apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

That metal bathroom is TOO fantastic! What a cool idea for a cabin! I'm not really a "nature" girl, but I LOVE how this turned out!

http://www.carinagardner.com

The interior is nice, but a little too "cleaned up" for my taste. As the owner of a 1700's house which has been renovated many times over the years, I have to say that I like a little more "age" to show. A lack of any straight angles is one of my favorite things about my house! This one is certainly well-done, but if I were doing it I'd try to keep the imperfections of the old structure as I added the modern neccesities.

I don't think it's the use of color so much in the bathroom that doesn't work, as it is the use of materials. So much sterile white gypboard on the walls seems to cry out for the warmth of old wood on the floors, at least, instead of the linoleum. It especially doesn't flow with the rest of the house since the floors throughout the rest of the home are old wood and there's more wood on walls throughout the home than in this bath. I had old fir wood floors in my cottage bathroom with the clawfoot tub and it is very warm and inviting for a nice hot soak in the tub. Wood is no harder to keep clean than linoleum and it's a retreat home after all, not a restaurant.

Yuck! If they wanted a modern steel house, why didn't they just buy an empty lot? This "renovation" does not respect the character of the original and kills the spirit of it. Architects are good servants but bad masters.

I agree with bromelia, WHY?
Corrugated metal holds no warmth for me! Very sad......

Graz = birthplace of the Governator

I agree with bromelia ... as someone who grew up in Virginia among these lovely decaying structures, this renovation reeealllly doesn't sit well with me. The proportions are all wrong, and why would they take away the porch?!? The porch is the best part of a Southern home! A cabin doesn't have to be "rustic" or "country" but they made it look like a pre-fab more than the beautiful antique that it is. I'd say it's ruined.

Oh, I remember when this was in Cottage Living. How nice!

That outside doesn't sit well with me either. You can do whatever you want to the inside of your home, but the outside should still fit in with the surroundings. I grew up in a dilapidated old 1890's farmhouse I'm sure before they updated the inside wasn't livable, the new roof looks like tin which is nice and traditional. But taking all that corrugated metal on the outside makes it look like a cheap shed rather than a real live house.

i am working on renovating an antique log house too... while I think they muddled this project in some ways (thumbs down on that elementary school color block bathroom!) i will stick up for them in other ways and say a house in this stage of disrepair does call for concessions here and there. it looks to have been just a shell of old logs and stone when they started.

Also I'm not sure that they removed the porch. It seems the front became the back and the back became the front, judging by the location of the chimney. And honestly I don't think that little area on the front was a porch... I think it was a small addition whose walls fell in at some point?

anyway, the renovation is not my style, but it is nice to see log houses represented on this site... there aren't too many out there whose decor isn't centered around plaid curtains and carved wood bear statues. :-)

I like the way things look on the inside, but the choice for a total facelift on the exterior? I don't know, I guess I would like it better if it had been preserved rather than radically updated. Love that bathtub though!

uh the old house didnt have a porch (at least on the side we could see but i doubt it had one at all its very primitive) So he added your dumb porch. The before and after exterior pics are different sides of the house notice which way the hill slopes. The 'before' siding was horrible and you could see was not all original as its three different types, the roof is rusted out and sagging. The owner did an excellent job preserving the logs and plaster on the inside so he really needed something on the outside to seal and protect that original old wood so his walls had some sort of integrity. I like the corrugated metal outside it looks nice and it does a great job protecting whats left of the original walls within. Plus come on people he totally rehabbed a billion year old house did you expect him to cover it in wooden siding that will need maintenance and repair right away?

If you look at the photos on the web site, not only the ones included in the post above, you'll see that there was in fact a front porch which is now gone:

http://www.1608laurelgroveroad.com/e1.html

The colors of wood against the red roof was one of the most charming things and potential things to revive about this this house, and to me the new metal looks cold and clinical. The super straight manmade lines of the new facing don't look right against the soft stone of the foundation. Also: RalphEMole, your arguments might be taken more seriously if you made them like a grownup.

I have to say the inside seems like a much more successful renovation than the outside. Inside is a pretty eclectic mix that also clearly showcases the old home. The outside... just... looks like those metal prefab buildings they use to put up cheap barns or churches for the least amount of money possible.

On the other hand, it's so great that he was able to preserve this old house at all--really. The "before" picture demonstrates how the house was in great disrepair before the renovation. In less creative and less intuitive hands, the old house would have been scrapped and forgotten. So although I might prefer the "old" look of the exterior, in the greater scheme of things the architect did a great and beautiful thing.

oh no's! it was way better before.

I suppose this is staged (not lived in) with a few pieces of furniture. Where's a comfortable chair or two? Is that glass floor/ceiling walkable? I certainly assume so, or else what a waste. Staging of a nice comfortable chair on the glass would look nice for a selling aspect and I assume there is room for seating by the wood stove downstairs. I like the inside. The exterior is very unappealing. It needs both those previous porches!!

This is nice but the bathroom style doesn't work.