1108 Woodside

We listed 1108 Woodside for sale March 25th, and the interest in this home has  been overwhelming. At our open house on Sunday, March 30th we had over 120 guests and on Sunday, April 6th we had 42.  Thank you to each of our visitors for your time and the favorable comments you shared on the house. After two weeks on the market, we’ve accepted an offer and taken the house off the market.

If you are still looking for a South Bend Area home, please consider Realst8.com your resource. It features a free mls search and market information on the South Bend Area Blog. If you’d like personal, professional assistance, please contact me directly:

Nick Molnar
574-309-3758
nick@realst8.com

We had another sunny day, and spent it landscaping 1108 Woodside. Check the photos below, and come to our open house Sunday April 6th from 12-4 to see it for yourself.

South Bend is sunny with a high of 55 today, and it seemed like a good time to walk around 1108 Woodside and post some exterior photos. Here it is from every angle, click on any image for a larger version.

If you’ve been following our progress online, this Sunday is your chance to view the house in person. We are holding 1108 Woodside open Sunday, March 30th from 12:00 noon to 4:00 pm. We’ll have refreshments and information about the house on hand. Everyone is welcome.

Though I can’t yet say the renovations are complete, we are 95% of the way there and some of the before and after photos are striking. For a complete before and after slideshow with larger photos, please click here.

We planted a “For Sale” sign in the yard this morning, and put 1108 Woodside in the mls with an asking price of $250,000. This compares favorably to the prices of homes in Ridgedale with dated interiors, through the roof heating costs, and deferred maintenance. We still have a few items to finish, especially outside work that requires warm weather, but the house is ready for tours. We’re planning an open house this weekend, check back late in the week for details.

We are in the home stretch of our renovation, and today we carpeted the bedrooms. We’ll shave the doors and re-hang them so they open smoothly, then the bedrooms will be complete.

Last week, we told you about our plans for the floors. This week, we wanted to respond to a request for our floorplans. We aren’t architects, and they aren’t to scale, but here they are. We left off the closets and windows though there are many of both, including a full wall of closets in the master suite.

Click on either image for a larger version with the room dimensions.

This week we’ve worked on a multitude of projects, but are especially focused on finishing the floors.

We’ve updated the ceramic tile in the master bath.

and started the weeklong process of repairing, sanding, and refinishing the wood floors throughout much of the house

We’ve also ordered comfortable, neutral carpet for each of the four bedrooms, where the original floors weren’t salvageable. That won’t be installed until we are nearer completion though.

Our rehab project was featured in the homes section of the local newspaper, the South Bend Tribune this Saturday, under the title A House to Flip Over. We’re glad for the increased exposure the story has brought. If you are a new visitor to our site from that article, please don’t be shy in the comments.

Whoever ends up living at 1108 Woodside should be glad that we have two serious entertainers on the rehab team that are focused on the livability of the house. In the kitchen, they insisted on an abundance of cabinets and on granite slab counters. While they are much more expensive than granite tiles or laminate counters, they are easier to clean, more durable and far more attractive. They further tweaked the plan to include an island with bench seating for four, and a corner sink. Altogether that’s nearly 70 square feet of granite counterspace.

Like much of the house it still needs trim, but we hung a new front door today. The leaded glass is particularly appealing as you descend the main  stairwell and the light changes with each step.

Before:

After:

Kitchen appliances were delivered today. We opted for Whirlpool’s Gold Series with a stainless steel finish.

I especially like the refrigerator, which has 22 cubic feet of storage and is Energy Star qualified.

Never let anyone tell you refinishing antique doors is quick or easy - especially when there are three or four coats of paint, multiple windows and dozens of edges on each door. But there are times when replacing original features isn’t an option, even if it would be easier and quicker.

We’ve spent the last several days installing our new kitchen cabinets. We still have lots of finishing details to complete, but you can now see the shape of things to come. We chose Shenandoah Bluemont Maple Cabinets, for their attractive look, and the details that make the drawers fun to open and close,including ball bearing glides.

We’ve got 18 cabinets (18 doors and 15 drawers) plus a four foot center island. We  opted for several upgrades you won’t see in every house:

• The largest pantry available, with slide-out drawers
• A waste basket pullout
• A cookie sheet / tray cabinet
• Two glass cabinets with mullions

The microwave is in, but the large appliances won’t be delivered for another week.

Our new drywall is finished and we are painting.
Check back for many more photos of our colors in the next week.

We picked an unlikely day to replace the windows at 1108 Woodside, with temperatures in the single digits, but we now have modern, low-e windows throughout the house. That’s 29 windows throughout the house not counting the 12 in the sunroom . We’ll change those tomorrow. There are four additional windows in the basement that we are converting to glass-block.

We’ve settled on our crown molding, purchased ample quantities, and are starting installation. We chose a 5 inch real wood product for the main level, appropriate for the home’s vintage and properly scaled to its large rooms. For the upper level, we are using a 2.5 inch product with a nice profile.

We should have crown molding installed in nearly every room of the house by the end of the week.

Below are some photos showing the changes we made to one master bedroom wall (and many others). Once it is painted and has trim, I’ll put it up as a slideshow, but it’s a glimpse of the progress we’re making “below the skin” at 1108 Woodside. Click on any photo for a larger image.

before:

during demolition:


rewired:

insulated:

drywalled:

Many older homes in South Bend lack central air. If they were built with radiators, it can be a problem to install the necessary ductwork for whole house air conditioning. There are several half steps that homeowners opt for, but most cool only sections of the house.

We installed our new, 13 seer compliant central air conditioner this week. While it’s now too cold to use anything but our high-efficiency furnace, I’m sure it will be appreciated in July.

We had our drywall delivered yesterday, well over 100 pieces, or 4,288 square feet of new, true, straight-lined walls for the bedrooms, entryway and living room. The kitchen and dining room are already in good shape.

The drywall hangers were hard at work today and the finishers should be able to start soon. We’ll have updated photos shortly and are all excited to be at a stage where the house is starting to look better at the end of each day rather than worse (due to demolition).

One tip I’d pass along to anyone arranging delivery of mass quantities of sheetrock - pay the extra fee to have the sheets placed directly in the rooms and not simply on the property. It runs about $2 per sheet, but will save you time, work, and frustration. Especially if you have any 4×12 sheets and a 2-story home.

It’s common for older homes to be built with minimal insulation, or none at all. This is the case even in colder climes like South Bend. Since 1108 Woodside was built in 1926, we realized we’d have a lot of insulating to do.

We took nine exterior walls down to the studs to allow for the placement of R-13 insulation, as well as the of rewiring existing outlets and the installation of additional plugs. We used about a dozen rolls on these walls, which include most of the bedrooms and the living room.

We then blew cellulose insulation into the attic. It took 52 bags of Green Fiber Cocoon Insulation to get the attic to the R-30 level.

Between the two types of insulation we’ve added, and the new 93% high-efficiency Goodman furnace we’ve installed, 1108 Woodside should stay warm and quiet and still have lower utility bills than almost any other home of its era.

A few of the period details we plan to save:

We’ve been focused on making 1108 Woodside energy efficient, for the good of the Earth and the future occupant’s pocketbook.

We’ve insulated most exterior bedroom walls, installed a high-efficiency furnace, have plans for attic insulation, and are now turning our eyes to the windows. We’ve ordered low-e Pella windows for most windows in the home and have been looking at options for the substandard basement windows.

We settled on replacing the windows, one of which was held in place with a brick, with glass blocks. Our first effort was in the mechanical room, allowing us to perfect our technique before moving on to the more noticeable windows in the passageway from the garage to the home.

One of the untouched, drafty basement windows:

and our first (mostly finished) glass block window. It’s more attractive, efficient and secure, and still lets in more light:

Here’s a shot of our oversized project board. Writing each undone job room-by-room makes our task seem daunting, but we’ve been making good progress so far.

After calling four companies, we settled on Junoll Industries, 1-877-558-6655, for our dumpster. A “20 yard” container that could easily hold a truck cost $325 for three days. Junoll had it at our site within hours and retrieved it two days later. It’s pictured above filled with walls, pipes, cabinets, boxes, trim, molding, tile and miscellaneous debris.

We closed on 1108 Woodside December 20th, 2007. Commonsense dictated, and our loan required, that we start with the plumbing and heat.

We first installed a Richmond 40 gallon gas water heater, patched several plumbing leaks, and had gas service reinstated to the house. After that, we contracted to have a Goodman high efficiency furnace with a programmable thermostat installed, tested and lit. We’ll have to wait until December 26th for the ductwork to be completed, but the house is warm and the water is flowing.

Next we started the demolition of substandard exterior walls to allow their rebuilding, rewiring and insulation. Within the first five days, we had cut out the boiler pipes and radiators, removed the old trim and molding, taken nine walls down to the studs, and filled the garage with trash until we could get a dumpster.

The condition of 1108 Woodside when we bought it. Photos taken December 19th, 2007.

Click on any picture for a larger image.

The condition of 1108 Woodside when we bought it. Photos taken December 19th, 2007.
Click on any picture for a larger image.