Ugh – It’s been radio silence here this past week. Simon went out of town to a Keller Williams conference in LA that got ridiculously delayed due to weather and travel issues, and I was here trying to hold down the fort. It evolved into a week that felt like a month. JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL. But I have so many things to tell you about, Internet!
Since January, I’ve been busy with a bajillion different projects which I’ll share more of later, but the biggest thing we’ve been finalizing for a few months now is adding on to the Carlton Landing lake house. Yup, Boardwalk Bungalow is getting a little facelift with the addition of a master bedroom and ensuite bathroom onto the side of the house.
As the boys have gotten bigger, it’s gotten harder to bring anyone outside our immediate family of 4, and frankly, we could use the extra space. We’re currently able to sleep five, but with the addition of a master bedroom downstairs, we’ll be able to sleep at least 7.
We fell in love with our little bungalow back in 2013 and bought it in the spring of 2014. We loved the prime location on the boardwalk, in between the pool and the lake and even though it’s small, it felt spacious due to the high ceilings and smart layout. It’s beyond charming and it has remained our happy place now for years. I’ve been in the majority of the houses built in Carlton Landing, whether it’s as the real estate/hospitality photographer or when they’re in the construction process, and I can honestly say there’s not another house I love more than ours. It simply didn’t make sense financially or emotionally to buy another house and move.
One weekend last spring when we were there, we were discussing it with Katie and Clay Chapman. Katie had a lightbulb moment: “Why don’t you expand into the side yard?”
WELL DUH. That made total sense – how did we not think of that? We have a teeny tiny yard on the side of the house and a side door and we pretty much never use the yard for anything other than the dog. I began sketching out some ideas and taking some measurements. It looked feasible to my untrained eye, but I wanted to get an architect friend in CL to take a look at it for me to see if it truly would work.
Plus there was the other question of keeping the architectural integrity of the house. In short, we really don’t want to screw it up. It’s such a perfectly sweet little design, with loads of charm. But our architect had a few ideas for amping up the charm and still getting us what we want.
We’ll be able to add on a 10×20 space onto the side of the house. It means we have to get rid of the side entrance and only use the 2 front doors that exist onto the boardwalk. And we’ll probably have to bid adieu to one of our trees (we have 2). But to echo the 2 pairs of french doors on the front of the house, we will do another set that will open up onto another little sun porch. It won’t be enormous, but we don’t need it to be. The bedroom we have upstairs currently is pretty close to that size, so we feel confident that we’ll be cool with it.
But what about the beloved porch swing, you might ask? Not to worry — we can relocate it to the other side of the existing porch. I love it too much to not keep it.
We also want to integrate some built-in storage since there’s not room for a walk in closet. Something similar to this:
And I love the overall vibe of this room:
Ground breaking will happen towards the end of March, and hopefully it’ll be done by early June if everything goes according to schedule. We should also still be able to use the house even though we won’t be taking on any renters for awhile; we wouldn’t want them to be bothered by the construction.
Exciting times and I can’t wait to document the process. I’m also excited to dive into small space design and see how we can maximize our storage to make it beautiful AND functional. Stay tuned for more updates!!