#it's a fine line between them looking like two yellow smidges and being able to actually see jimin's hips moving

[userjiminie]

those hips working like rent is due

[askkrenko]

Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Psyduck Line

What a majestic creature. DESIGN:  I absolutely love this stupid thing that is simultaneously very clearly a duck and very clearly not a duck. It doesn’t have wings, and it’s got hair or something, and it’s bipedal, but it has a duck bill and webbed feet. Is it a Platypus? Maybe, but it doesn’t have any of the classic Platypus abilities. It’s just Psyduck. It’s cute, it’s goofy looking, and it’s iconic. Fun fact: We almost had a Pokemon Let’s Go Psyduck, but the devs decided they didn’t want the second pokemon to be yellow. Pikachu, of course, was a lock from day one.  The devs basically just went out to figure out which Gen 1 pokemon were the most popular that could be the second Pokemon, and Psyduck was on the short list. For as goofy and silly as Psyduck is, Golduck is pure badass. It’s sleek, it’s spikey, it’s dangerous, it’s only vaguely duck-esque but it’s clearly some sort of monster.  Pokedex entries suggest it’s partially based on the Kappa, and while it’s very clearly not a Kappa, it’s got enough Kappa-esque elements. And Kappa are awesome and badass. 

Golduck is super cool, but more importantly it’s incredibly unique. I’ve never seen Golduck in anything other than Pokemon, which is something I really appreciate in designs. In a game where you have creatures that are often just ‘a butterfly’ or ‘a cat’ or ‘a phoenix,’ having something that’s this unique and undefinable is really a boon.

EVOLUTIONS:  Though in the beta there was a form between Psyduck and Golduck, this is just a two-stage evolution that evolves at level 33. This is fine, but it leaves room for growth that I’m really surprised hasn’t been explored yet. Golduck could easily get a third stage or a Mega, or if they just wanted something marketable they could have given us a baby form.  Regional variants would be a good option, too. A golduck that’s actually water/psychic or just Psychic, but still knows Water and Psychic moves, could be really interesting, especially if they tweaked its stats a bit. TYPING:  Water is the most abundant type in the game, and pure water is the second most common type after pure normal.  Now, water’s a great type to be, with four resistances and only two weaknesses, but there’s a lot of competition among Water Pokemon. It’s a good type to be, but Golduck’s not special for being it. STATS:  Golduck is very average. I don’t just mean the fact that its stats total to 500, which is basically ‘average’ for a fully evolved Pokemon, but also the fact that five of its stats are within a few points of 80, and the outlier, Special Attack, is still only 95.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with being average, certainly, but the problem is that for any given strategy you’d want to do with Golduck, there’s another pokemon, probably even another pure water pokemon, that can do it better. On the other hand, this means Golduck can take hits fine and dish them out, and there’s no major weakness to exploit.  You can basically throw Golduck out in any situation and assume he’ll be able to fight fair.

ABILITIES: Golduck has three abilities, two of which are good. The useless one, Damp, prevents your opponent from kabooming itself with Self-Destruct, Explosion, Mind Blown, Misty Explosion, or Aftermath.  Now, I’m not going to tell you that nobody’s ever going to use one of these abilities (except for Mind Blown, which is a signature move of one of Gen 7′s digimon who has better moves of the type), but I am going to tell you it’s not worth using your ability slot on. Golduck’s hidden ability is the relatively common Swift Swim, which is actually super good. Doubling speed in the rain (including IVs, Evs, etc) means Golduck suddenly goes from ‘average stats’ to ‘top tier speed and good special attack, and also it’s raining so Hydro Pump has +50% damage.’  Obviously this takes setup, and an item like Life Orb for even more damage, but it’s an entirely solid Golduck build. Golduck’s remaining ability is Cloud Nine, which is super useful, and much fewer Pokemon have it. Cloud Nine  negates the effects of Weather, which can significantly mess with an opponent’s strategy, especially in a battle where Dynamaxing is allowed. If your plan is not to use Rain Dance, then Cloud Nine is a great way to mitigate opponent strategies. And it also means Golduck can’t be hit with a SunnyBeam combo, doesn’t take damage from Sandstorm or Hail, and doesn’t have Hydro Pump’s damage reduced in sunlight, which is just a useful bonus. 

MOVES: Golduck’s a Water type Special Attacker, and the move of choice is going to be Hydro Pump or Surf.  Hydro Pump’s bigger, Surf is more Accurate, take your pick.

For other special attacks, Golduck can learn Ice Beam, Psychic or Psyshock, and Focus Blast. As Grass, Dragon, and Water resist Water, taking Ice Beam for Grass and Dragon is the obvious decision, while the other two are dependent on move slots. 

For utility, a Swift Swim Golduck likely wants Rain Dance so he can set it up himself when needed. If you want to take the risk to go for a full sweeper, Calm Mind and Substitute will let Golduck set up so that he can then use Ice Beam and Hydro Pump (or Surf) to tear through an enemy team.  Armor recently introduced a new move to Golduck’s arsenal- Flip Turn.  Golduck’s base 82 Attack means it’s bonus damage will be fine even without investment, and having a way to get in a bit of free damage while running from grass and electric moves is certainly reasonable.  My ideal Golduck would probably be Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Psyshock, and Rain Dance, but there’s plenty of modifications to make depending on your team.  OVERALL:  I love Golduck. It’s always been one of my favorite Pokemon. Nothing it does is particularly splashy or overly interesting, but its stats are all decent and its move choice is decent, so it can hold its own just fine. Its biggest issue is that all it is is decent in everything. It has no really great ability or stat to lean into, and “water type that learns Ice beam” isn’t exactly uncommon. Gaining psychic moves is good, but Psychic’s only strong against Fighting and Poison, and if Rain Dance is up, Golduck’s doing just as much damage with a water move as he is with a super effective Psychic move. I’d like to see a regional variant of Golduck that gets the Psychic typing and has a smidge more special attack. Would it be good? Dunno, but I’d like to see it.

[sserpente]

A/N: THIS IS PART II! Read Part I here! Multiply requested, finally, here it is with input from @nightrose64. Enjoy, my lovelies! ♥♥♥

Words: 2288 Warnings: mentions of attempted rape, mentions of blood, fluff

His lips were soft, cool, like the feather light touch of butterfly wings. Your eyes fluttered shut, bathing in the warmth and affection Thomas embraced you with. You were lying in his arms, listening to his steady heartbeat and wondering just what had caused the universe to show such mercy on you to bless you with this wonderful man.

The bond between you was growing stronger with every day that passed. Neither of you was able to explain what was happening to his body, how his body warmed you at night and how he could touch you ever so tenderly without reaching right through you… how his heart had come to life, pounding for you. It was a miracle—your miracle, even though you never properly spoke about it.

Sir Thomas Sharpe was still a ghost, that fine line between life and death separating you… at least that was what the both of you thought. He made no secret out of following you around on campus but respecting your privacy if you so wished. You had never sent him away before. If anything, knowing Thomas around you made you feel safe and secure.

You were about to fall asleep in his arms, with him stroking your hair gently to calm you down from your rather stressful day when there was a sudden knock on your door—a vigorous and impatient sound alerting you instantly. Shooting Thomas a worried look, you climbed out of bed and answered it, peeking through the smidge.

A small beam of yellow light from the hallway partially flooded your dorm.

“Hey, (Y/N). I’m sorry, were you sleeping already?” Suppressing a yawn, you nodded. You could sense Thomas’ presence right behind you, ready to support you if need be. A silent sigh escaped your lips when he put his hand on your shoulder in the shadows to let you know he was there.

“Almost… what is it?”

“It’s… it’s Clara. I can’t find her. She disappeared after supper and she didn’t show up for her appointment with Mrs Martins, she was furious about being stood up without being notified. She’s not with you, is she?” You frowned.

You recognised the late night visitor. She was taking the same course as you and sharing a room with Clara, your friend who had attempted to convince you to join her and those two shady young men Thomas had saved you from.

You had barely spoken since. Clara seemed… so reserved all of a sudden, like somebody had drained her of all of her energy and liveliness. During classes, she never asked questions, always staring at her notes, not to mention the dark circles under her eyes. You had spoken about it with Thomas and he suspected the men had introduced her to the dark depths of taking drugs. You had tried to talk to her and ask her if they had done anything to her she had not consented to… but the girl would not speak up.

You had considered talking to the police but what proof would you deliver? Surely, Clara and the men would deny everything, especially if there were illegal drugs involved.

“No… no. Where did you last see her?”

“Like I said, after supper. She hurried outside the main entrance when I told her how late it was and then disappeared around the corner with two men. I’m really worried something happened to her. She’s meeting with these guys almost every day but she never seems all too happy about it…” You held your breath. There was no need to exchange silent looks with Thomas to figure that something was not right.

“L-let me put something on real quick. Alert the caretaker, or any authority you can find at this hour. We have to go after her.”

The girl nodded, hurrying away as you closed the door, switched on the light and began searching for your college pullover.

“My darling, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I have to help her, Thomas.” Self-righteousness and courage flooded your senses, pumping adrenaline through your veins. Yes. This was the right thing to do.

“I cannot let you roam the forests all on your own in the middle of the night. I will not allow it. Please, (Y/N). Listen to reason, this is way too dangerous.” His tone balanced between sternness and gentle begging.

“You will come with me?”

“Of course I will… but I am no living being. I can only protect you to some extent and you know that. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you.” He answered quietly.

“Thomas… I didn’t help Clara the first time when I should have. I… I know you only wanted to protect me but… every time I see her in class I feel such pangs of guilt… I have to do something. What if they kill her?”

“At least arm yourself. The scissors on your desk, anything you can defend yourself with.”

Thomas admired your braveness. You reminded him of Edith, in a way. Strong, independent and proud, you did not hesitate to protect and avenge the ones you loved. Perhaps it was in this very moment that Thomas realised he had fallen in love with you. But for now, he pushed the fact he was dead and could never be with you for real to the back of his mind. Keeping you save was much more important in this very moment.

Thomas followed you outside, never leaving your side. Your mobile phone was posing as a torch, the scissors in your hand almost ridiculous.

You met Amanda, the girl who had knocked on your door and the caretaker, who had already alerted the police a girl was missing, at the edge of the forest. His eyes widened when he spotted you approaching.

“Blimey… that’s impossible.”

“Sir?” Out of breath, you raised your eyebrows at him. But he wasn’t even looking at you. He was looking at someone behind you.

“Am I dreaming?”

Thomas opened his mouth, ready to explain… it took you both a moment to realise the old caretaker could see him. Nobody but you could see him. And it was clear that he recognised him. There was a portrait of Sir Thomas Sharpe in the dining hall, after all.

“I must be on drugs as well…”

Amanda appeared equally shocked, staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Well, technically…

“W-what? This is Thomas, my… my boyfriend. His, uh, great-great-great-great-grandfather was Sir Thomas Sharpe himself. His father was the one who sold Allerdale Hall to the university.” You came up with quickly, shooting him a quick glance.

You were stunned—the both of you were. But right now was not the time to celebrate whatever this was. Clara was in danger and she needed your help.

“Alright then…” The caretaker did not sound convinced. “Amanda, you come with me. (Y/N), you search with… Thomas.”

You waited until the others were out of sight before you spoke up.

“How… how can they see you?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I—“ Thomas’ reply was interrupted by a sharp scream tearing through the air. You flinched, eyes widening. This had been close, almost too close.

Alarmed, you stormed in the direction the scream came from, your mind racing with unspoken thoughts.

“Have you lost your mind? You can’t just run off like that, (Y/N). We have to be careful. I am not losing you, now that I…” Now that he what? He was unsure himself. His voice when he reached you, however, was so strict you almost flinched. Now that he was… physically present, for real?

None of this made sense. If only you could turn back time to still lie in bed with him, cuddled up against his chest and listening to his steady heartbeat. For right now, you were not paying much attention to his worried look. Only a few yards away from you, a scene of pure terror unfolded.

Clara was lying on the ground, her clothes cut and a trickle of blood running down her face. Hovering above her, the two students Thomas had saved you from. Clearly, they intended to rape her… and worse. But there was something else. Someone else. A dark-haired woman wearing a crimson dress, a downright murderous expression on her face. She was transparent, just like Thomas had been when you first met him.

Her face fell when she spotted him behind you.

“Thomas. Thomas, my love…”

“W-who is that?” You heard yourself whisper anxiously. Thomas inched closer to you, his body warmth in your back reassuring you and promising you safety. And even though both the two students and Clara were unable to see Lucille, they too saw Thomas… and they witnessed him speaking to thin air. How… how were you able to see this woman then?

“Lucille…”

“Oh, Thomas.” Her smile was both pitiful and angry. It faltered when she realised he wasn’t as transparent as she was—and he was walking; not hovering or gliding over the ground like she did. “Thomas…”

“Lucille, stop this… these men are innocent, so is the woman. Leave them.”

“Innocent?” He replied indignantly. “They took our home! Polluting it with alcohol and drugs and parties! Look at what they’ve done to this place, Thomas, look at it! How could you not want revenge as well? Why don’t we want revenge together?”

You realised with a start what was happening. Lucille. Thomas called her Lucille. Lucille Sharpe? His sister who had murdered both their parents and so many innocent women… who had killed… him. She must have influenced the young men to wreak havoc. As a ghost, she was unable to harm the living, unless… unless she messed with their minds.

“It’s over, Lucille. This is wrong, you know that. We no longer belong in this world.”

A painful sting went through your heart. We no longer belong in this world. It couldn’t be true, not anymore. What about his heartbeat? What about Amanda and the caretaker? They could see him too! Did he… you gasped. He only said this because of his sister.

“And who is that?” Her voice broke, her piercing eyes landing on you and making you swallow. “Why are you protecting her?”

Thomas knew that no matter what he said now, it would be the wrong thing. Lucille was beyond reason, she always had been.

“Lucille…”

“I missed you. I missed you, Thomas. You… changed. What happened to you?”

You looked up at him in a concerned manner when he gently pushed you behind you, fearing Lucille might find a way to hurt you. He took a deep breath.

“It’s… it’s love. Love, Lucille. Love, it… brought me back to life. I fell in love.” It was impossible. But for now, it indeed was the only plausible explanation. Again, you swallowed, this time in a desperate attempt not to sob loudly.

Lucille cried out. “I love you! I always loved you!”

You only realised you were crying when the first salty drops ran down your cheek, more tears worsening your sight.

“But you killed him!” You snapped. “How can you speak of love!”

“Shut up! You shut up!” Lucille screeched. She was mad—you could see it glistening in her eyes. The madness was haunting her even in death, making her soul restless.

“Lucille… if you ever loved me like you claim you do, then let this people be. Think about how much we suffered. Do you want Allerdale Hall to be cursed with this much agony for all eternity?”

“Put your hands up in the air where we can see them and move away from the woman, gentlemen!”

Police. Clara glanced up in shock, the two men doing as they were told as if they were being ripped straight from a deep trance.

You wrapped your arms around Thomas, his presence calming your rapid heartbeat in an instant. Amanda and the caretaker were running towards Clara, helping her up and covering her bare shoulders with a coat. Everything happened at once, along with the two men being arrested for attempted rape and illegal drug use. You turned your gaze back to the spot Lucille had been standing on… but she was gone. For good?

“Thomas…”

“I know. I know but she will not harm you, or anyone else on campus. I swear… on my life.”

On his life. Life. Thomas was alive. He was alive because he loved you.

There were still so many things left unexplained, things you might never understand. But you were together. Your tears of fear soon turned into happy tears as a weak smile spread on your lips, your body overwhelmed with feelings. You were still shaking from all the adrenaline, the shock of having met the ghost of Thomas’ dead sister Lucille and her threat to harm you and your study colleagues residing deep within you… but you were also happy. It took you only the fraction of a second longer to realise what his words meant—and how significant they were.

“Thomas? I love you too.” You breathed out, standing on your toes to, for the first time, properly kiss him, passionately. His tongue sneaked into your mouth as the scissors in your hand fell to the ground, timidly asking for permission before intensifying the kiss, pressing you so close to his body it almost hurt.

You were dizzy by the time he let go of you, your lips only inches apart.

“Let’s head back. I need to hold you in my arms, in your bed.” He whispered hoarsely. You nodded, unable to object even if you had wanted to. But you doubted it would be just cuddling this time.

-

A/N: Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my first (to be) published novel! Also, if you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[carryonmywaywardwriters]

Heathens - Soulless Reader x Demon Dean (Short Series)

A/N: Yes, I’m alive. I just don’t particularly want to discuss it in depth. For now? Have this. I have some stuff lined up to be posted, already. So, there’ll be some more over this next week that way. As always, feedback is incredible. And, I hope you all enjoy <3

PSA: I am NOT a minor friendly blog. If you are below 18, please come back when you’re older. I don’t want to lose my blog because you were too eager to grow up. If I discover you, I WILL block.

Warnings: Harley/Joker kinda relationship. Unhealthy. Power driven. Implied/Upcoming smut. Etc. Each chapter will have individual warnings.

Word Count: Roughly 2,800

“Y/N?” Dean Winchester. A deep, gravelly voice you hadn't heard since Bobby died echoed around you. A voice that should have meant something. Instead, it made you turn slowly, a brow raised. Waiting for the consequences with a blank face.

He hadn't been sure it was you. Darkness covered you. But, that wasn't enough. The actions he'd witnessed too fundamentally wrong to be from the woman he'd known. Y/N wouldn't ever kill in cold blood. Wouldn't off someone simply for attempting to mug her.

But you had. Without even blinking. You simply took out your gun from the back of your jeans. Shot twice, causing the kid to fall to the ground. Picking up the bag, you slung it over your shoulders. Another bullet was slung, this time to the skull, before you walked away. Tucking the gun away. Only to find yourself stopped by Dean in the alley.

The Y/N he knew always cried after a hunt. After any kind of kill. His lifestyle had been necessary to you at the time, but taking a life had never come natural. If anyone had known that, it was Dean. You'd turned to him from the beginning. All the way until the day he'd shoved you away. Trying to protect you. Failing miserably from the look of things.

“Well, well, well.” Your head tilted to the side. Inspecting him as though he were a bug. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?” Your lips kicked up humorlessly. “One of the great Winchester Duo paying little ole me mind again. What an honor.” The sarcasm might have made him flinch in his original state, but he was able to withhold in his newer form- barely.

“Happened to be walking this way, on a job.” He wasn't lying. Not completely, anyway.

Crowley had directed him that way. Promising that he'd have a kill ready for Dean. A means to keep the Mark under control. Even as a demon, the need to shed blood was fixed into his very being thanks to the raised scar etched into this forearm.

Once, you'd been repulsed, and even scared, of how easily Dean had lifted the gun and fired. He had gotten to the point where he barely blinked as a human, much less as a Knight of Hell. And yet, he couldn't help but to wonder what had taken the light out of your eyes. The guilt out of your head. What had turned you into him.

“I see you found her.” Crowley's low voice called out, in a way that should have sent chills up your spine. Instead, your lips pulled up even wider.

“You're working with the King of Hell?” You chuckled darkly. Losing what bit of tension there'd been in your shoulders. “Man, I've missed out on a lot. When did you become his bitch, Dean?”

“I'm not his bitch,” He bit out. His eyes flashing black under the alley light. Expecting you to shiver in revulsion.

“Even better.” Your smile fell a bit, but your face didn't lose that off feel to it. As if you were possessed. Or, maybe even under a spell. “You became his slave, instead.”

“I'm no one's slave, Y/N.” His words echoed another past memory.

“I'm scared, Dean.” You'd swallowed tightly, looking into his green eyes. Scared wasn't enough to cover it. You were petrified. A dead man could see it.

“Why?” If he was able, he'd fight off every one of your fears. Kill them before they could even begin to form.

“Because you're changing.” You whispered brokenly. The sound ripped at his chest. “You're becoming a...a slave. To this life. The guilt. Your fear... And I can't do anything...just sit by and watch.”

“I'm not a slave to anyone.” He'd bit out. Pride winning out against the urge to protect. “Or, anything. We'll be fine, Y/N. We always are.”

“Funny.” You snorted. Drawing him back to the present. “I've heard that before,” Your mind had traveled to the same place. “And, yet, here we are.”

“Yes,” Crowley had been watching the exchange curiously, “here we are. Eloquent words, darling.”

“I try,” Tilting your head mockingly, you got to the meat of the situation. Clearly not wanting to be bothered. Particularly by them. “What do you want with me?”

“It would seem that you're part of a contract that went wrong-”

“Oh, yeah.” A false, heavy sigh left your lips. “I almost forgot about that.” Dean's gaze turned back to his fellow demon for a moment. Attempting to piece together what was happening. “Thanks, by the way. Really loved having a hell hound come after me.” You pinched your index finger to your thumb in an approving gesture. “It only got better with the small hoard of demons you sent on my ass.”

“Such sass-”

“I was nicer before I lost my soul. Forgive me for my lack of manners. I seem to have trouble feeling these days.” Coldness seeped from your lips. A weapon honed by the attacks.

“You're soulless?” Understanding swam through him. Why, although you were so different, you were still so familiar.

The way you moved. How you detached. An empty eeriness clung to your features. It was completely unnatural. As if you were his brother when he'd come back from hell. Broken. Missing a large part of what made you, you.

“It's not as awful as it sounds.” You ran your tongue over your teeth as you glared at the superior demon in front of you. “Actually, I like it. A lot.” Your fingers twitched back to your weapon, “which is why I don't want it back. The only thing I want is to be left alone.”

“The contract isn't complete-”

“It wasn't my contract.” You cut him off, sneering. The tension lining your body. Prepared to fight to keep yourself destitute. “So, not my problem.”

“But, it is ours.” The shorter man hissed while snapping his fingers. Sending your body flying through the air until it connected against the brick. Your skull cracked with enough force to knock you out. But, you'd live. After all, you were there for a reason. “All yours.” Crowley motioned at Dean. Signaling that you'd be his kill.

“Why her?” Dean narrowed his eyes. Taking in the shameless king in front of him. Resisting the desire to step between him and your lifeless body.

When he'd turned, he hadn't become the usual demon. Bits that hadn't quite died off when Metatron stabbed a blade into Dean's body made themselves known on a regular basis. Killing Lester rather than the wife had only been the most recent offense.

The king of the underworld not only needed the job finished, but he needed that almost human part of Dean gone. Wanted the obstinate side of him to crumble. If Dean killed you? The woman he'd loved at one point- if not always...the problematic demon would morph. He'd be the perfect side kick.

“I believe that you already know the answer to that question, Dean-o.” Crowley quipped, following the movement of the green that had reappeared. Seeing the hesitation, and the connection being made. “You're almost to your full potential. There's just a smidge that needs fixed to get you there. This will make everything right.” His eyes were slightly crazed, as if he needed this. “It feels good, right? To continue to be a demon. To not be riddled with those pesky emotions. Fear. Guilt. Love. To do what you want, when you want, without being held back. Without consequence.”

“You're right.” Dean's jaw clenched lightly. The first blade came out of his denim jacket, and into his hand. “I am a demon.” His lips pulled up into a twisted smile of his own. Growing confident in his decision. “I feel nothing. I can do what I want, when I want.” Crowley backed away as Dean stepped between you two. His back facing your body. “And, I'll kill you before I kill her.”

–

“Dean?” Your head should have hurt far worse than the dull ache given the amount of blood you could see smeared onto the pillow and sheets in the mirror above the bed as you squinted up. But, that was nothing new. You'd been that way for weeks. “Where the hell are we?”

He'd been pacing by the window when you'd woken up. Completely ignorant to your eyes opening. You turned his way, watching the way he moved.

His hand wrecked his hair over and over again. The jacket was gone, thrown onto the table with a blade made from a large jaw bone resting atop of it. Red flannel was tossed over a black t-shirt. Even as a demon, he had to layer up. If you could have felt amused, you would have.

“I'm not telling you.” His eyes flashed back in warning. As if that would matter to you. “You're a problem for me, Y/N.  Always have been. Now? You fucked this up, too.”

“Oh, yes... Let's blame the soulless girl who's been back into the equation for five minutes.” Your eyes rolled heavily as you got to your feet to stretch. “Your problems came from your own hands, Winchester. The minute you sold yourself for Sam, it was over. I was the one unwillingly pulled into the fray.”

“Watch it.” The green was gone for a longer period this time. His anger showing in another snarl. “Go too far? That blade will land in your throat.”

“If you were going to do it, you would have already.” That devilish smirk crossed your lips. So certain now that emotion didn't rule you. “I've been out of your life for years, Dean. It should have been simple. Especially since you're sporting the Mark of Caine.” Your eyes landed on the reddened flesh. Too well versed to not recognize the symbol. “Take it this is the first blade?” You walked over to the weapon. Dried blood coated the yellowed, aged, bone. “You actually cut Crowley with this? To get me out of there?” Your brows rose as the weapon twisted in your hands. Mind churning as you inspected the rusted flakes clinging to it. “How sweet... I suppose you want paid back... the usual good enough?” Dean liked sex. That was no secret. He'd accepted more than his fair share from women he'd saved back in the day. His full lips pulled down into a deadly frown at your words. No doubt second guessing the decision to keep you alive. “Oh, lighten up.” Your eyes rolled at his grumpiness.

He'd be lying if he said that the offer wasn't appealing. Demonhood hadn't diminished his sexual appetites. If anything, they'd only grown stronger. Everything carnal expanding inside of him. However, he had bigger things to focus on. He'd nearly offed the King of Hell. Other demons would be on his ass sooner than later.

“You have any idea how you ended up in a contract?” Finding out who'd asked for your soul to get collected was the first step. That was about as far as he'd gotten.

“No clue.” Your finger was pricked by the point of the knife before you set it down. You sucked at the irony liquid out of habit. Grinning lightly at the way Dean's eyes followed the action. “I don't even really think one exists.” You finally stated, licking your lip clean of the rust flavored spot that had landed on it.

“You think he was trying to manipulate me?” He didn't seem surprised. Furious enough to have ignored the dart of your tongue.

It should have seemed odd to you. Dean with black eyes. The Winchester embracing the bad rather than the good. Not attempting to fight it anymore. But, you took it in stride. It was amazing how simple of a task it was when you didn't have any worries left.

“Tell me it doesn't make sense.” He couldn't. You knew it. “And you're just going to take that laying down?”

“He has an army of demons at his disposal. I just have me.” You looked at him expectantly while pointing to yourself. A grunt of acknowledgment left him. “And, you. But, that'll only last as long as he holds onto your soul.”

“Good point.” You pursed your lips. It was your turn to pace. Self preservation being the only thing you had left. “So, what're you planning to do about it?”

“You think I'm going to run.” He heard it in your voice. His pride hadn't been damaged by death. It rose its venomous head as you shrugged, pretending that wasn't what you were thinking. “So, what do you think I should do? After all, you seem to have it all figured out..” He plopped to the bed, looking at you expectantly. Daring you to come up with a better idea. Mocking you with his words. Still so similar to the man he'd been.

A low hum left you. Your eyes turned out to the window. Gazing at the world beyond as you moved. When it finally came together, you turned your head his way.

“You stopped the Apocalypse. You destroyed the Leviathans. And who knows what else since I've been gone.” Your pacing turned into more of a prowl until your hands rested on his shoulder. His eyes turned black immediately, again. You weren't sure if it was in response to your touch, or out of distrust. But, neither stopped you. “That was as a human. As a demon? I think you could take over Hell, and take all of the power for yourself.”

That caught his interest, “Yeah?”

“Let's face it, Dean.” Your lips brushed against his ear as you sat down on his lap. Drawing forth a low shiver. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you got to work. “Most demons know your name. They fear it.” Your hand brushed over the hair by his ear as you leaned back to look into his eyes. Staring into the bleakness. “You could have killed Crowley today. Easily.” He was too well trained not to be able to. “I know it. You know it. And, I'm sure he does.” Your lips curled up deviously. Setting the bait. “You've earned the crown, already.”

“And what's in it for you?” His eyes narrowed distrustfully. Knowing there was a catch. That no one, even those without a soul, came without a price.

“Besides you? And protection?” You shrugged nonchalantly. As if it meant nothing, “I rule by your side.”

“And here I thought demons were the power hungry ones.” His blackened eyes searched yours as you leaned forward.

“We soulless people have drives, too.” Your lips brushed against his lightly as you talked, making his breath hitch. “I want to live. I want to be safe. Unchallenged. I want to feel powerful for once in my pathetic life.” Your tongue wet your lips, grazing against his in the process. “And, this? This is how I can get all of that. You and your body are just a hell of a perk.”

“And your soul?” The million dollar question.

“I want it locked away.” There wasn't a moment of hesitation. “I meant what I said earlier. I don't want it back.” The almost empty E/C eyes searched his warily. The next question would determine everything. “And, your demonism?”

“It's me.” He answered gruffly. As if it was insulting you'd bothered to ask. “I don't want cured. I don't want to go back.” His dark smile made your lips kick back up. “I love this disease.”

“So, we have a deal?” Your grin grew. It was oddly chilling to Dean, even in his form. But, that didn't stop him from nodding. “Where you're a demon, does that mean we kiss on it?”

“Something this big, it takes a lot more than a kiss to seal it.” His raspy tone made your body break out in goosebumps. Your emotions may not have been there, but his words alone felt like a caress to your skin. As if your senses were amplified in those regards.

“Better get to work then,” Your lips met his as he pulled you down onto the bed. Signing over everything to you.

Forever: @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @supernaturalginger​

[endlessarchite]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sure what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

  image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC system in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

The post The New Duplex Floor Plan appeared first on Young House Love.

The New Duplex Floor Plan published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[interiorstarweb]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sue what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

  image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC system in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

The post The New Duplex Floor Plan appeared first on Young House Love.

The New Duplex Floor Plan published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[yesterdaysdreams]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sue what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

  image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC system in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

The post The New Duplex Floor Plan appeared first on Young House Love.

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[vincentbnaughton]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sue what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC system in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

The post The New Duplex Floor Plan appeared first on Young House Love.

[vincentbnaughton]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sue what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

  image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC system in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

The post The New Duplex Floor Plan appeared first on Young House Love.

[endlessarchite]

The New Duplex Floor Plan

If you saw our before & after post about the beach duplex demo, then you know we’ve got some big plans for the duplex’s floor plan. We want to make the most of the given space – and we’re even adding on a smidge more – so it can sleep more people, offer more bathrooms, and generally improve the feeling of being in this cool old house. Before each side had only one full bath (!!!), so we’re hopeful that we have nowhere to go but up. So we’re back today with some floor plans to show you exactly what we intend to do. And the nerd inside of me is extremely excited about it.

If you’re new around here or aren’t sue what we mean by “the duplex,” you can catch up on everything in detail here. But the short version is that it’s a rundown duplex that we bought last fall to renovate and turn into a weekly vacation rental. It’s just one house away from our pink beach house in Cape Charles, VA, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So far it has just been gutted and once the weather starts cooperating, we’ll finally get to start rolling on exterior improvements like a new non-leaking roof and some new not-rotten siding.

The Before

The two halves of the duplex are nearly identical, just mirrored along the central wall that separates them. They have separate addresses and we intend to keep them separate so that they can be rented separately (although a larger family might rent both sides to have the whole house for a week). All of the changes we make will be the same on each side, so we’re just going to focus on the LEFT side of the house as you face it from the street. But again, each side will remain a mirror image when it comes to floor plan/layout. As for decorating them, Sherry thinks it’ll be fun to decorate them slightly differently. Think cousins and not identical twins.

But back to the floor plan. First of all, since it’s a common layout question we have been getting a lot on social media: we aren’t doing an interior door to make it optional for someone staying in one side of the duplex to open that door and have access to the other side. This isn’t possible due to code reasons, but the front doors of each side literally couldn’t be closer (and under a covered porch) so if a larger family rents both sides for the week it is basically the shortest walk ever to get from one side to the other:

Each side is a little under 1,300 square feet, and when we bought it each side only had two bedrooms and one full bathroom – all on the second floor. We don’t believe that was the original floor plan (it was extremely choppy with doorways and lights in very odd places) so we’re just doing our best to make the house feel more original, intentional, efficient, and less oddly closed off – since we’ll probably never know the original floor plan. Although we do know that the house has always been a duplex as far as we know. There are two lots and two different house numbers as far back as we can go. You can see before photos in this post & walk through it on video to get more of an idea of how oddly things were laid out.

Note: The pencil drawings we’ve been working on with our contractor were too hard to read in photographs, so we’ve recreated them as well as we can using free online software called HomeStyler and then we added our own labels in Photoshop. They are mostly to scale, but some details are approximate.

The After (or at least, The Plan)

I’ll take you through all of the major changes in a moment using side-by-side floor plans, but here’s an overall look at what we’re planning to do. When we’re done, each side will go from 1 bathroom to 3 (well, two full ones and one powder room), and from 2 bedrooms to 3. And yes, we spontaneously break out in full body sweats when we think about having to tile all six bathrooms and install two kitchens once the walls go back up, so let’s not talk about that right now, mmmkay?

Downstairs Living Areas

I know it’s often easier to understand changes when you can see the before and after floor plans side-by-side, so that’s what we’ve done below. This is just the front half of the downstairs (the before is on the left, and the after is on the right, with numbered labels that I’ll get into in a moment).

Here’s a quick summary of the big changes in this part of the house:

We’re opening up the wall that separates the stairs from the living area so that the entry vestibule gets more light and is less claustrophobic.

The living area is quite large (we’re not sure how the previous occupants used it) so we’re planning to use the back half of it as a casual dining area since it will be right off of the kitchen. Exact furniture plan TBD, but we love Chris & Julia’s open dining room & living room.

To create better flow and sight lines between the kitchen and the dining area, we’re widening this doorway.

Since the current downstairs has no bathroom, we’re turning this large closet area under the stairs into a powder room. A few people said they worry about bathroom smells wafting into the dining area but my parents have a beach rental with an extremely similar layout and it works out really well. Anyone doing something smelly wants to go upstairs instead of doing it right off of the living area anyway. Is that TMI? Probably. But the point is that we think it’ll be just fine.

For reference, this is what that space is looking like at the moment.

And here’s an inspiration photo of how we’ll open up the side of the stairs, which was formerly enclosed all the way down to the first step:

  image source

Downstairs Kitchen Areas

The back half of the downstairs was pretty hardworking before, but we’re making it work even harder – incorporating laundry, a larger kitchen, and even a “mudroom” zone for people coming in from the back door. There will also be an outdoor shower by the back door, so people will wash the sand off there, then enter through the mudroom, and toss their towels into the washer or hang them up in the mudroom area. We are hopeful that the combination of an outdoor shower and a tiled room to enter through with laundry/mudroom capabilities will keep a lot of sand out of the rest of the house.

Again, looking at the before and after plan side-by-side, here are the highlights:

We’re moving the kitchen into the larger former dining space so that we can greatly increase storage, counter space, and even add a dishwasher. Exact layout TBD, and we may incorporate a small (maybe movable) island or baking cart in the center.

The former kitchen (which wasn’t the original kitchen location, since that area used to be a side porch) will become laundry/pantry space. We think it will be nice to continue the cabinetry in here to visually extend the kitchen, but we’ll be adding pocket doors so that it can be closed off – especially if laundry noise needs to be muffled. Plus, we just love pocket doors in these old homes. They feel original and cool (even if they haven’t always been there, like the ones we added to the back bedroom in the pink house). Note: I know laundry/pantry sounds weird together. It’s basically just going to be a laundry/mudroom with extra cabinetry for various storage needs – sort of like this. 

This back section of each side was fairly unused apart from the water heater and a toilet (just on the right side, kinda sitting out in the open). Since it opens to the backyard, we want to create a space for sandy gear and towels in the form of a small mudroom, just beyond the outdoor shower.

We’ll also put a utility closet back there that can hide stuff like the HVAC system and a tankless water heater.

Here’s a view of the old kitchen that was in that former side porch when we bought the house. The future mudroom and utility closet will go just beyond the right side of where these creamsicle-colored cabinets once were.

And since we’ve landed on “mint” as the accent color for this project, we’re thinking the pocket doors that will go in this doorway (which, again, will separate the future kitchen from the future pantry/laundry) might look something like this charming door from Yellow Brick Home’s kitchen… just two of them since the opening will be double wide like the one above.

Upstairs, Front Bedroom, & Hall Bath

Moving upstairs, let’s start at the front of the house:

Just like downstairs, the space up here hasn’t really been used to its maximum potential (we believe things were constantly being chopped up/changed/moved just based on some odd light placements, etc). And since maximizing the beds and baths is important for a vacation rental, this is what we’re planning to do:

The area at the top of the stairs is very cramped and feels cut off, so we’re giving it a more spacious landing without losing the linen closet

The bathroom up here was unnecessarily large, so we’re basically splitting it in half to make a more modest space that’s still large enough for a tub/shower combo (probably a drop-in tub with a tile shower surround).

By splitting the bathroom and stealing a little bit of space from the main two bedrooms, we’ll be able to create a third sleeping space (similar to our beach house’s bunk room, but probably a little larger).

Not much is changing in the front bedroom. It will get a hair smaller and we plan to re-orient the closet. The closet has a beautiful window in it (the one with the diamond grill pattern seen from the front) but the old owner had it boarded over and covered with drywall (!!!) so they could run a closet bar across the opposite wall. To uncover the window and let the light shine in, we’ll move the closet bar to the wall across from the window (where it will be hidden from view in the bedroom thanks to being tucked into that nook) and use a pocket door, which we hope will encourage people to leave it open and let the light shine in.

This is what the view from the front bedroom looks like right now, so you can kind of see how the bathroom will be split:

Upstairs, Back Bedroom, & Master Bath

This is the area of the house where we are actually adding space, which is going to earn us another full bath that is also an ensuite. Woot!

But there is more than just an added bathroom going on back here, so here’s what you should take note of:

This “bump out” on the back of the house already exists downstairs (remember the mudroom and utility closet?) so we already have approval from the town to continue that footprint upstairs and bump out the second floor to match it. The cheapest way to do an addition is to build on top of something that already has a foundation/footers, so we’re excited to just pop the second floor out. It won’t be a huge bathroom (probably just a walk-in shower) but we always love having our own ensuite bathroom when we travel, so we think it’ll be a big bonus.

Since we’re losing the existing back window (it will become the bathroom door) we got approval to add a new window so that we don’t reduce natural light in this bedroom.

This room was already very long, but by stealing some square footage for the bunkroom it got even more elongated. So we landed on the idea of adding two built-in closets (with drywall and proper doors) on either side of the side window. It makes the room shape a bit more natural and gives the room the closet it still needed – plus we think we may use the other one as a locked owner’s closet.

We used this same trick in the pink house, but by pulling the bedroom door into the hallway a little bit (in this case to line up with the linen closet door) it creates a “vestibule” for the inswing of the door. Since the bed will likely go on that right wall (facing the window bench) this means the door doesn’t open right into the nightstand.

And to give you an idea of what we mean in #3 about the window bench, here’s an inspiration picture that Sherry dug up to get excited about this spot. We might leave it more open underneath for people to tuck suitcases (or, if we’re really ambitious, we could make it a flip top bench with linen storage underneath).

image source

This is what that bedroom originally looked like (that’s the window that’s becoming a bathroom door) so we’re looking forward to making it feel more “masterful.”

I’ll leave you guys with one parting look at the full “after” floor plan:

If it’s like the pink house, we know this is not likely to be our last iteration of these plans. We’ve done most of our tweaking already, but some things are dependent on how some construction shakes out. For instance, this plans assumes we can make room for the upstairs HVAC in the attic. That’s not a certainty yet, so it could throw a wrench in our plans. We’ll keep you posted…

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