Renovating Denver - One House at a Time

Planning the Inside

So, yeah… we’ve been working with an architect since October on planning the inside. We’ve had so many different plans, I feel my head is spinning over the whole thing. I might be jinxing us, but I think we finally have a direction.

At first, we wanted to finish the currently unfinished attic space. We saw another home nearby with a finished master suite in the attic - bedroom, office, closet, bathroom. That sounded fantastic and we thought we could do the same, but we soon realized the space was not there. Our architect suggested we raise the 2 dormers on the home to get some more headroom in the attic. Although this sounded like an expensive option, we were wow-ed by the idea of a master suite. We went through with all the drawings for this and had it approved by the Landmark Commission (remember the home is in a historic district, so all exterior changes must first be approved by them). We thought they were the tough ones. Turns out it was the zoning committee that had the problem. They wanted us to wait until the middle of April to run the plans through the zoning board (it was the middle of January when we found this out). So, not being able to wait 3 months just to have the plans approved, we decided to rework our inside layout.

Turns out, we probably won’t be finishing the attic. We may pull some attic space above the master bedroom to vault the ceiling. We may keep the attic space for storage and add a pull down stair system to access it. But no bedrooms will be up there.

The second floor will have 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. We will pull space from one of the bedrooms to add the second bathroom (currently there is only 1 up there). This will allow us to create a master suite on this level.

Images to come …

Cool Old Things We Have Found During Demolition

During the demolition phase, we found lots of old stuff in the walls and ceilings. Tons of newspapers, the oldest dating back to the late 1800s… something in the headlines about the Spanish-American War!

1890s
We know the home was built in 1891 by the Fleming Brothers. One of them, Jessie E. Fleming, was also the first owner/occupant of the home in the late 1800s - early 1900s. We found some cool stuff from the 1890s, including these items that possibly belonged to Jessie Fleming. The first is a postcard advertisement for Chocolat Menier. The name “Jessie” is written in pencil on the back of the card.

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The singer booklet is small and has some additional inside pages with some great illustrations. These booklets were distributed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Perhaps Jessie attended?

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This is a piece of paper hand written in pencil. It’s dirty, and doesn’t look like much at first, but when you read it closely, it looks like a budget for a house. Listed are items such as: bricks, nails, windows, flooring, fence, mantel, stairs, lumber, paint, etc. We are assuming this is the original budget for this home! Wish I could build this today for $1400!

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1920s
In the 1920, Sarah A. Grant lived here. We think we found her eyeglasses case.

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1940s and 50s
Some work must have been done in the 40s or 50s. We found a can of Drano dating to 1941. Also the bottle of wine has a stamp on the back from 1952.

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Our plumber found this tag on one of the old pipes. It’s an inspection tag from the Plumbing Department of the City/County of Denver from 1946. Max Kreutz was the inspector.

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