In this episode of Home: The Second Story, we talk with Alex and Ximena, homeowners in Jamaica Plain, Boston, who undertook a thoughtful and vibrant renovation of their Victorian home, originally built in 1885. Joined by their architect Marilyn, we walk through their journey of transforming a “move-in ready” house into a warm, family-oriented home with an eye for aesthetics and future needs.
We explore the function-forward design process, where Alex prioritized flow, family practicality, and technical upgrades—like replacing all the electrical systems—while Ximena led a bold interior design vision driven by her art collection and a love for color. The home bursts with personality, where every room reflects intentionality, including a memorable half bath inspired by wallpaper she found before even starting the renovation.
We also dive into the logistics of the project: the renovation began with design in mid-2020 and concluded with their move-in in April 2022. They initially considered transforming the third floor into a primary suite but pivoted when the bids came in over budget. This kind of recalibration is a recurring theme. Alex emphasized the importance of budget transparency and allowing for financial headroom to accommodate unexpected opportunities or issues. Their ability to adapt resulted in valuable features like a spacious mudroom addition and practical pocket doors for flexibility and privacy.
Throughout construction, having Marilyn on-site proved essential. She mediated decisions, translated challenges into options, and kept detailed meeting notes that prevented miscommunications. Alex and Ximena appreciated the collaborative decision-making and credited their positive experience to a strong team dynamic and clear communication.
Looking back, they have minimal regrets—mostly small refinements they would have made had they known how their needs would evolve with a growing family. Alex's favorite part is the functional, well-organized kitchen, while Ximena loves their unique half bath, a true expression of her creative vision.
Their story underlines key takeaways: be clear about your goals, specify everything, involve your architect throughout, and keep budget flexibility. As Marilyn notes, renovations are rarely linear, but with the right mindset and team, they can be rewarding and even joyful experiences.
More:
The Chloe Hotel – https://www.thechloenola.com
Sara Ruffin Costello (designer) – https://www.sararuffincostello.com
Voiceover (00:02):
Everyone says how horrible it'll be to renovate or build your house. We're here to say, it doesn't have to be that way. Join three seasoned architects as they interview homeowners who recently completed a large project, and ask them one simple question: “What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?” Welcome to Home: The Second Story Podcast.
Taylor Davis (00:26):
Hi, and welcome to Home: The Second Story. We are three residential architects sharing real conversations with homeowners who've taken on custom home or renovation projects.
If you haven't already, check out our first episode to hear more about us and why we're doing this. I'm Taylor Davis from TPD Architect in Birmingham, Alabama, and I am joined today by my co-hosts.
Sheri Scott (00:48):
I am Sheri Scott of Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:53):
And I'm Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts. Today we are joined by Alex and Ximena from Boston, Massachusetts. Welcome guys.
Alex (01:05):
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Sheri Scott (01:08):
So, I'm going to handle the first five with the just quick orientation questions. Where is your project located?
Alex (01:17):
In the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
Sheri Scott (01:20):
Okay. And was this project a new build, an addition or a renovation?
Alex (01:25):
It was a renovation.
Sheri Scott (01:27):
When did you start your project and when did you move in?
Alex (01:31):
So, I had to go back to my emails to kind of get the timeline straight. We started design work in June 2020 when we first moved into the house. And that lasted almost an entire year. The demo phase of the renovation didn't start until June of 2021. And then we moved back into the house in April of 2022.
Sheri Scott (01:53):
So, this was a new house to you, and you hadn't lived there before?
Alex (01:57):
Correct. We bought the house after COVID happened. We were living in a small apartment in Back Bay and we both are “meeting heavy” people with work, and that didn't work out for us in the work-from-home world.
So, we immediately had to pivot and find a house to live in. And so, we found this one that was basically just move-in ready but definitely needed some work; that was built in 1885. And so, it's had a number of renovations. The last renovation was just the kitchen about seven years before we bought the house.
Sheri Scott (02:27):
And what's the size or style of the renovation? Did you do the entire house? Did you add on? How'd you handle that?
Alex (02:36):
So, the house is a Victorian, it was built in 1885. We didn't do everything. We were surgical in our approach. So, some rooms were untouched from the renovation itself. We did do an addition, a small addition to expand the mudroom and be able to move a half bath from the kitchen area to the mudroom space.
Sheri Scott (03:00):
Oh, nice.
Alex (03:01):
And then, we did some work to the guts of the house in the sense of replacing the full electrical system. And even in the rooms that we didn't touch, we did replace all the wires and switches and outlets.
Sheri Scott (03:13):
There are a lot of different ways you can work with an architect. We know that you did work with Marilyn Moedinger and when you worked with her, did you work doing full services and did she work with you during construction?
Alex (03:30):
Yes, we hired Marilyn. She helped us out through the entire process from concept all the way through construction end.
Marilyn Moedinger (03:39):
I'll just add that Ximena took a very large role in the interior design, so we got to work really closely on, especially the furniture selections that she was heading up and lighting and things like that.
So, we don't often get a chance to really work that closely on the full interior. So, we usually do a full interior design, but not all the furniture. So, that was a unique part of this project as well. So, I want to give Ximena her credit on that. That was a big part of the project.
Ximena (04:05):
I mean, you were very supportive throughout that time. And in another life, I'm an interior designer. Not in this one currently, but it was a really fun time to be able to do this with Marylin.
Marilyn Moedinger (04:16):
Well, and you had such a strong vision of so many … I mean, not being afraid of color, wanting to use your art collection as inspiration. Why don't we start there? Let's talk about some of those early inspirations for the design and what you were hoping to get out of the space, both aesthetically and functionally.
Ximena (04:36):
Do you want to talk about the function? You’re functionality, I'm more aesthetics (laughs). Start with the kitchen. Maybe start with the kitchen.
Alex (04:43):
Functionally there's a few things that we wanted to do at the house. And the theme that we set up was we really wanted this house to be an ideal space for a starting family. Because we were a starting family. Ximena became pregnant with our first child halfway through the design phase. So, we had to pivot on a lot of stuff.
So, really it was all about having a spacious kitchen that could function for a family of three to four with a casual Eden space. Ximena and I like to host dinner parties, so we still wanted our formal dining space adjacent to the kitchen. And we really wanted to convert the primary bedroom into a suite with an adjoining closet and bathroom.
So, those were the main requirements. And then from there you know, we thought a lot about the mudroom and making sure there's enough space for four people to take off their dirty boots and hang up their jackets. And one thing I hated about the house when we first bought it is that I had a half bath right in the middle of the kitchen, like literally-
Marilyn Moedinger (05:45):
Literally in the middle.
Sheri Scott (05:48):
Why did people do that? We see that all the time.
(Laughter)
Alex (05:53):
We wanted to move that out of the kitchen, but there wasn't a lot of choices where to put on the first floor. We went through a lot of iterations of that. Ideally, I would've put it under the stairs, but Marilyn told me, “Well, we'd have to knock down the whole stairs and that would cost this much money.” And we went, “No.”
So, we ended up with an addition to expand the mudroom, and that allowed us to move the half bath there, which made a lot of sense because if you're outside barbecuing or running around the backyard, someone needs to use a bathroom, they don't need to run through the full house to get to it. The bathroom's right there near the front door.
So, that's kind of the way we thought about the function of the house. It's kids running around, making sure that the dirt stays in the mudroom. And there's both casual and spaces for guests to hang out.
Ximena (06:38):
Okay. Aesthetics. I'm not afraid of color, so having lived in rentals before, I’ve never been able to paint my own apartments in the past. I knew that this was the perfect chance for us to try and be a little “out there.”
So, on the first floor, almost every room is a different color. I played with wallpaper in the bathroom, and I think I found that wallpaper even before we started the renovation.
Marilyn Moedinger (07:06):
I think I remember that. Yeah. You're like “This one.”
Ximena (07:12):
Yeah. I think it was like hooked in it. So, a lot of the colors kind of started from that. It's a blue wallpaper with a really cool pattern. And I had this art piece that my grandma had given me from Peru that matched that blue perfectly.
So, it was like, okay, this is what's going to be in that room. And I feel like every room kind of evolved from an art piece that we were putting in that room. So, we have this big gold burnt piece by — I can't remember the name. Marilyn, you probably know who I'm talking about.
The piece that's in our pink room. We had this big piece that we had gotten as a wedding present. And in the past, it used to be in our bedroom, but now we were like, “Now we have the perfect wall for this, so it's going to go here.”
And then, the framing of that, it's a nice gold. So, gold details went into that room, the lighting and some of the cabinets that we got for that room as well.
So, I think it was just like little pieces that were like, let's add this to this room, let's add this to that. And our living room it's blue, so we basically have a pink room right next to it, a blue room, and then there's a turquoise room next to it (laughs). So, it's a little out there.
But I also got inspiration from seeing pictures of this hotel in New Orleans called The Chloe. And I saw they had — so the outside of our house, exterior it's painted the exact same colors as of The Chloe and I got the exact colors from the interior designer I think her name is Sara Ruffin.
And I messaged her on Instagram, and she gave me the exact colors she used (laughs). So, I had been struggling with the colors for the exterior for a while. And I just decided to message her. And she gave me the exact numbers. So, that worked out really well.
And then in the interior of the hotel, they also show two adjacent rooms that are blue and pink. So, I went with that as well for the house. So, she was incredible inspiration for the house.
Sheri Scott (09:22):
How do you feel about all those selections now that you're living in it?
Ximena (09:27):
I'm obsessed.
Sheri Scott (09:28):
Yeah. Good.
Ximena (09:29):
I mean, it's crazy that it's been what, three years? Almost three years now since we moved back into the house. And I feel like there's still so much to do. I'm like, “Oh, we need more art here, or we haven't put this up, or we need new furniture.” But I love the colors of our house, and I feel like every time I go somewhere, and I see white walls and no offense to any of you because I see white walls in the background.
Alex (09:56):
Ours is a white wall.
(Laughter)
Ximena (10:00):
But I'm happy with our decision and I feel like I live in a home that brings me a lot of joy every time I walk in.
Marilyn Moedinger (10:08):
That's what it's all about. Well, let's talk about the design process a little bit, because Alex, you mentioned that it took us a year. I remember why it took us a year. Do you remember, can you tell the story to our audience, why it took a while?
Alex (10:26):
Sure. So, it kind of started with your advice. We started talking before we bought the house. And we knew we wanted to do something. We were been in the housing market in Boston for a while and never found anything that we truly liked.
Houses here before COVID either needed a ton of work, and we hadn't yet done the research to determine the renovation’s feasible, or they were flipped by a developer. And not every flip looks great.
We saw a lot that there was evidence that the developer ran out of money at the trim stage. Because everything's kind of just hastily put together. And so, we never really found something we really wanted to do. And my brother renovated his house in Miami. We had two friends of ours in our network that renovated their house, and they were all happy with it.
So, it was at that point where I started looking at the possibility of renovating a house rather than buying something that was already in the market as is. And the two friends of ours that did renovations with Marilyn, so they highly recommended her.
So, we reached out and we started chatting. And Marilyn's first advice was, “Why don't you find a house? Move into it, figure out what it needs, and we can talk next year once you've figured it all out.”
Well, we found this house, we bought it, closed, moved in, and within two weeks we called Marilyn. I know exactly what I want to do. And the house is a three-story house, about 2,700 square feet. The third story is really converted attic space. So, it's not quite tall, it's kind of short.
And it was dingy and dark. And we really wanted to focus on doing something there. And we wanted that bedroom suite. So, the first plan was to turn the entire third floor into a bedroom suite. So, there'll be stairs going up, it'll be our private residence.
And the theme would be, as you go up the house, the spaces get more and more private. The first floor is a common space where people come in and hang out second floor, bedrooms for the kids, maybe a playroom, third floor is our bedroom.
And then we went through the bid process and the bids came back and they were heavy. It was way out of budget. So, we had to scrap that plan and do plan B, which was basically keeping the primary bedroom on the second floor and turning the bedroom adjacent to it into our closet and bathroom for the bedroom.
Because we had that bathroom, we decided to take the bathroom that was already existing on the second floor, it was a bathroom that was jammed into the second-floor foyer area, and remove it. And then we just remodeled the bathroom on the second floor for the guest bathroom on the second floor. And then we did the other work I mentioned previously on the first floor.
So that's really why the process took so long, is we went through two complete plans before we settled on the one that worked.
Marilyn Moedinger (13:13):
How did it feel when those bids came back and they were out of budget? How did that moment feel?
Alex (13:20):
A little discouraging. Throughout the whole process, there's all sorts of speed bumps. That was a speed bump. And a speed bump makes you question should we even do this?
But I was quite clear about what my budget constraints were. I was transparent about that to Marylin. The budget constraint also included, I wouldn't include headroom because if you're going all in on the bid itself, you're going to have a bad time.
Marilyn took that input. We started talking about ideas, and that's how we settled on plan B. And when the bids came back, they came back right in line where I expected them to be. Knowing full well that wasn't going to be the final cost of the project, but it was within that threshold of we can proceed to the next step.
Taylor Davis (14:05):
So, I think you've touched on something really important, which is that a project like this may not be a straight line. You're going to start somewhere; you may end up someplace in totally different than where you initially thought.
And I'm going to poke you about Marilyn a little bit because I know the answer's going to be a good one. But I think it's important information to get out to people who might be listening. How did you rely on your architect in that process?
Because when you get something back and you're like, hold the phone, this isn't what we thought it was going to be. How did you all work together to sort of reset expectations, reset the design process? How did that process look from the moment you hit that speed bump until the time you got something back that was more in line with what you wanted to invest?
Alex (14:57):
There was an initial cooling off period. I remember-
(Laughter)
Sheri Scott (15:02):
Love that.
Alex (15:02):
I remember telling Marilyn, “This isn't going to work. I need a few days.” So, we — for a few days And I wasn't steaming or anything. My brain goes, and now I want to start thinking of what the next steps are. There's a little bit of doubt where, did I go in too deep? Is there a way out?
So, then once Marilyn and I reconvened, as I said, I was very transparent about where we were and where I wanted to be. And we started brainstorming and we just started throwing ideas at each other.
And at that point, one of the things that we did is even though that first bid process didn't pan out in the sense that the bids came in a little too heavy, it was still, I had enough data to choose the builder. So, at that point, we went in with the builder we went in with, and so the builder became part of the process of whittling down.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:56):
Huge, crucial.
Taylor Davis (15:57):
Oh my gosh. Amen, amen all over the place. That's such a huge piece of the puzzle, I think from what we see a lot is getting that information back, even if it's not ultimately the information you're going to use in terms of pricing, getting that pricing information back and having a trusted partner in that just pricing process, even, as you're moving through to get to the point where you want to be, is really critical. I think. That's another team member that can provide really valuable information.
Alex (16:28):
Absolutely. And one of the ways I looked at it was that the builder's interested in making money. It is a business for them, so they don't want to lose an opportunity. And so, if I was clear where my lines were and I told them, “If you go over this, I can't pay you.” So, everybody had a vested interest in meeting the requirements, and so we all worked together, and it became a joint process.
Marilyn Moedinger (16:50):
Yeah, I'm really glad that you brought that part up because I think it's really crucial, and I think it's good for our listeners to hear that as this isn't a straight line, it's okay if there's iteration, you're getting good information, and it's going to make the project better in the end.
Even though as you're describing, those speed bumps are not the most fun moments. What I'd like to hear a little bit more about, our big question that we ask everyone here is, knowing what you know now today, having lived in the house for a little bit, what would you do differently? What would you advise someone to do?
Alex (17:25):
So, I kind of already hinted at it. And it's be transparent. Be very clear with what you want. If I can abstract it a little bit, it's specify everything. One thing I learned, if you don't specify a particular desire, the builder and the contractors and the carpenters are going to do whatever's easiest for them.
And not in a bad way, it's just you didn't give them directions. So, they're going to go with the point of least resistance. A quick example is, one of the things that didn't even occur to me to specify early on that I didn't notice until after we moved in was that every light switch had a huge range of distance from swtiches to corner or doorpost to where it is. Some are two inches away; some are 12 inches away.
Not a big deal. But in my head, once I saw it, I was like, “Why didn't they put it all the light switches approximately the same distance away from the door?” And I realized it's wherever the studs were, they just went to where the studs were. And that was it.
If I had said, “Oh, I want every light switch to be between four to six inches from the doorpost,” they would've gladly done it. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been a big deal.
But there were several points in the process in the meetings where they're asking what I want, where I was hesitant. I didn't want to come off as a demanding customer. I didn't want to come off as being too persnickety.
But in hindsight, I should have been because everybody just wants to make everyone else happy. So, that's one thing I encourage others to do is say everything you want, no detail’s too small to explicitly state as a requirement.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:09):
Yeah, I agree with that. Ximena, do you have any thoughts on this question? Knowing what you know now, anything you would do differently or change?
Ximena (19:18):
I mean, I know we talked about the budget and budget being a constraint, but maybe one of the downfalls of moving into a bigger house is that you end up accumulating more things (laughs).
And I feel like our kitchen could be a little bit bigger now, just based on how much stuff has come in after we moved into, and now with like a second kid, our island fits three chairs perfectly. And I'm like, “Oh crap, we're going to have a fourth. Where's she going to go?”
One of us is going to be eating, standing up. And our dining room is a bit more formal. It's not something that we typically use during the week. So, I just think about our kitchen a lot now and I'm like, “Oh, I wish we had like, just moved it a little bit more towards the patio.”
And I see posts of dog beds being under cabinets. And I'm like, “That would've been really cool if our dog could sleep under our island and thought of that when we were designing the space.” But overall, I love our house, and I think it's like, if anything, we're the ones that need to get rid of some of our stuff, not the other way around.
(Laughter)
Marilyn Moedinger (20:28):
I hear that. And I also just want to underline that. It's hard to know — when you're designing something that your own house, you're going through that whole process. You're thinking about everything, about how you used to live, how you want to live, how you might live with one kid, how you might live in the future with two kids way on the horizon.
You are trying to plan for so many different things that there's a lot there. And obviously I, as the architect, am helping you through those questions, but even so, it's hard to imagine all that stuff and hard to kind of know how to build a house that grows with you.
So, I'm glad it sounds like we did okay. But also taking those lessons forward to whatever the next house is, or to the renovation that might happen down the line is important, so that you can continue to evolve and take those notes for future.
Alex (21:22):
And look, overall, we're quite fortunate. We're very happy with the renovation. There's always a handful of things that you might have done differently, but there's no major regrets. There's nothing I look at and go “Ugh.” It's mostly minor stuff that would've been like, I would've known just to say something.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:37):
Yeah. I mean, I feel the same in my own renovation. There are things I'm like, “Oh man. Why didn't I think of that?” So, it's everybody. Let's talk about construction for a minute. You mentioned the builder, and before we went live you were mentioning that the builder has been back to do other little things for you. So, that relationship was obviously a good one.
So, tell us a little bit about how construction went, our weekly meetings, anything like that that you might want to share that comes to mind.
Alex (22:05):
It was all new for me. And then, the whole process man, if you remember, I was like a little kid, just kind of absorbing everything. I wanted to learn as much as I could. And so, the first phase of the construction was probably the most nerve wracking for me.
Demo, having an old house, we weren't sure what's behind the wall. So, I had some headroom in the budget, but I've heard from friends that encountered problems they weren't expecting. And that can really be a big impact on your project.
So, we got really lucky. I think the first memory I have is the builder telling us we're out of it. And so, I mean, demo was all done. There was one piece of wood sill that needed replacing. So, that wasn't a terrible huge expense. We didn't find any lead in unexpected places. So, demo went through. And for that point I remember relaxing a bit because at this point, we're not going to find any major surprises.
And so, construction became more of a positive experience. Every week we're going to meet, having the meeting, we're seeing progress. Yeah, there's little problems here and there and we have to put our heads together to think it, but I'm a problem solver. That's what I like to do.
So, it was good to be part of that process. It was excellent having Marilyn there because being new to renovations, had she not been there … I think one of the biggest helps she provided during construction was as the builder encountered a problem, she would huddle with the builder, figure out the options, maybe argue a little bit, then come to me and say, “Alright, here's option A, option B, option C, and I recommend B.”
And then we could talk about it. And that's how we solved each problem as it came along. So, that whole process became a lot easier because she was involved. And the other consequence of … and I go back to this because other friends have asked me what my advice is. And I always say, “Have headroom in your budget.”
Because we made so many decisions during construction because you get inspired, you start realizing there's a gaping hole in the wall here, what do you want to do here? Let's put a linen closet in there.
Another pivot we made is I realized that the mudroom closet was going to be humongous. And I thought, can we put a broom closet here? Because we didn't think about putting brooms somewhere, so we just added a broom closet. So, we had this opportunity to add to the scope of the project during construction, and almost every one of those opportunities was a net positive.
Ximena (24:43):
The pocket doors, that was huge. That was like-
Alex (24:45):
We had a pocket door.
Marilyn Moedinger (24:45):
The pocket doors. That was like a late breaking — that was a great idea
Alex (24:50):
For the listeners, our first floor has a large living room that's basically separated into, it's like a front area, and a back area, because that's the way houses were built in 1900s. And then each has a doorway to a space adjacent to each one. There's a front foyer area with the front door and then the dining room.
And so, we added pocket doors there. And one of our motivations for the pocket door was that as our family grew, my parents come visit, we could turn the living room into a bedroom and have some privacy.
We also plan on hosting people, and it can control the flow of people through the room. The pocket doors have been so useful. It’s not one of those things where you ask for it. At the time, we're kind of just walking through and what else can we do here? Let’s put pocket doors here.
So, it was good to have those opportunities. So, overall, I look back on the construction time and overall positive experience. And a little bit of that's luck in the sense that somebody else dealt with some of the hardships of the house at some previous time. But a lot of it had to do with the team.
Sheri Scott (25:49):
And your advice to have headroom in your budget- made that be a positive experience instead of every single meeting trying to figure out where you could save. That's great advice because it really opens up those opportunities to the things that you do see. Because we draw things on paper and we know in our mind what it's going to look like.
But even as architects, we walk into a space sometimes and we're like, “You know what would be amazing right here?” And to have that opportunity.
Taylor Davis (26:23):
Let’s open up this ceiling. Like all those sorts of things.
Sheri Scott (26:26):
Yeah. I think that's great.
Marilyn Moedinger (26:29):
Well, and also the peace of mind. I mean, you guys were juggling a lot. You're living in a rented house. I remember coming over there for design meetings. Ximena, you're pregnant in the middle of everything, like when's the baby coming in the middle of construction? There's a lot going on.
Plus, you guys have jobs and responsibilities and all that kind of stuff. So, just taking that off the table is something that you have to worry about.
I hear a lot of feedback when I ask for a budget that sometimes people say, “Well no, I don't want to tell you a budget because then you'll spend it all.” And I'm like, “Well, yeah, I'm going to spend the number you tell me. So, if you want to spend $50, tell me $50. If you don't want to spend $50, tell me 25 and I'll spend 25.” Tell me what you want to spend (laughs). I don't care what it is.
Taylor Davis (27:20):
One of the things you said that I really loved was having Marilyn available at those meetings helped with that creative process that might have been sparked by finding space or seeing an opportunity there, having Marilyn available or having an architect available on site to help kind of realize that and sort of figure out, “Okay, yeah, let's put our heads together and see what we can do here.” That in addition to money, having the team member available to kind of vet that idea, I think is really critical too.
Alex (27:51):
Yes. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that had I decided to save that money and tell Marilyn, we don't need you to project manage the construction, that would've been more costly. We would've ended up spending more money.
Taylor Davis (28:07):
We're going to highlight that and put that in quotation marks and put it on all of our websites. That's the name of this episode. Exactly right there (laughs).
Alex (28:17):
No, I remember specific problems we ran into that I would've made the wrong decision, and it would've cost more money.
Ximena (28:22):
And more fights probably.
Alex (28:24):
Right (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (28:24):
Well, there you go. Sometimes it's nice to have a neutral third-party (laughs).
Taylor Davis (28:28):
Yeah. If you probably didn't know that already. We all have these minors in marriage counseling. That's what we do on the side (laughs).
Alex (28:36):
The other advantage since we're on this theme that I want to highlight is Marilyn's note taking capabilities.
Ximena (28:43):
Oh my God, amazing.
Marilyn Moedinger (28:45):
Yes. My notes.
Ximena (28:46):
I learned so much for my job from Marilyn.
Alex (28:48):
But her taking notes means that when the builder said, “Oh, you said this.” “No, you didn't.” And it's all there.
Ximena (28:56):
She had receipts.
(Laughter)
Alex (28:59):
Keep receipts. That'll be advice number two (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (29:02):
I'm glad you guys brought up my minutes. It's not the first time that someone has highlighted my minutes as one of the things that is important, but whether that's me taking them or someone on the project, someone's got to take record of what's being said. Construction is the wild west (laughs) sometimes.
And even with everyone with the best intentions, everyone's got a lot going on and there's a lot of confusion happening. So, just having a clear, neutral set of notes is really, really helpful. And yeah, we're here to help make things easier and to save money. That's what we're here to do. That's kind of what we get excited by, so-
Taylor Davis (29:39):
And there's no process that's perfect. And there's hiccups all the time. But what's something when you walk into this house, you're like, “I love this. This is the best part about this renovation. And I recognize it every time I come home.”
Alex (29:52):
You want to go first?
Ximena (29:54):
When I saw this question earlier, I thought, the dining room, because that's our convening space when we have friends over, but then it was like, maybe the kitchen. But that's Alex's thing. And thinking about it again, I love our half bathroom.
Like I said at the beginning, that wallpaper I had in mind before we even moved into the house. But I love walking into it and just the joy, I feel the joy it brings every time I walk in. And it's like a funky room.
It has like this cool lighting that Marilyn found and that was like her addition to the design of the bathroom. And it just feels like you’re walking into a hotel bathroom and I love restaurant bathrooms, hotel bathrooms that are really cool design.
And I feel like that every time I walk into my own bathroom, not to mention that it's no longer part of the kitchen like it used to be. So, that's a huge added bonus.
Marilyn Moedinger (30:54):
That's a plus. Well, also every time I post that bathroom on social media, everyone goes bananas. Everyone loves it. It's a crowd pleaser.
Ximena (31:03):
I mean, it's like a three-year-old, our three-year-old and our baby won't appreciate it for a while, but when we have friends coming over or new visitors, everybody's always like, “Oh my God, this bathroom is here, where did it come from?” So, it's really nice. I love it.
Alex (31:21):
Yeah. For me, if there's one room, it's the kitchen. I mean, I speny a lot of time figuring out that kitchen and what I wanted there.
Marilyn Moedinger (31:28):
Do you remember our spreadsheet, Alex? Of every tool?
Alex (31:33):
Absolutely. So, yeah, we made sure that there was room for everything. And even then, it's never enough. But the kitchen's probably the one room where every morning I go in there, everything's where I wanted to be. There's plenty of counter space, plenty of lighting.
But thinking about this, there's times where just walking through the house, I'm not in any room particular, and I'm just happy that the house has a clean, crisp look. We lived in apartments, many different apartments, there's always the outlets that look dingy or the old-style light switches and things don't quite work.
And for me, what's most important is the fact that I'm confident because we did all the electrical, because all the plumbing is new. The infrastructure's all fresh, the chances of there being some disaster next week is very low.
And I can look around and see that everything works the way I expect it to work. Little things. like I was really big on three-way switches. That way you can light up the — because as you're going up the stairs, things are dark and all that. And all that's the way I wanted it to be.
And that to me is really what gives me the most joy is just looking at the whole thing and saying, this is mine and this is the way I wanted it to be. I mean, there's also one more thing. The fact that every outlet is childproof. Because Cammy, our daughter, loves to touch those things. And I still don't let her, but I'm confident that she can't really hurt herself. So, that's a big plus too.
Marilyn Moedinger (33:06):
That's a great note to end on, guys. It's really nice to not only the childproof aspect, but hearing about of course, I love to hear all the spaces that you guys love. And it's because of the collaboration. You guys worked really, really hard as owners and deeply invested in the process and that paid off in your home. So, thank you so much for joining us today.
Taylor Davis (33:31):
Thank you.
Ximena (33:32):
Thank you for having us.
Alex (33:32):
Yeah, thank you for having us. Been our pleasure.
Taylor Davis (33:34):
They were great, Marilyn.
Marilyn Moedinger (33:36):
Yeah. They were really wonderful to work with and I really appreciate all the detail they brought to our conversation today.
Taylor Davis (33:43):
Well, there were a bunch of takeaways, and I'm sure you all will get into these too, but one of the things that we haven't talked about I think is the kind of growing with a family aspect of this renovation.
And thinking about they were two, then they became two plus and then they were three, and now they're three plus, about to be four. And how some of the design decisions they made were thinking about the future and others they had no idea about, which is totally normal.
And getting it perfect is really impossible. I think one of the things we talk about all the time, especially when we have homes that are generational homes. So, people who are in the later stages of their forever home. They talk about the beginning when they had little kids, they wanted an open plan so they could see their kids all the time and make sure they weren't licking electrical sockets.
(Laughter)
And then when the kids were teenagers, they wanted to put them all downstairs in the basement so they couldn't smell them or hear them all the time. And then when the teenagers left, they wanted to like to close the doors to their rooms or turn them into gyms or whatever.
So, we do evolve a lot in our homes and being able to kind of anticipate some of that stuff is part of our job. Because we've worked with multiple clients before, but I love how they talked about that process and thinking about what was coming next in that project. And you helped them with that.
Marilyn Moedinger (35:04):
I always joke that I'm the second person who hears that a couple's pregnant after their personal trainer. They tell their personal trainer or their gym buddies or whatever. And then they tell me and then they tell their parents (laughs).
Because they're like, ah, and I can see it on their face. It's happened to me many times over the years. And they say “Well, we're going to have to change some things.” I'm like, “Are you pregnant?” (Laughs). “Yeah. How'd you know?”
So, that happens a lot. And my clients are often in sort of two phases of life. I have a lot of folks like Alex and Ximena who we just interviewed who are getting their first real grownup house, been living in apartments in the city and ready for a full home to start building a family. That's one kind of group.
And then the other group is folks who are downsizing or folks who are at a later point in their life and who want to rejigger their house to reflect that. So, I think those life transition moments are really important moments to work on your house and to do a renovation and to make it reflect the kind of life that you're living.
Sheri Scott (36:13):
I thought it was interesting also when she said that there were some new, cool features that have come along that she has seen since they finished their renovation. And I think everyone goes through that because even while you're building or as you're finishing up, you're like, “Oh, I wish I had a place for the dog because I saw that on TikTok.”
But it will never be perfect in that situation, you'll never get all the cool things forever. You have to keep in your mind, draw a line at some point and stop changing things and just accept that, “Okay, well we may add something in five years or in two years,” or whatever your tolerance is for coming back to the project. But yeah, the cool things that we can put in today, there are going to be new cool things in two years.
Marilyn Moedinger (37:11):
Yeah. Remember when we were putting iPod docks in everyone's houses? And that lasted for about a year and a half.
Taylor Davis (37:18):
Talk a little bit more about their discovery process during construction. Finding new things to do and I talked about this with them, but I want to hear your take on that too, because I think that that does happen a lot in renovations. It happens a lot less in new construction, but in renovations, which is what you and I do, it happens all the time.
Marilyn Moedinger (37:39):
Yes, it does happen all the time. And some of it is because of sort of scary things like, uh-oh we opened this wall and there's some problem going on, but even when that has happened on this project or others, there's still a way to spin it to turn it into a cool opportunity.
I think that's one of the reasons why I love renovations on old homes because it is just a constant source of calling on your creativity and your technical knowledge all the time. And I just love it. I love that.
When I get the call from the contractor saying, “Hey well we found this,” I immediately get excited because I'm like, we got to dig in, we got to find the solution.
So, yeah, I mean, on this project, they mentioned the pocket doors. There were a couple other things where we moved a wall a little bit or we adjusted where a light fixture was going to go. We had an idea at one point about we were struggling with where to put a plumbing waistline because in renovation of course, that's one of the most difficult things (laughs) to place, especially in these old homes.
And in the Boston area, we're dealing with horsehair plaster and lath. We're dealing with some really old construction techniques a lot of times. And that means opening up walls can also be quite messy and all that kind of stuff.
But they were really open to understanding when it was too late to do some things and when this was a serious opportunity to make a decision to make something even better than it was before. And I was obviously advising them the whole time, but their willingness to understand that and to be ready to jump on a new opportunity. I mean, Alex was very clear that that was because he saved room in his budget.
Taylor Davis (39:31):
Right. I was just about to say that, those things don't happen for free. You don't just get in there and say, “Oh, I want to add new pocket doors, let's just incorporate this into what we're already doing.” There's cost associated with it. So, having that kind of in your head as you start the project, I thought that tying those two things together is critical.
Marilyn Moedinger (39:49):
Yeah. And in a renovation, there's often a lot of things that you can't plan for. For example, they wanted to repair a bunch of the shingles on the outside of the house. It's a shingled house and they're asbestos shingles.
So, we have to approach that in a certain way. You can't rip them all off. There are rules we have to follow and all this kind of stuff. So, we were really nervous if they started to disintegrate in our hands when we went to paint the outside of the house that was going to suddenly be an extra $50,000 to $80,000 of rabbit hole that we were going to fall down.
So, he set aside quite a contingency, and when it came to be that it was only going to be $5,000 or $6,000 of repair, it wasn't 5 or 6,000 surprise on top of stuff, it was, “Wow, this is only five or six. I was planning for the worst, which was 50 to 80 or more or whatever.”
That made things go a lot smoother during meetings because they were not in a constant state of panic, just in the normal state of panic that everyone's in when they see their home completely demoed from the inside out (laughs).
Sheri Scott (40:54):
I really appreciated his entire conversation about budget. I know he recommended that you share your budget and be very transparent. Like this is where I want to be and this is why and this is what I want to get for it.
And he said without saying, if you're transparent and you put it out there, you can have a conversation about it. And Marilyn, you had the opportunity to push back and say, “We may not get there, but maybe we'll do …
I do this with clients sometimes it's like, do you want me to design to this budget and we're not going to go over, or are we going to design to what you want, and then we will investigate it with a contractor that will get us real numbers and we reconvene from there, which is what he said.
And the best part of it, two things he said it felt like we hit a speed bump, and it makes you wonder, should I even be doing this? And he said, “It took me three days to figure it out. Marilyn and I got back together, and we talked about it.”
I thought that was really important for our listeners to hear. Just because you hit a speed bump, you don't just throw everything away. You take a minute and get a different perspective, kind of what we're doing here with this podcast. We want you to have been in your house for a year because you have a very different perspective when you have that period to sit back and think of things.
Marilyn Moedinger (42:31):
Absolutely. And I think the other thing that they mentioned that I really appreciated and wanted to underline is if you don't specify something, then the GC will do whatever is easiest for them. Not trying to be sneaky or not trying to do something wrong. But they're going to take the easiest path.
And this is why in our drawings, when we offer full services, which is primarily what we do, our drawings, have the towel bars chosen, we have worked with our clients to choose the handles on the cabinets, and we have placed them in the drawing.
Our schedules are pages and pages long. We have picked absolutely everything. The grout color, the orientation of the tile, we draw everything. And that's because if you don't, they're going to just do something or they're going to ask the owner during construction.
And the owner is already dealing with all the other surprises or the stress or just living their life (laughs) expecting a baby, trying to hold down their jobs, living in a rented place, all that kind of stuff. And then the builders coming to them every five minutes saying, “What color grout do you want here? What color grout do you want there? What color grout do you want there?”
No, we like to choose everything. This is why I believe in full services; it costs more for the architect. But Alex said it, it saves you in the end (laughs).
Sheri Scott (44:02):
Yeah. He did say it (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (44:04):
You're making decisions outside the heat of battle. You're making decisions in a calm state. And those decisions, when things get a little crazy during construction and you're stressed and they've torn apart your whole house and they're asking you questions, you always say the magic words, “Let's go take a look at the drawings, let's see what we've got over here and let's see what we decided when we had our heads about us instead of right now where everything's crazy.”
Because if you don't tell the GC, they're going to do what's easiest, not necessarily what you want. So, we got to tell them that's our job.
Taylor Davis (44:43):
This one had so many good tips, I think. But one of the things he talked about was having a contractor on early in the process to provide feedback during that pricing. We do our best to keep up with current pricing, but we don't talk to manufacturers and get pricing from subs on a day-to-day basis.
That's what builders do, that's what contractors do. So, while we have communications and we can take information from recent projects and sort of provide ballpark, having real live information from people who are pricing labor and subs and materials all the time is really what brings a budget into its full scope.
That's when you begin to sort of see what something's really going to cost. And until you get to that point, there's always a little bit of a dim light on a project. So, the earlier you bring somebody into that project to provide that real time accurate construction cost pricing.
And we update hours, we get some ballparks at the beginning as we develop drawings, we get feedback about what people are seeing delays on or what they're seeing, pricing increases on whether it's cedar shingles or whatever that is.
And so, we can sort of help work that budget through the design process too. But you can't really do that unless you have that contractor, that builder on board early in the project.
Marilyn Moedinger (46:11):
Amen. And I want to add, too, that in a renovation it's even more important because you cannot price a renovation using square foot numbers. None of them are like each other. You need experienced contractors and architects who are experienced in renovation. It's a totally different world.
And so, when we're looking at it saying, is this a more costly way to proceed with this item? Or is this a more cost … we can't even shop online and compare prices. That's not even what you're doing. What you're doing is standing there with a contractor going, “Okay, if we vault this ceiling, we're going to have to take this bearing wall out. If we take this bearing wall out, are we going to do columns over here? We got to do footers in the basement.”
“Oh, that's no problem. We got basement access. Oh, on project B over here, we don't have basement access and we're going to have to hand cart the concrete in to do a lowly column footing.”
Well, now that one is now six times as expensive to do the exact same thing as this one over here because of the unique aspects of renovation. And I think people, they want to know, well what does a project cost? Why is it so hard for you to answer that?
And I'm like, because in a renovation, especially the older the home — actually I was going to say the older the home, the more likely it is to be more crazy. But that's not true. Sometimes it's those homes from the 70s and 80s that are the worst because I can count. Yeah. I can count on 1920s framing. I can count on the 1880s framing. I've seen it a hundred, you guys know what I'm talking about, right?
Taylor Davis (47:45):
Yeah. There's water in every 80s wall.
Marilyn Moedinger (47:48):
That's right. And so, there's a sort of an additional thing there about pricing that it's a collaborative exercise. It's part of the design process. It's not just like a: I'm going to the grocery store pulling things off the shelf and then that's just what it costs. It doesn't work that way.
Can I talk about one more thing that Alex brought up that I just want to underline that's super boring, but super important. Project meeting minutes.
Sheri Scott (48:19):
Yes. That was a great nugget. Yes.
Marilyn Moedinger (48:23):
I feel like it's so overlooked as being important. I mean we do them manually at this point, and they're just a part of how we do business. I have hundreds of thousands of pages of meeting minutes from the last 20 years.
And you know where I learned how to do that? When I was a contractor. I was trained from day one. Whoever takes the minutes, keeps the story of the project. So, that role and a lot of times my architect friends who work for bigger firms and work on bigger projects, they're like, “You take the minutes at the OAC meetings?”
Yes, I do. Isn't that the contractor's responsibility? You got a residential contractor who's taking detailed minutes. I will.
(Laughter)
I would be delighted (laughs). It's not part of the culture. So, anyway, meeting minutes. Everyone's like, “Oh boy, here's Marilyn with her 10 pages of minutes.” But boy, oh boy, is everyone really happy I have them.
Taylor Davis (49:20):
Now you're giving me anxiety because my OAC notes from my meeting yesterday are on my to-do list for this morning.
(Laughter)
Marilyn Moedinger (49:27):
Get them done.
Taylor Davis (49:27):
I got to get to those. Thanks for joining us on Home: The Second Story. If you'd like to come on the show and share your story, email us at admin@htsspodcast.com. We'd love to have you as a guest. For more inspiring homeowner stories and tips, we'll see you next time.
Voiceover (49:47):
Thanks for listening to Home: The Second Story Podcast. Feel free to share this episode with a friend. Contact information for all three of our architects are in our show notes. And don't miss future episodes. Follow or subscribe to our show for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you're listening right now.