This Old New House

I'm not sure we can still call this our “Old New House” anymore. Here it is, August, 2009, more than six years after closing. We're finally finished, and it's really just our Old House, now, and we love it.

Some things you should know:

• We knew it needed some remodeling work. The carpets were horrible! The paneling was horrible. The wallpaper was horrible. It's thankfully all long gone.
  
  
• The guest wing may become an in-law suite, although in truth, I've given up on my mother ever moving up here.
  
  
• The landscaping still needs some attention, but SWMBO is plugging away at it..
  
  
• I can throw a golf ball onto the golf course behind the house across the street. Probably better than trying to hit one there…(I've since played the course a couple of times and I can definitely throw one better than hit it).
  
  
• The subdivision has one entrance and it's about ¾ mile from there to our house. There are a couple of other ways in and out of the neighborhood, but they are an even longer way (about a mile and a half) through another subdivision with twisty, windy streets.
  
  
• One of those alternate ways gets us to Publix (as well as CVS, several restaurants, a gym, a tea room, and a couple of clothing shops) without leaving the two subdivisions.
  
  
• Our street is a closed loop with 66 houses. Generally speaking, no one is on our street who doesn't belong there. It's not a cruising friendly locale.
  
  
• It's very quiet, although there's more airport noise than I'd counted on—very tolerable, however, and much better than the I-95 noise at the condo.
  
  
• It's about 3½ miles to I-95 and SR-40 for southbound travel. and about 5 miles to I-95 and US-1 for northbound travel.
  
  
• It's less than 5 miles to the beach.

Each small picture is a clickable link that will bring a full sized picture up inpopup screen. Only one popup window will open. Leave it up—it'll disappear when you click on the main page, and will pop back up when you click on another picture.

Some of the text has a clickable link that will take you to a progress report page (with pictures, of course) for that particular room.

This is the floor plan. It will open in a separate window different from the one the pictures show up in. Each of the letters corresponds to the picture that was taken from that location (I haven't included all of the pictures originally posted, so some letters on the floor plan aren't represented in the picture collection below, and many of the pictures below aren't represented by a letter).

Before I did much more than pull up carpets and padding, I ordered a dumpster. That was one of the best things I ever did.

August, 2004; Friday the 13th. Here is the story of Hurricane Charley coming to visit. Within weeks we enjoyed further visits from Frances and Jeanne, but other than hours of power outage and some brush to be picked up (in each case to a lesser effect than the previous), we made out just fine.

		B. This is my favorite view of the front of the house. We closed on it 23 April 2003. Some outside aspects have changed, however.			D. The entry. Note the shelter from the elements while awaiting an answer to the bell.			E. The foyer, from the front door. It, too, has felt the remodeler's hammer (foyer renovation).
		F. This is the utility room. About 6'x8'. There's a small full bath behind you and the shop is to your right.			G. 180° around. This is a full, although small, bathroom. The laundry room is now behind you and the shop is to the left.			H. This is the back of the shop.
		I. This is the front of the shop. The translucent door faces west.			J. Back inside the entry hall, and across from the funky bathroom is a coat closet. It's being worked on as part of the foyer remodel.			K. Continuing in the entry hall we come to the library. It's 16'x18'. The archway on the left is the only access to the guest wing. We'll tour the guest wing shortly.
		L. On the right side of the library is a sliding glass door to a small patio.			M. The archway to the kitchen is just to the right of the patio door. Remember the wall with the fireplace; we'll refer back to it.			N. Can you say kitchen remodel? About 12'x12'. Straight ahead through the arch is the dining room, and the door beyond is the master suite.
		O. This shot is about 150° to the right from the previous shot. That's a small pantry.			P. The dining room, also 12'x12', looks out onto a sunroom that's 11'x22'. See the kitchen remodel page for the after shot.			Q. In the other direction is what we're now calling the media room looking toward the entry hall. It's pretty big; 14'x24'.
		R. Now looking from the entry hall back toward the door to the dining room. The big screen will be at that end.			S. This is the master bedroom. Sorry for the lack of focus. At first we thought it was a little small; 14'x18'; silly us—it's the biggest one we've ever had. All our furniture fits easily in it.			T. The master bath. Can you say remodel?
		U. There's a full walk-in closet through this door. It's gone now; replaced by Linda's area. The last full row of pictures in the master bath link shows how it looks.			V. Behind the wall with the fireplace in the library room is this bedroom, 11'x13'. We're looking southeast.			V1. These are the closets for the bedroom.
		W. This guest bath lies between the bedroom just seen and the next one. The door leads to the back yard. The guest bath gets a bit of a remodel, too.			X. This bedroom is also adjacent to the guest bathroom, and it's also 11'x13'. We're looking northeast.			X1. And the associated closets.
		Y. This bedroom lies between the last bedroom and the shop, and it's 12'x14'.			Y1. Here are the associated closets.			BY1. This is the north wall of the house. The shop is at the far end. The last two bedrooms visited are closer to the viewer.
		BY2. I've turned about 75° to my left from the last picture. This is the fenced part of the back yard. The white thing in the wall is the door from the guest bathroom.			BY3. The back of the house with the guest wing on the right and the sun porch on the left.			BY4. The back of the house looking toward the sun porch. Lot size is 100'x120'.

We thought that beyond the property line was community green belt. It turns out a neighbor on the next street owns the odd shaped lot next to him but has no intention of building on it. It's wedge shaped and tapers down to zero at our northeast corner. It wouldn't be much of a lot to build on. It sure is a nice buffer for us.