The American Rehab House

American Rehab 

Charleston

The American Rehab House

DIY Network

Wed., March 22nd, 9am-noon

There are people and places that are so special and unique that they get tagged, and known, by multiple names.  Consider legendary home-run hitter George Herman Ruth who was most well known as 'Babe.'  He was also identified as The Sultan of Swat and The Great Bambino as well as a few lesser known nicknames.  He spent most of his baseball career in New York City, The Capital of the World, The Big Apple, aka The City That Never Sleeps.    

In November 2013 we closed on The Country Victorian.  The exterior renovation of this home was the subject of the premiere episode of the American Rehab shows for The DIY Network in the fall of 2014 and people naturally began to refer to it as The TV House.  This second name became even more fitting in the fall of 2015 when the six episodes of American Rehab Charleston began to air.  Since this past fall, when The Appleby House and The Cottage projects were shown on DIY as part of the Restoring Charleston season, many have begun to call the TV House, The American Rehab House.  I get it and I like it.  It's a special house, and like the Babe and NYC, it deserves more than one name.     

The Appleby House

The Cottage

Paint Colors for The TV House

 
On a typical Pig's Ear, I have a solid understanding from the start that I will eventually be a seller looking for a buyer.  Neutral paint colors are the practical way to go.  Taupe on the walls and trim/doors/cabinets painted polar white.  These are my go to colors.  With this approach, I don't have to hope my color choices are appreciated by potential buyers, plus it's more economical to go neutral.  Multiple colors is more challenging for the painter and that makes the price go up.  Plus there's always paint left over which is more wasted dollars.  Keeping things uncomplicated when I can helps the schedule and the budget and it's not hard to keep things simple with paint.  In addition, going neutral makes it easier to sell in the end and that helps the bottom line as well.  Even when I've lived in the house for a few months or a few years, I've gone neutral for all the above reasons.     

The TV House was special and I held no reservations about adjusting my approach.  I wanted this Country Victorian to look sharp on camera and understood that the producers would know best how to make this happen.  They asked me my thoughts on the paint selections and my input was simple, "Whatever makes it look good on TV."  Once filming started, I was even more satisfied that I let them choose the colors because things look different on camera and some of the same colors appear more or less intense with alternate cameras and adjustments to the lighting. 

I'd love to take credit for the paint choices that people are so impressed with, but I won't.  I will take credit for letting a talented team do what they know so much better than me.  I did know to stay out of the way in this area.  They were sure to include me in the process by showing me the selections for each room and episode, but my input was minimal.  Most of the time I looked at what they'd come up with and was excited about the combinations. 

Some have reached out and asked me to share paint information.  I appreciate the interest.  With the internet, it will be easy to take the color names/numbers provided below and get the exact paint we used on the show.            

   Exterior
      Siding - Butter Up, SW6681
      Front Porch Doors - Brick Paver, SW7599
      Lattice, Shutters, & Wrought Iron Handrail - Charleston Green, DCR099

   Interior
      Living Room - Sand Beach, SW7529
      Living Room Ceiling - Honest Blue, 6520
      Office Wainscoting - Surf Green, SW6473
      Bedroom - Surprise Amber, SW6654
      Bathroom - Manitou Blue, SW6501
      Master Bedroom - Kind Green, SW6457
      Master Bath - Totally Tan, SW6115
      Interior Trim/Doors - Alabaster, SW7008

Enjoy!

Trent
bloodsweatandpigsears@hotmail.com

Taupe and Polar White in The Fire House

... and The Cottage

... The Hurricane House

... The Bungalow

The Cottage - Interior Pics, Before/After

The Cottage project followed The Fire House.  As I've written plenty of times before, I moved every door and window on this house as well as all the interior walls except one that was original to the first small building.  I didn't set off to change everything so drastically, I simply just got carried away.  During demo I kept going and going as I played around with various floor plans, and before I knew it, the place was gutted.  I hadn't completely gutted The Fire House, so with this little house wide open, I felt free to radically change things and really go nuts.  I would ultimately add on front and back porches outside the two relocated exterior doors.  Other than these little add-ons, the core footprint of the house on the small lot was about the only thing that didn't change. 


The Future Foyer - Before

The shell of The Cottage was like a blank slate in many ways with my biggest challenge being the 6' 4" ceilings on the first floor.  Before I was set on a new layout, some wise and thoughtful person was nice enough to tell me that these low ceilings would negatively impact my appraisal when I was finished.  This is because when an appraiser is doing their math, any space with a ceiling height lower than seven feet gets classified as storage space and calculates out significantly cheaper.  Yikes!  For me, on this house, that was like three hundred square feet (over half the first floor), so I needed a solution. 

The Foyer - After
This is the same view as the picture above with the couch. 

In order to make the house more valuable, I tore out the porch and roof over the front of the house and that allowed me to create an interior balcony over the new foyer.  This also created some valuable extra storage space in the form of two deep closets on the second floor.  To deal with the low ceilings on the first floor, I demoed the section where the new dining area and den would be built, placed concrete, and installed heart of pine flooring that I had salvaged from the interior walls.  Then, I started putting everything back together on the rest of the inside. (See Floor Plans, Before/After) 

The second floor had 7' ceilings, but I reframed those to get up to eight feet.  When I was finished, the upper floor contained two bedrooms, a half bath, four closets, and a balcony overlooking the foyer below.


The Old Stairs where the future Dining Area would be - Before

The Old Stairs are gone. Same view as above - After. 

View from 2nd Floor looking down into Foyer.

New Kitchen - Like The TV House, I moved
it from the back of the house to the front.

        

The Cottage - Floor Plans, Before/After

I've been thinking a lot about The Cottage lately, mostly because it has several things in common with The TV House.  As I've written previously, in many ways my previous Pig's Ears have prepared me for taking on the project featured on American Rehab Charleston. 

 

Like The TV House, this property was originally a two room home before an addition made it much bigger.  Another similarity is/was how I moved the kitchen from the back of each house to the front(s) in rooms that had been bedrooms.  Both homes were built in the beginning of the twentieth century and I knew from the beginning that each would be great projects for me.



I moved every wall and door of The Cottage and reworked/rebuilt all the interior walls except the original back wall of the oldest part of the building.  This project just sort of snowballed into something bigger or better the more I tore into it.  I saw plumbing and electrical I couldn't live with and as I got deeper into the demo, I got more and more excited about what I could do with this little house.  It was so much fun.  I really had a blast with this one.  What I great project! 

 

I'll let the drawings tell the rest of the story and will post some interior pics in the next few days to show how things turned out on the inside. 



The Cottage - Before
 

 

The Cottage - After
 



The TV House

My projects have names.  For people familiar with this part of the state, I can refer to a house by a town, neighborhood, or street and they'll know which pig’s ear I’m talking about.  However, with people from somewhere else, nicknames have emerged.   

I bought The Fire House after it was condemned by the local code enforcement officers.  The Cottage got it’s name when my realtor called it that in the sales listing.  The Hurricane House was severely torn up when Hugo rocked the state’s coast in 1989 and it was condemned by building officials 16 years after the storm.  The Bungalow got it’s nickname by another realtor in her listing and I liked how it sounded even though I'd never thought of this house in that way.   

The TV House
(aka The Country Victorian)

My current project is an old country house with some hard to miss Victorian features, so I quickly tagged it The Country Victorian.  But then… we got on television together and people have started calling it The TV House.  We’re something of a team.  She’s the star and I’m the supporting cast member.  Was she a diamond in the rough?  I wouldn’t say so.  I knew she was pretty special from the start.  She’s a one-of-a-kind, like all my projects have been, but I believe that she will be the one people will remember.  She’s the oldest, had the most issues, and is the one folks will always want to talk about because she got me noticed in a big way.  However, she’s tied to the other pig’s ears because without them, I wouldn’t have been ready to make an offer when I walked in the front door.

This TV House is like The Fire House because they both survived a fire.  She’s like The Cottage because of the way both original structures were added onto by previous owners.  She’s a little like The Hurricane House because the roof leaked in both and I had mold issues that had to be addressed, not a big issue to me, but to some, it’s scary and oftentimes a deal breaker.  The TV House is also like The Bungalow since they both had severe floor system issues that required total demolition down to the dirt crawl space below.  So in those ways, as I was renovating my previous projects, I was practicing.

 

I've immersed myself in all these rehabs in comparable ways.   I loved buying them when no one else wanted to.  I loved cleaning them up and understanding how they were put together.  I loved taking my pictures and sketching up various options on paper.  I loved digging in, working early in the morning, late at night, and through the weekends.  It was fun, but I was unknowingly getting ready for The TV House; my biggest and most challenging project yet.  It was another seemingly impossible project.  A property that others didn't want to take a chance on.  A house some were ready to tear down and send to the landfill.  But like my other renovations, The TV House was too good to demolish, too unique and special.  With the help of so many people, too numerous to list, she's going to be a star.  Summerville, South Carolina is a special town, full of so many grand historic homes.  The TV House has become something here.  People make a point to come find her and see what she looks like in person.  They're excited about her.  They take pictures and video.  I hope this appreciation continues long after the work is done.