Don’t be fooled by the glamorous TV shows. Construction is hell. Few of life’s endeavors make us question ourselves (or our spouses) more than a renovation project. It is a brave move, an act of trust and faith.

For Rebecca and Binny, relocating to Philadelphia from Brooklyn was always going to be difficult. They had a booming therapy practice and two small children in tow. Locating a house on Germantown’s Price Street helped. The neighborhood was beautiful, with large trees, stone walls, and twin houses full of character. 

If only the house in question didn’t require a stud-to-rafters renovation. Even in real estate speak, calling this house a “fixer-upper” was disingenuous. 

When I first walked through the house, I was surprised by its poor condition. Not only was everything in disrepair, but each window was shaded with cracking and yellowing blinds and white sheer curtains, all turning gray with dust. The whole house was gloomy and dark. It definitely had a “Boo Radley” vibe – as though some eccentric loner had hidden out there for years. 

But once you figure out what a house really needs, even one that requires a lot of care and imagination, things work out. 

On Price Street, the first issue was the ground floor layout. The kitchen and bathroom were both dark, and the powder room opened up directly into the dining room. 

I have made it a rule for myself that a toilet should never be visible from the dinner table. Growing up, I saw my brother swing open the bathroom door with a magazine under his arm a few too many times to ever allow this to happen in a dining room.

So we started by planning to partially open the shared wall between the dining room and the kitchen. This would allow for both rooms to be brighter and have a larger “feel,” and the redesign would also fit better with how many people dine and entertain today.

The trickier issue, though, was how to handle the location of the powder room. 

In this case, we resolved the problem by adding a partition wall that created a hallway between the two – making the dining room 3 and a half feet smaller. 

This made the dining room still comfortably large enough to seat eight and the opening to the kitchen lends to the spacious feeling, but it also gave us a storage hallway, with space for two to four bikes and more than 25 hooks on all sides for large coats and backpacks. All out of sight. This narrow space, which is adjacent to the back door, now creates privacy for the powder room and also functions as a kind of mudroom. 

Our next big layout solution was upstairs, where we opted to create an owner’s bedroom suite from what had been three individual bedrooms with a center hall bath. This turned what had been a five bedroom house into a four bedroom with an owner’s en-suite bathroom – big enough for a large sunken tub, a shower for two, a walk-in closet with washer and dryer and a study or family TV room. 

The spot where the hall door to the shared bathroom had been is now a place for a large piece of art or a collection of framed family photos.

In our next column we will visit the upstairs, and the changes we made there. 

Val Nehez is the owner and principal designer at Studio IQL in East Falls (StudioIQL.com). For more images of the Price Street renovation go to Instagram Studio_iql and quickandlovely_design.