Upstairs Remodeling Plans (?)

This house where I live was built in 1949, then added on to in… I dunno. Let’s say 1960 or something. It was also surface-renovated about 10 years ago by people who were well-meaning and on a budget. As a result, I have a house that (a) is small, (b) is dark, (c) has three living rooms, (d) has a tiny, awkward kitchen, (e) has very few closets, and (f) is a little stupid in certain ways (it’s not a “great room” when it’s shaped like that one Tetris block you hope you don’t get).

So I have this plan to trade in one of the two upstairs living rooms in exchange for:

1. A better kitchen.
2. A master closet.
3. An upstairs laundry room.

Current

Here’s how the upstairs is currently set up (some of drawing’s doors are opening the wrong way; in the actual house, they’re opening the way they ought to) (also, some of the measurements are probably off by just a little):

Proposed

So then, the idea would be to turn the current kitchen into a mud room/laundry room, the current horrifying void space at top into the new kitchen, then use the space from the current second of three living rooms (seriously, there’s 1,200 s.f. on the ground floor of this house and it has two living rooms, plus the third downstairs) to create a master closet and use what’s left over up there for a cozy, fireplace-having breakfast nook (the fireplace is already there; that black thing against the right side is the current hearth). It’s also suggesting a new window be punched into the new kitchen area.

Here’s what I’ve drawn up for the renovation then:

I dunno. I think it might be better. I think my main worry is whether that eating area feels cramped, but OTOH, it can’t feel a lot more awkward than the current one does.

Then if you’re really curious, here’s what some of the relevant spaces look like currently.

If you have thoughts related to the above, please lmk.

bkd

Christmas in the Northwest

In, apparently, 1987 there was this song that came out that, apparently, I heard more than once. The song was called “Christmas in the Northwest”. It was, well, you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Ze0FEuG4s. I was going to use the word cloying, but be your own judge. An upside of the song was the implication that somehow Christmas is superior when celebrated in the Pacific Northwest (or, as they call it in Canada, the Tropical Southwest). Also, any time I contemplate visiting my parents for the holidays, the song comes to mind. I usually go anyway.

I guess I felt like I needed to post highlights of the most recent northwestern Christmas(-time activities). Ergo, this.

The first day I went skiing at Crystal Mountain (12/24).

Panoramic view of my parents’ kitchen during the holidays (click through for the full panorama).

So there’s this guy up on the Seattle waterfront who, apparently, has been trapped in a glass cage. The tourists stare at him, but he pretends to not notice. He is trying to make the best of it by spending his time hand-carving totem poles. At which point, I mean, good for him, right?

The seagull means business.

My dad is a keeper of hummingbirds. This is one of the birds.

The other time I went skiing at Crystal (12/30).

Some observations:

1. If you ever go skiing on Christmas Eve, it might seem pretty crowded in the morning, but it turns out that everyone is gone by 1 PM. They even had decent snow there.
2. My mom and I spent a couple hours in Seattle, where we saw the totem pole, went to Ivars, priced out the ferris wheel ride, and then went to the Filson store near where the Kingdome used to be.
3. I have seen up to 20 hummingbirds at the feeders my parents have out on the deck. They go through a lot of sugar water.

Herewith recorded!

bkd