Introduction

In 2005, we started a project to remodel our house. Our schedule is to complete the design in 2005 and begin construction in spring 2006. The construction will take about 8 to 12 months to complete. Click the links above for illustrations of the project phases.

Status

Progress bar: We're 99% done and moved in! Just a few punch-list items left.

I have started a blog to record all the details: Remodeling Linley

Project Background

Our original house was built in 1953. Although it is well constructed, it is inadequate in many ways (See the before photos for illustration):

Living Room

The house has both a living room and family room. The living room is very large, but we never use it: We spend all our time in the family room, so a great deal of space is wasted.

Master Bedroom on Street Corner

One odd thing about the design is that the closest rooms to the street are the bedrooms! The master is next to a street corner where the pavement is very wide. Some of the local kids like to burn rubber at this corner and it's very disturbing to be lying in bed and hearing screeching tires close by. Other houses in the neighborhood have actually been hit by out of control cars, and cars parked in the street (including ours) have been hit. It's a top priority for us to get the master bedroom away from the street corner. Another thing we want to do is add a garage and widen the driveway so we can keep both of our cars off the street.

Kitchen

The kitchen is very old looking and unappealing galley-style. It is located in the back corner of the house and isolated from the living spaces. This makes it difficult to interact with guests when entertaining because any trip to the kitchen puts you out of sight and earshot. We wanted the kitchen to be open to the living space so we can move back and forth without abandoning guests.

Furnace and Water Heater

The family room is actually a converted garage. When the conversion was done the furnace and water heater remained in the family room in a large closet. This is both unattractive and noisy. One time the water heater leaked and ruined our hardwood floor. We really wanted to get these out of the living space.

No Garage

The original 1-car garage was converted to a family room, so the house has no garage. A garage would be useful not only for cars, but also to have a workbench area and for storage.

Inadequate Storage

3 bedroom closets are the only storage space in the house. We found most of 2 of the closets were taken up for clothing, which left us with just the one bedroom closet for all our storage needs. We tried to use the attic for storage but it was not designed for this purpose: Roof trusses and ductwork get in the way, the temperature gets very high due to poor ventilation, and the blown-in insulation makes it hard to breathe without inhaling fiberglass. We often end up cluttering the bedrooms because there is nowhere else to put anything. Sue even stores things like extra paper towel in the trunk of her car!

One Bathroom

We managed to live 10 years with only one bathroom, but sometimes it's not easy. We thought it would be really nice to have a second bathroom. Also our existing bathroom is desperately in need of a remodel.

Wiring and Plumbing

We have upgraded plumbing over the years, so it was much improved by the time we started this project. The wiring is another story. There are 2 circuits for the entire house, not counting the dedicated ones for kitchen and washer/dryer. None of the outlets are grounded. My feeling is that the wiring is not only inadequate, but unsafe as well.

Heating, Cooling and Energy Efficiency

The only insulation is in the attic, otherwise the house has no insulation, single-pane windows and poor sealing around the doors. The furnace is very old and probably not very efficient. The result is lots of wasted energy heating the home in winter, and the house gets quite hot in the summer. There is no electric ventilation fan in the attic, so the attic retains a tremendous amount of heat in the summer. We noticed that even if we cooled the house in the evening by opening windows and running fans, after we closed up for the night the house would heat up again because the attic was still so hot.

Shake Roof

The roof had a double-layer of wood shakes. The roof is due for replacement soon and I worry that the shake is a fire hazard.

Appearance

The house is a ranch style, very similar to many houses in the area with little aesthetic appeal. We feel that neighborhood with more differentiated styles are more attractive, and we would like to add some curb-appeal to our house.

Personal Space

We wanted to each have our own "hobby space", so besides a master and guest bedroom we wanted to each have our own room for personal hobbies or business.

This is quite a long list of shortcomings! Despite this we managed to live in this house for 10 years but we finally became desperate to address some or all of the above problems. The following are our solutions:

1. Move the master bedroom to the back corner of the house, away from the street. Include a walk-in closet and bathroom in the master.

2. Move the kitchen so that it occupies the old living room space. This space can accommodate a large and modern kitchen design and makes the kitchen the central room in the house, instead of isolated and in a corner.

3. Open the kitchen up to the dining and family room space.

4. Add a 2-car garage. This is actually required by the city building codes.

5. Move the furnace and water heater to the garage space. Replace the old furnace with a new high-efficiency model.

6. Accomodate a workbench area and wash basin in the garage.

7. New electrical wiring with a circuit per-room.

8. Insulation in the floor, walls and ceiling. Double-glazed windows throughout and new doors with adequate seals for energy efficiency.

9. Design storage space into the attic along with a pull-down stair for access.

10. Install a new composite shingle roof.

11. Redo elevations to make the house more attractive.

12. Expansion and addition of an extra office room.

Since this turned out to be a very extensive remodel, we also did the following:

1. New plumbing fixtures in bathrooms including Toto toilets that provide better flushing power than the usual low-flow toilets

2. New appliances in the kitchen as well as new cabinets and granite countertops.

3. Higher ceilings in the living spaces (changed from 8' to 9.5')

4. In-ceiling lighting cans in the kitchen and living room. We also added recessed lighting in the office and above the bed for reading.

5. New hardwood floor throughout

6. New paneled doors, new door casings and baseboard trim

7. New gas fireplace with remote control

8. Hardwired smoke detectors

9. New covered porch with better shelter from the elements

We also decided to install our own low-voltage wiring to support the following:

1. Whole-house audio with in-ceiling speakers in many rooms. A built-in iPod dock in master bath.

2. Telephone, CATV and network connections in every room including the garage.

3. Security system with sensored windows, doors, glass break sensors, smoke detector, water detector in laundry and control panel.

4. Home automation system with Universal Powerline Bus (UPB) support, communicating thermostat, and external temperature sensor.

5. Telephone entry system