When Seamus McGuire first toured this 1910 home in the Touro/Bouligny neighborhood of New Orleans, he saw something that other potential buyers did not. “A lot of people passed on the house,” he says.

It was a classic double shotgun measuring 25-feet-wide and 75-feet-deep, with five interior fireplaces and a front porch stretching across both entries. The previous owner had lived there for 70 years, inhabiting one side and renting out the other. Over the decades, they made some changes to the home’s historic bones, adding the iron railing around the porch and dropped ceilings in a few bedrooms.

“Too often, instead of repairing the old plaster ceiling, people drop another ceiling below it,” says Seamus. “Walking through this house, I noticed it actually has a 12-foot-6 ceiling—I just started seeing the potential.”

Before: Exterior

After: Exterior

Seamus and his wife, Kara, were deliberating whether to purchase a fixer and remodel it themselves, or buy something turnkey. “Us being designers, we were like, let’s purchase low—even though it needs a lot of work—so we can put our own hand on it,” says Seamus, who is an architect and founding partner of the firm Cicada; Kara is a graphic designer and partner at the studio Also Known As.

$12,000 Roofing	$7,500 Exterior Paint	$4,800 Exterior Siding Repair
$19,000 Electrical	$16,000 Mechanical	$20,000 Plumbing
$6,294 Dining Room	$9,500 Furniture, Fixtures, & Equipment	$29,958 Kitchen (see chart below)
$10,957 Bathroom	$12,090 Wood Flooring	$11,150 Framing & Drywall
$5,000 Interior Paint	$962 Windows	$5,000 Doors
$2,340 Gutters	$10,000 Demolition	$266 Permit
$4,500 Tile Installation	$3,485 Breakfast Nook	$7,500 Dining Room Built-Ins
Grand Total: $198,302

The only caveat? They would be doing all of the design and much of the construction work themselves, and they had to finish before their second child was born, which gave them a seven-month window. (They finished in six.) “We knew what we could do ourselves,” says Kara, as they had remodeled a home together before. “But I was going to be less help this round because I was very pregnant”—and she would be taking on the bulk of the childcare duties for their toddler.

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

Given the home’s narrow dimensions, the first challenge was the layout, which Seamus likens to a puzzle. “There’s only so much you can do with those dimensions, so getting creative is a must,” says Seamus. His solution was to minimize wasted space by avoiding long circulation corridors, and to relocate the kitchen from the back of the house, where it traditionally sits, into what was previously a small bedroom.

The home now opens to a foyer, then the dining room, followed by what Seamus refers to as the “central guts of the house” off a short hallway: a powder room, laundry area, and pantry closet.

After: Powder Room

At the back of the house, the kitchen flows into what the couple considers the heart of the home: a rear breakfast nook and living room. “We probably spend 70 percent of our time in the breakfast nook,” says Seamus.

In this layout, the kitchen can be easily accessed from both the dining room (for entertaining) and the informal family spaces. The bedrooms, including one each for the children and a primary suite, are located on the other side of the house.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

As chairman of the city’s Historic District Landmarks Commission, Seamus worked to reinstate as much of the home’s history as possible so that it would feel lived-in and patinaed. To that end, the couple refinished the century-old heart pine floors, reinstalled transom windows above bedroom doors, rebuilt the front porch to be more historically accurate, and added crown molding to many rooms. They also relocated old windows to new locations to cut costs.

$8,539 Cabinets	$470 Hardware	$10,950 Countertops
$370 Sink	$762 Faucet	$2,000 Fridge
$161 Microwave	$797 Dishwasher	$2,838 Range & Oven
$98 Disposal	$709 Hood	$2,000 Installation
$264 Switch
Kitchen Grand Total: $29,958

After: Breakfast Nook

Such savings were key to keeping the work below their $200,000 budget. They were strategic with wall demolition and new framing, and they prioritized upgrading all the utilities and installing a new roof. “We spent the majority of our remaining money on areas where we spend our time, and where our guests engage with our home—the kitchen, breakfast nook, and living room—and cut back on areas we felt we could upgrade over time,” says Seamus. He’s quick to note that they leveraged every trade discount they had, and tapped contractor friends, like an electrician that Seamus grew up with.

Before: Family Room

After: Family Room

Seamus also acted as general contractor, and he pitched in on select projects like painting the interior and rebuilding the front porch. “I would be painting until 12 o’clock at night” he says, adding that Kara helped him know when to stop. “I was very pregnant with our second child and he was here, putting in insulation,” recalls Kara. “I was like, ‘I love you, but is this something we can throw money at?’”

Ultimately, their collective efforts paid off. “We love the home that we’ve built together,” says Kara. “I was able to dream a little more, because Seamus could actually do it.”

Before: Bedroom

After: Bedroom One

After: Bedroom Two

More Before & After stories:

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Project Credits:

Architecture: CICADA / @____cicada

Interior Design: Seamus and Kara McGuire

Cabinet Design and Installation: Toulouse St. Millwork

Stone Distributor: Triton Stone Group

Stone Fabricator: Stone Interiors

Appears In

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