The Garden Apartment Intro: Floor Plans and Design Direction

The Garden Apartment Kitchen During Renovation!

Hello and welcome to our current and soon-to-be-cutest project: a quaint little mother-in-law suite / guest apartment situation we’re dubbing “The Garden Apartment.” We’re gonna talk all about the background of this space, where it’s located, the condition it was in when we first started working on it, where it’s at today, and what our plans are for its future design and use!

So what’s the deal with The Garden Apartment?

The apartment is a small unit in the back of our home that has exterior access, its own address, and a beautiful view of our garden beds and what will hopefully one day be a very glorious backyard—hence the name! Our home was historically a duplex with two addresses, originally split down the middle, just like all “shotgun doubles.”

Over the decades it’s been renovated to shrink one of the units while that space is claimed by the other. By the time we purchased the home, the “main house” (where we live) was about 2000 square feet, while the smaller apartment was roughly 800 square feet. So, a long way’s away from the whole evenly-divided-in-two situation.

We Didn’t Actually Want To Deal With This…

We had absolutely no intention of purchasing a home with an apartment attached to it, at all. In fact, if anything it was a turn off. Two kitchens to renovate and maintain (uhhh do we have the money for this??? No??? What are we gonna do???), dealing with multiple electrical boxes and gas lines, etc. And the fact that we had no interest in sharing walls with anyone or being someone’s landlord—after having dealt with so many terrible landlords over the years, the idea of being one felt gross.

So those were all things running through our minds during the first few days of considering this home purchase. But we L O V E D the house and wanted to do the space justice after what looked like many years of shoddy renovations and half-baked design ideas. So we went into it with a “buy now, figure it out later” mindset. Which, by the way, is a mindset you should only ever have when you’re ordering a teeny tiny too much takeout Chinese food, not when making a home purchase.

But here we are :)

We’ve Got Some Explaining To Do:

Let’s take a momentary break from discussing the apartment to give a bit more info and explanation on the house’s layout and condition—both of which played into how we decided to renovate and redesign the apartment.

A few things that are important to note: the condition of the entire back of our home, which is the apartment as well as what is now our bedroom suite, was… rough. While the front of the house—which includes the kitchen and a bedroom and the two rooms we used for our living room and office redesigns—had been updated, the back of the house looked like an abandoned shed, and part of it literally was an old shed! There were beautiful tongue and groove walls that had been painted over and over until they looked warped and lumpy, caulk had been smudged into every corner where real fixes were needed, the kitchen’s hardwood floors had been covered in laminate tiles, and the very very back of the property was a mid-century lean-to addition that housed two cramped bathrooms you’d never want to bathe or pee in. The exterior was asbestos, which was sloped and crumbling and pretty much everything about the back of the home was just, well, gross.

The apartment kitchen when we bought the property. This is a photo from the real estate listing, so, it’s doing it a lot of favors.

The apartment lean-to addition with laundry & bath tub.

Also, in other Big Bad News, the entire structure didn’t have a single bedroom with an ensuite bathroom and closet. In fact, none of the bedrooms had a real closet at all, which isn’t entirely uncommon in New Orleans, but something that’s usually remedied in a home that’s undergone as many renovations as ours has. When we purchased the place it was listed as having six bedrooms, which is a stretch—we count four, but none of the bedrooms were connected to a bathroom, which just doesn’t work for modern living. To make matters worse, none of the bedrooms were really set up in a way that would easily allow the addition of an ensuite bathroom and closet without making some big changes.

So our first big renovation was actually figuring out a way to make a primary bedroom with an ensuite bathroom and closet, and, well, the obvious way to do that was to borrow even more space from the apartment. There’s a million reasons why we chose to do this, but I’ll keep it simple and give you the big two: 1.) We wanted to make this big bedroom renovation happen in a part of the home that needed renovating anyway as opposed to renovating a part of the home that had been updated, as that would mean renovating a totally fine part of the home and also renovating the portion of the home that needed to be updated down the line. (Remember, the front of the home had been updated but the back had not.) And 2.) we wanted our bedroom suite to be upstairs, where it’s nice and private and full of light and nestled in an oak tree canopy—it so happens that the upstairs was just two rooms, one each on the apartment side and the main house side.

In order to make our dream bedroom happen, we had to combine what was originally the apartment’s only bedroom (upstairs) with a spare upstairs room (on the “main house” side) by taking down the dividing wall.

Woohoo, now we had our glorious large bedroom suite and we love it!

But, There’s Always A Trade-Off

This left the apartment lacking in the bedroom department. Oh, and the lean-to shed addition that housed the apartment’s only bathroom? That had to get demolished because it was in such poor condition. So if you’re keeping track: we now had a dope home we loved, but a small side apartment with no bedroom or bathroom, just a kitchen and a small living area. Cozy! Right? Right???

Project Planning is always Key

You should never ever start any renovation without considering how it will effect every other part of your home (Will those windows you want to add for extra light in your kitchen look weird and out of place when viewed from the exterior of the home? Will taking down that wall remove the only privacy you have in your office? etc). Luckily, we’d been working with an incredible architect from the very beginning and we had a plan for our now largely downsized guest apartment. With our desires for the space in mind, we came up with the new below layout that would basically turn the apartment into a studio apartment, with just a bedroom (but with a closet! and laundry!) and small kitchen (but with gloriously high ceilings and exposed beams!) and a petite bathroom (with a fantastic old clawfoot tub!).

It would be a small but mighty space, and what it lacked in square footage it would make up for in charm and utility—with everything you need for a comfortable tiny home.

OK So What’s It Going To Be Used For?

Remember how we said we didn’t really want to be landlords and we also never intended to buy a home that is technically a multi-family unit (even if, by New Orleans standards, the side apartment was extremely small and couldn’t house a family)? What would be the actual purpose of this space besides sucking up renovation dollars?

Our hope is to create a respite for anyone in our friend group our community who needs a safe and comfortable place to stay for any reason—whether they’re between homes or just want a staycation; or to be used as a private suite for our guests to stay in when they visit; or as a place for friends-of-friends and family-of-neighbors to call home when traveling to New Orleans. Given that it is quite literally a separate unit, it’s extremely private and quiet, and we hope to be able to share that with folks beyond ourselves or our immediate circle. When it’s empty it’ll be a nice second kitchen for us to have as it opens directly up to our backyard dining area—making things like backyard parties or outdoor holiday celebrations really convenient.

A lot of folks have suggested we make it a short-term rental, and while that would certainly be a cost-effective choice, we don’t want to bother our fantastic neighbors with tourists who we don’t personally know, and we want to make sure we keep the neighborhood’s calm and mellow close-knit vibe in check… you can probably imagine that New Orleans’s tourists aren’t quiet.

What’s The Timeline?

It’s looking like an April finish! We’ve got in all of the appliances, including the washer and dryer, the fridge, and the range/oven. The plumbing and electrical have all been roughed in, the floors are sanded and stained, the walls are getting painted as we speak, and over the course of the next month it’s all getting put together—cabinets, a butcher block countertop, lighting, etc!

OK Let’s See The Design Plans

No “garden apartment” would be gardeny (is this a word???) without a dose of natural earth tones. We’re calling on the beautiful wood of the exposed beams and original flooring, and adding to it with a sandy white color, a dusty light sage green kitchen, and a bold and earthy dark olive in the bathroom.

The kitchen’s going to have wall-to-wall beadboard about 2/3 of the way up to the ceiling and only the essentials for such a small space. The beadboard and cabinetry will be getting that light sage green color we mentioned, and the countertop is going to be a beautiful light-stained white oak butcher block. The vibe is full-blown countryside garden fantasy, and while it’s a slight departure from some of the more ornate Victorian-leaning parts of the main home, it feels appropriate for this space.

The bathroom is going for drama drama drama with this dark green + creamy plaster shower number. We’re doing our ~refurbishing a clawfoot tub DIY~ on the tub that was originally in this unit and adding a little arched shower niche that will be the star of the show when you walk in. It’ll be a small and hopefully quite charming space for our guests to unwind.

The bedroom is feeling its back-to-nature fantasy with sandy white walls, a large exposed brick fireplace, the original wooden floors, and a huge wall of open, natural wood shelving. This room gets very little light, so we’re going for lots of natural textures and materials that will play off of one another and be balanced out by the white walls. With a big ol’ canopy bed to take up the majority of the room, it will feel both rustic and plush and the perfect place to lay your sleepy little head down at night.

We’re so excited to share this space with y’all! In the coming weeks and months and we’ll have posts up about the paint colors, appliances, and lighting we’re using throughout the space as well as all the smaller details like choosing a floor stain and DIY butcherblock countertops. Check back in on the blog or keep up with our daily project progress on Instagram :) Thanks for stopping by the blog, lovebug!

xoxo Beau & Matt