Quandaries…….

Deciding to renovate a home brings all sorts of delicious quandaries. What to keep? What to demolish? Maybe keep something but use it in a new way? These questions have been asked and answered many times at the Folly.

One particularly prickly issue dealt with the installed stained glass windows and leaded glass windows. Family treasures? The result of a successful day of antiquing? The previous owner obviously loved them as they were very old before they were moved into the beach house. Since the colored glass, while beautiful, blocked the light, it was decided to sell all but one. A local antique dealer took a fancy to them. After buying and reframing them, they are now up for sale in her shop.  

The leaded glass panels seemed better suited to the house. Originally opposite the front door, they held pride of place. Everyone’s first impression became those panels. And although they limited the light that shined into the foyer, the patterns of metal bands afforded an interesting view to the garden. 

Oh, here is the delicious quandary: What to do? Keep the window in place and give up garden access from the foyer? Relocate the panels in the house? Sell the panels? There was a lively conversation of the “let’s do this, no, let’s do that” variety that lasted several weeks. Final decision: Separate the panel sections so that they can be used individually in some other part of the house. Install French doors to the garden for an open, modern feeling. Keep the old, but enliven the foyer with a light, bright introduction to the beautiful Florida landscape and ocean beyond. We have a plan…

A creative architect serves many functions. In this case, Matt was asked to solve our recycling problem by finding places for these leaded glass panels. His solution…let’s use them as the fronts for the doors of the storage cabinet we were building in the dining room. The piece will have lights to show the beauty of the glass (and the china behind). Larry, our multi talented, in house carpenter, loved the challenge. He built frames so that each panel serves as a single door. While not yet painted, it’s already obvious that this piece will be a distinctive feature of the dining room.  

Like the Chicago Brick fireplace reincarnated as an outdoor grill, Folly now has a new, more appropriate place for all the very old, still beautiful, leaded glass.

Don’t you love recycling?!

Items For Sale on Craigslist

Hot Water Heater
http://treasure.craigslist.org/mat/1871947143.html

Windows and Doors
http://treasure.craigslist.org:80/mat/1871956244.html

Red Oak Spiral Staircase
http://treasure.craigslist.org:80/hsh/1871410494.html

Recycle: Renew and Reuse

A house which has stood through several hurricanes (including the evil twin hurricanes, Francis and Jean, in 2004) and sheltered several generations must be made of stern stuff. This reasoning led to the decision to reject the advice of some architects to "scrape it away and build new". Our decision was to renovate instead. It turned out that the "stout little house" had much in it worth saving.

Here is a list of our effort to recycle.

The first order of business was to remove all decorative elements that could be reused, if not in this house by someone else. These included the lucite drawer pulls, stained glass windows, leaded glass windows, spiral staircase and kitchen cabinets and ceiling fans.

Left in place as much of the original landscaping as possible.

All the sand set pavers for the driveway and pool deck were taken up by hand and stored on pallets for later use. That is about 14 pallets of material.

Chicago brick taken from old fireplace; stored for reuse.

Left in place as much of the concrete slabs, blocks, beams and structural columns as possible.

Re-used all 2x lumber from he old structure in the new construction.

Left the 1 1/2" furring strips on block walls.

Carefully removed the 6"x12" cedar beams, planed and sanded them for re-use as the supporting beams for the sleeping porch and the front balcony. [Photo]

Recycled all wire, copper and aluminum from the old house.

Removed the solar panels for sale.

Removed the electric shutters for sale. [Photo]