gabby.hyman@renovatorsplace.com
Renovators Place Columnist
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When Don Fox took his first look at a 1910 Craftsman-style bungalow in Sacramento, CA, he knew he had found his long-sought fixer-upper. The home had "good bones," Fox said, but it was in miserable shape. A homeless man was sleeping on the porch, the windows were shattered, and there was so much grime on the kitchen walls that it "smelled like a restaurant grease trap." After gutting the home to bare studs and rafters, Fox and his wife, Amanda, completed a renovation project that won an award from the Association for the Preservation of Historic Homes.
The remodeled kitchen, bathrooms, and living room were the true stars of what the Sacramento Bee called "One Beautiful Bungalow." An Italian-American from Brooklyn, Don has a particular fondness for the kitchen renovation, which resulted in a room where he spends a lot of his time whipping up traditional culinary faire.
"The house felt good when I first saw it," he explains. "It was a spiritual feeling. That's despite its having been sad, neglected, and uninhabited for years." Fox, a former journeyman carpenter, furniture-maker, and aficionado of period architecture, saw the potential to create a showpiece.
Renovating the Craftsman Kitchen
The so-called Craftsman design, which is enjoying a restoration renaissance, was an American craze from1895 to the early 1920s. The Fox Craftsman in mid-town Sacramento is large for a bungalow at 2,150 square feet--it has five bedrooms and two baths. Fox says the entire home renovation project took about two years to complete, but he adds that you can complete a kitchen restoration on this scale in a month if everyone works together.The primary renovation vision was to make the kitchen more spacious, functional, and a joy to cook in and keep clean, while paying a modern homage to the Craftsman style. Fox acted as his own prime contractor, saving an estimated $60,000 in design and management costs. He brought in six different sub-contractors, people he found through word-of-mouth recommendations.
The cabinet-maker was a fire chief from Vallejo, moonlighting as a wood-worker. The fabricator for the kitchen countertops had apprenticed as a stone worker in the Vatican. "Hard to top that," Fox says. Don and Amanda toured home-improvement stores to select most of their own materials.
Rip It Down and Build It Up
Once all the walls were demolished and sheetrock removed down to the bare studs (see photo on right), Fox completely rewired and re-plumbed the entire home. He installed waterproof (greenboard) sheetrock; enlarged the window over the kitchen sink; and installed low-e, dual-paned, double hung windows to invite light without compromising energy costs. He also installed a half-light, period-appropriate kitchen door.
The existing built-in china cabinet really had to go (see photo on right) because Fox determined it would have been too costly to restore. With that out of the way, they gained square footage for the kitchen, and installed a breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room--opening up both rooms to additional light. They installed seven recessed halogen task lights in the new kitchen ceiling and added two attractive, period-appropriate, pendant-style leaded glass lights on dimmers for ambient and mood lighting.
Then the goodies came. They installed a downdraft stove and built-in, custom-made cabinets in the Mission style, stained a medium oak. European-style, hidden hardware completed the installation. "Cast-bronze, oiled-finish pulls aren't cheap," Fox said, "but they felt and looked right." (see photo below) He bought them from the local home-improvement store and looked for other hardware by trolling furniture salvage yards.
Custom granite countertops--in a Baltic-brown hue to complement the oak cabinets--with only two seams and an under-counter Blanco sink were installed to facilitate clean up by minimizing obstructions on the countertops. The floor was renovated with terra-cotta style ceramic tiles (12x12), using matching terra-cotta grout.
Finishing Touches Make the Restoration
The kitchen was painted with Frank Lloyd Wright pale-green paint, following the Craftsman theme. (see photos on left and below) A Custom cabinet was built to hide the microwave and optimize counter space and the refrigerator was recessed into built-in cabinetry created by the same cabinetmaker. Fox decided to add a Moen single-tap sink fixture and a Bosch dishwasher that "is so quiet, you can stand next to it when it's running and not hear a thing."
There were only minor glitches. Cabinets had to sit in their protective wrapping on the kitchen floor until a tardy order of window glass could arrive and a defective new stove had to be sent back for replacement.
All in all, it was a celebrated renovation. By doing his own contracting, the kitchen restoration cost Fox approximately $30,000--about half of what it would cost someone who has to hire designers and lead contractors. Does Fox have words of advice?
"Be prepared for everything to cost more and take longer than you expected," he says. "Our entire house came in about 10% over our initial budget, and we were careful."
About the Author
Gabby Hyman has created online strategies and written content for Fortune 500 companies including eToys, GoTo.com, Siebel Systems, Microsoft Encarta, Avaya, and Nissan UK.
