Move Or Remodel?
by Janie Murnane
Photos by Raymond Andreski
As empty nesters, my husband and I struggled with a decision to either move from our ranch home or remodel. We wanted to be able to age in place and have a more functional home with better flow for entertaining. Living in the Midwest, we have a finished basement with large daylight windows
-- yet the space was divided up between two rooms – 1) a TV area with a fireplace and a small wet bar stuck behind the stairs and 2) a game room/office. Because the rooms didn’t flow from one space to the next, it was a poor design for entertaining large groups.
There were many things we truly liked about our current home but three major items that were driving us to sell:
- We wanted a more open flow for entertaining downstairs, with a game table and a large wet bar.
- We wanted a walk-out basement.
- We wanted a separate office space so we could close the doors on paperwork. If we knocked out the wall to open up our room (simple), we would not have another space for a private office (not so simple). Plus, a walk-out was not an option in our current home.
After a few months of touring model homes, researching designs and pricing out options, we were overwhelmed and frustrated. We would be giving up too much to achieve our goals – the trade off didn’t seem worth it financially.
Thankfully, I came up with a simple solution that allowed us to have a large, open space for entertaining and a private office space. We could carve out a 9’ by 6’ space for a pocket office from our storage area that was adjacent to the main room. This would still provide necessary, accessible
storage at each end of the pocket office. Then, we could tear out the wall to open up the entertaining space. This gave us over 600 square feet for a theater area, a game table & chairs and a bar at the far end of the room. We could also replace our small wet bar sink with a large Mystic Sink (
made by Elkay) that would tie our two bar areas together and give us an additional space for serving. We loved the design so much that we decided the walk-out was no longer a priority.
After eight weeks of construction, we have turned our vision into reality and we couldn’t be happier. We’re grateful we took the time to think through our options before giving up on our home – which now reflects our sense of style and allows us to entertain family and friends with ease.
Removing a wall to the former office created a larger space to entertain.
By converting part of a storage area into a pocket office, the homeowners were able to expand their entertaining space.
A small wet bar sink was replaced with a large Mystic Sink (made by Elkay).