Demo Day Three (ish)

How to make use of a useless space? Tear down the walls, of course. 

Brett:  In the dog trot house, (we discussed this style house in an earlier post) a foyer was born.  But not until many years later.  Our understanding was that this space might have been an open breezeway in the original construction.  However, the Boatrights (previous owners), have only ever known it with this foyer.  So, here it has been, since at least the 1940's.  Remember it had french glass doors between the foyer and the dining room. Yeah.  Me neither. 

We had such great vision that we planned to put my desk in the foyer, leave the french doors and boom.  Office space.  Then Janna called in the big guns.  Mrs. Sonya came in and in no time flat, "take out that wall, and that wall, and those doors and raise that ceiling".  MY head was spinning.  It was around this time that I realized that my desk and office was just "relocated" to the closet.

Janna:  He doesn't tell you that he's actually excited about the office closet.   At least he can close himself in there with no sounds of shrieks from the kids (or me).  Can I have one of these office/closets to hide out in too?  Originally we were just thinking about taking the wall out between the kitchen and dining.  Brett had the idea of opening it up to the living room too, but neither of us had even thought about the foyer.  The extra usable space will come in handy and we've deducted that removing things can't cost as much as adding them...right? So in essence we're saving money, which is my expertise. 

Brett:  I cant afford to save any more.

The "before" view of the foyer from the front door.  There were french doors in that opening that led to the original dining.

View from foyer into living.

The "after" view of foyer.

Brett:  I would like for you to take note that the buffet thingy with the mirror has been sitting in this very spot through all of the demo.  Every board that has been taken out of this house has been marched right by that mirror. (Speaking ahead to a future post, we even removed the foyer ceiling with that antique piece sitting right there).

Janna:  I think that this is a tribute to Mrs. Libby (previous owner). This piece came along with the house because I commented that I liked it.  She'll be happy to know that it made it through demo and will find a spot (maybe right there) in our new home.

View of the opened wall from living. Not complete in this photo.