THE RENTAL.

This renovation was our warm-up. The prelude of what was to come....

When we bought our Edwardian duplex, it came complete with tenants in the front unit, so we planned to move into the back unit & start our renovation right away. Then during escrow, we got a call from Lisa, our real estate agent,
who informed us that one of the flatmates moved out, so the other moved out as well. 

They were out. Uh-oh! We panicked. We were all alone : New homeowners, new landlords & new renovators.

We were scared. Lisa held our hand and told us everything was gonna be alright. And she was right. We just didn't know just yet. So the plan was we either find new tenants....or we could hold off on our own renovation next door, and finish the rental first. It did need a good reno'. So that's what we did. 

Here are the AFTERS, because they're so much prettier than the BEFORES.

ENTRANCE & KITCHEN :

BAY WINDOW : with our built-in lil' bench  :

MORE KITCHEN :
We added an 18" dishwasher, went with a smaller euro-sized fridge so that we could fit in a bigger sized 
stove (30" instead of 24"). That fridge was hard to find! 

LIVING ROOM :
This was previously used as a 2nd bedroom, which meant the kitchen served as the living room as well.
 

LIVING ROOM & KITCHEN/ENTRANCE
There was a 2nd door to the bathroom to the right of the closet. I don't know why bathrooms need 2 entrances,
we have the same in our apartment. We closed it up. Now the sole door to the bath is right under the stairs
in the second photo.

VIEW TO KITCHEN FROM STAIRS :

It's a tiny apartment, but felt light & airy with it's 11 ft ceilings, at least AFTER we painted it white. 
The lamp wasn't properly installed yet, as you can see.

But wait! I forgot the floor plans!!!!


FLOOR PLANS :
The house is split in an unusual way for San Francisco. Instead of dividing it through the middle from front to back -
like the railroad apartments, they sliced it in half right through the middle. The rental sits on top of the two garages facing the street The kitchen, living room & bath are on the first floor......

The bedroom is on the second floor, which once was an attic. It's got slanted walls. The diagonal greyed out lines represent the [unusable] crawl space. Dead space!

on to.... 


THE BATHROOM :
We tore out the bathtub, and put in a large shower instead [San Francisco large]. We sealed off one door. Moved the toilet closer to the shower so we could have a bigger vanity. We added frame less glass shower doors, which helps the bathroom feel bigger.

Shampoo niche. I love niches!

THE BEDROOM :
After tearing out the carpet, we really really wanted to paint the subfloors, which were beautiful wide old wood planks, WHITE!

But we didn't.

There were patches missing, and the planks were in really bad shape to be used as flooring, so we tore those out too, but salvaged them and will use them for a project someday. We put in a new plywood subfloor, which would not have looked pretty in white, so Alex installed sisal flooring over it. He HATED it! We were out of time & out of money. It was a big bummer at the time...but we're okay with it now. It's a cozy bedroom.

Even more cozy with a bed in it!

Here are some more photos of the apartment furnished. It's very small, but very cute.

Mimi added a curtain to the closet, which worked much better, but I did think she was crazy for stacking the
file cainet on the desk;)

THE MORAL OF THE STORY :
My mother told us to make the apartment as if it's for us. A place we wanted to live in. So that's what we did.
It's a small apartment, the bones of it were good & it had lots of light (unlike our unit). 
We re-designed it simple and laid things out efficiently, taking advantage of the high ceiling for storage etc.


When we put the apartment up for rent on craigslist, we got lots of responses. And when we rented it, we always peeked in when we walked past it to our dark & dingy apartment, and thought, damn we wish we lived there!

 ...what Mamma says, Mina does.

NOW FOR BEFORE PHOTOS :
We moved the stove to the other side, so we could add a small dishwasher next to the sink.

And we tore out all the laminate, which had more laminate underneath it. The now finished flooring is actually the subfloor, which are beautiful doug fir planks.

We put in a new stove (CL) that was 30" instead of 24", where the fridge is in this pic, and found a slim euro-style
fridge to fit into the small space. We added as ikea filler piece to match the cabinets on the side of the fridge & added knobs for jackets, keys etc.

ick.

Carpet everywhere.

The bathroom.

THE RENOVATION :
Jacques flew in from CH to help us with our renovation. Thank you Jacques! He moved into our unit next door to the rental, while Alex & I still lived in Oakland.

RENOVATION PICS TO COME : In the meantime, would you like to check out our penny tile bathroom?

This renovation....



This renovation....




This renovation....




This renovation....




This renovation....



This renovation....



This renovation....



This renovation....