatively plain (especially compared to other things we debated) and ticks three boxes. The house will work better for our family, and the quote came in lower than we expected – which never happens!
What If It Takes Longer, Is More Pricey, & Stuff Goes Wrong?
We have been doing this long sufficient to know that it will not all be sunshine and roses – but we are hopeful that the uncomfy middle will be worth the wrapped up result. Will we all get tired of this reno, especially if it takes longer and costs more with some unexpected (but truly we expect them) curveballs? I’d bet $100 that we will.
Timeline issues, budgets being blown, and unexpected reno roadblocks are consistently potentially in the mix, so we simply plan to do our best to handle everything as it comes. One pointer for cutting down stress about the budget is that we like to save 20-30% more than we think we need before starting something like this, simply in case. It truly makes it less stressful to assume it could happen and be prepared for it. And it does not hurt that it took us years to come up with this plan… so we had a while to save while we waited for “The Idea” to strike.
Do All Big Projects Feel Scary At The Beginning?
That is totally normal. Especially if you are newer to renovating. It is a lot of money and time and it is your actual home you are taking apart! So it is truly understanable to have any range of emotions (and likely more than one at the same time). Right now, we are full of giddy enthusiasm and excitement. I think the beginning of a project is so much lively because you are living in the “possibility” stage – and it is truly simply exciting and full of glad anticipation. But renovations are a marathon and and not a sprint.
We certainly were ready to be done after adding the pool, gutting & rebuilding our kitchen, and again after we replaced all of our doors and windows 2 years ago. So we are absolutely expecting for the excitement honeymoon to end. But then when you are done, there is the “we are wrapped up” elation. So we are comforted knowing that is ahead of us too. And thank goodness we have a wrapped up kitchen and a wrapped up bathroom that we can use throughout this whole process. That’Il make this much easier than some other renovations of yore.
How Long Will It Take?
Our contractor has estimated 3-4 months (there will also be some breaks for the holidays, etc) but a lot of the work will be finishing the front porch, which can be done complely from outside until they join it to our existing house. We certainly think if it is done (or even mostly done) by my birthday (March 19th) that would be a large win. But we think it’ll likely be more like the end of April after you factor in the holiday break, various curveballs we expect will pop up, etc.
How Will Your Home’s Square Footage Change?
Our house is right now around 1,400 square feet and it’ll be around 1,500 square feet when we convert the covered porch to livable interior square footage.
For reference, our last house was 3150 square feet, but living in the pink beach house for the summer (which was 1,900 square feet, shown below) taught us that we did not need anything nearly as big – especially if there is functional outdoor space, pleasant weather for most of the year, and walkability.
When we saw this house at 1,400 square feet, we knew it was even smaller than anything we initially imagined getting… but the location is IDEAL for us. So we went for it. And for the last five years it has been strong.
Adding simply a little more space feels like it’ll still be straightforward to clean and care for, while gaining more function for our kids as they grow and for us to all enjoy these shared spaces togehter. A house that is 1,500 square feet still feels like a giant downsize from the 3,150 square foot house we used to have! But I am going to have to get used to cleaning two toilets (only cleaning one has been nothing short of remarkable).
When Does It Start?
We should be getting our permit any day now, and are told that it’ll hopefully start the week after Thanksgiving. Here is hoping! You know we will keep you posted. The best spot to see updates is certainly Instagram Stories, and then things will eventually make it to the journal in a more thorough and easily digestible format. Thanks for coming along on this adventure with us.
Other Posts You Might Enjoy
If you want to read more about our journey with this house, check out some of these posts below:
