We had our wish list. Granted, it was the size of a metropolitan phone book, but at least we knew where we were going. Now we just needed some people to get us there.
When we looked for contractors in the past, we always followed the rules - word-of-mouth, recommendations, get referrals, check with Consumer Affairs, compare bids. And in almost every instance we got screwed, in one way or another. When we contracted for the roof and siding, we were the perfect consumers, even calling people who had used the company. Then, about a month after the job was completed, when I realized we hadn't gotten any extra material from the contractor in case we needed it in the future, I left messages - no reply. Then the phone was shut off. Mail was returned. In short, the contractor vanished. I'm just saying.
This time, we went with our gut. I had been involved in some commercial construction for an organization whose board I was on, and the contractor struck me as a straight-shooting problem solver who did excellent work. And responded when called. I told Shaw about him, he came to the house, and we both felt he was the right match. He was amazed that we knew what we wanted, since many of his clients simply tell him they want their house to be "bigger." Another plus was that he works closely with an architect who I had also met before, because even though I designed the addition and all the details myself, apparently the people who run our town weren't all that impressed by my graph paper or the letters after my name - we needed this to be official. So we gave him our wish list, he took it back to his office and then a few weeks later returned with an estimate.
Once I picked myself up off the floor and was finally able to say the number out loud, he convinced us that we were essentially getting half a new house. In that case the number was right on target. So, after meeting with the architect, we signed on several dotted lines in early December.
The contract called for a start date of around March 30, allowing for permits, and a tentative completion date of August 31. I'm just going to let that information sit out there for a while.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
We're In This Deep
Once we committed to the idea of adding on to the house, we came down with a bad case of the "mightaswells." As long as we planned to add a dining room we mightaswell make the basement bigger. While we're at it, we mightaswell finish part of the basement. Since we need to add to the ductwork to get air into the new room, we mightaswell replace the whole system so we can get air conditioning up to the bedrooms where the one zone the house was built with just never could reach. Since the wall between the kitchen and two older bathrooms would be open for the re-construction, we mightaswell re-model those bathrooms too. And, as we'll have to put new siding on the addition anyway, rather than match a color I was never all that crazy to begin with - plus the fact that our new neighbors next door installed the exact same siding on their house thus creating the appearance of a modern-day Kennedy compound - we mightaswell change the siding too.
Then there's the foyer. Ours happens to be on the ground level, with five steps leading up to the living room level. However, it isn't just any run-of-the-mill five steps; they're on an angle, with a large semi-circular landing, and in the space between the steps and the back wall of the foyer is a brick planter. All told, this must have presented quite the image back before color television, but the look hasn't aged well. When we moved in, the planter was covered by a piece of plywood with a bowl of plastic flowers on top. 'Nuff said. We took the plywood off and waterproofed the planter, creating a goldfish pond with water plants and a circulating fountain. My brother took one look at it and wanted to know if he could order without MSG. Then it became a planter with real plants, until our puppy discovered they made great pull toys and how much fun it was to get potting soil all over the foyer and adjoining rooms. Finally, its last incarnation was a rock garden with a free-standing fountain and cactus (the puppy grew into a quick study). Through it all, though, it always looked like June Cleaver should be watering it, so we mightaswell get rid of the whole set-up and start over.
Since we're re-doing the foyer anyway, we mightaswell change the dated front door. And, since our house was built to the highest of 1961 standards, there is no sheetrock in our garage except on the wall adjoining the house. So, we mightaswell finish off the garage since we'll be having so much sheetrocking done anyway. The list kept growing, like a mushroom cloud.
And yes, we did consider moving, for about an hour. But then we remembered why we first fell in love with our house - the neighborhood, woods, location, the feel of it, plus all the work we'd done to make it our own. So, our only goal was to not spend more than we had on buying the house in the first place.
Then there's the foyer. Ours happens to be on the ground level, with five steps leading up to the living room level. However, it isn't just any run-of-the-mill five steps; they're on an angle, with a large semi-circular landing, and in the space between the steps and the back wall of the foyer is a brick planter. All told, this must have presented quite the image back before color television, but the look hasn't aged well. When we moved in, the planter was covered by a piece of plywood with a bowl of plastic flowers on top. 'Nuff said. We took the plywood off and waterproofed the planter, creating a goldfish pond with water plants and a circulating fountain. My brother took one look at it and wanted to know if he could order without MSG. Then it became a planter with real plants, until our puppy discovered they made great pull toys and how much fun it was to get potting soil all over the foyer and adjoining rooms. Finally, its last incarnation was a rock garden with a free-standing fountain and cactus (the puppy grew into a quick study). Through it all, though, it always looked like June Cleaver should be watering it, so we mightaswell get rid of the whole set-up and start over.
Since we're re-doing the foyer anyway, we mightaswell change the dated front door. And, since our house was built to the highest of 1961 standards, there is no sheetrock in our garage except on the wall adjoining the house. So, we mightaswell finish off the garage since we'll be having so much sheetrocking done anyway. The list kept growing, like a mushroom cloud.
And yes, we did consider moving, for about an hour. But then we remembered why we first fell in love with our house - the neighborhood, woods, location, the feel of it, plus all the work we'd done to make it our own. So, our only goal was to not spend more than we had on buying the house in the first place.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Kitchen Aid
During every foray into suburban renewal - no matter how well it may have turned out - the condition and size of our 1961 split-level kitchen always rankled. It had been built at a time when, according to our neighbor who was an original owner of an identical model, everybody was eating TV dinners. Cabinet and counter space really weren't issues. While it had been mildly updated by the former owners, and we had made some minor improvements, it still wasn't exactly user-friendly. Someday, we kept telling ourselves....
Last year, after listening to my husband who does the cooking complain yet again about having to prepare a holiday dinner under such dire conditions, we decided it was finally time to face the final frontier. But, no matter how many possible configurations we came up with, we were still looking at a 10 by 11 foot kitchen. So, we finally acknowledged the fact that the only solution would be to add on (this could help explain why we hadn't rushed to tackle this project earlier). Not having the room to extend the kitchen directly out back - which others in our development had done - because of the pool, we thought the next best thing would be to add a new dining room along side of the house and incorporate the existing dining room space into a larger and more functional kitchen. Clearly, we were about to enter a new category of home improvement or, as it's known around here, "Extreme Makeover - Homo Edition."
Last year, after listening to my husband who does the cooking complain yet again about having to prepare a holiday dinner under such dire conditions, we decided it was finally time to face the final frontier. But, no matter how many possible configurations we came up with, we were still looking at a 10 by 11 foot kitchen. So, we finally acknowledged the fact that the only solution would be to add on (this could help explain why we hadn't rushed to tackle this project earlier). Not having the room to extend the kitchen directly out back - which others in our development had done - because of the pool, we thought the next best thing would be to add a new dining room along side of the house and incorporate the existing dining room space into a larger and more functional kitchen. Clearly, we were about to enter a new category of home improvement or, as it's known around here, "Extreme Makeover - Homo Edition."
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wide-eyed in Monmouth
Our search for a house began in the fall of 2000. As Shaw was contractually obligated to live within a certain distance from his new job, we drew a circle on a map and focused within. After hooking up with a realtor, I spent the next several weekends looking at houses even I couldn't help; fake beams, foil wallpaper, pretend-stone walls, medieval paneling - the residential equivalents of a faux convertible roof on a sedan. Shaw, not nearly as enamored of the thrill of the chase as I was, instructed me to narrow my choices to three and four and then he would come and look. After yet another weekend spent in vain, I told him there weren't three or four and that he needed to come with me. So, one November day we set off on our search together.
The realtor showed us one place Shaw liked, while I felt the rooms were better suited to Weebles. What about that blue one you showed me a few weeks ago? I asked. It was slightly more than our budget - I was shocked, too - but at least it represented what I had in mind. She called, it was still available, so off we went.
On my second visit it just felt right. Shaw, who had a tough time seeing past the floral tiles in the foyer, gingham curtains, endless carpeting and, my personal favorite, the deer head over the fireplace with a coordinating gun rack made from the hooves, looked around, then at me, and in an incredibly skeptical voice said "Really?!?" "Trust me," I replied. He did, we bargained and before you could say "insolvent" we had bought a house.
After closing in January, we proudly told friends and family that it was in move-in condition, two words that would prove to have all the veracity of Bush's "Mission Accomplished." We immediately painted every room, ripped up the carpeting and re-finished the floors, installed new lighting, doors and railings - all within the first six weeks. Over the next seven years, we also re-made one bathroom, put in new landscaping, a sprinkler system, new roof and siding (courtesy of a hurricane-induced tree across the back of the house), re-did the driveway, had new windows put in, and just to keep things interesting, installed an in-ground pool which required a retaining wall, patio and fence. "Didn't you say the house was in move-in condition when you bought it?" my mother would jokingly ask on occasion. "Sure it was," I'd reply, "for other people."
The realtor showed us one place Shaw liked, while I felt the rooms were better suited to Weebles. What about that blue one you showed me a few weeks ago? I asked. It was slightly more than our budget - I was shocked, too - but at least it represented what I had in mind. She called, it was still available, so off we went.
On my second visit it just felt right. Shaw, who had a tough time seeing past the floral tiles in the foyer, gingham curtains, endless carpeting and, my personal favorite, the deer head over the fireplace with a coordinating gun rack made from the hooves, looked around, then at me, and in an incredibly skeptical voice said "Really?!?" "Trust me," I replied. He did, we bargained and before you could say "insolvent" we had bought a house.
After closing in January, we proudly told friends and family that it was in move-in condition, two words that would prove to have all the veracity of Bush's "Mission Accomplished." We immediately painted every room, ripped up the carpeting and re-finished the floors, installed new lighting, doors and railings - all within the first six weeks. Over the next seven years, we also re-made one bathroom, put in new landscaping, a sprinkler system, new roof and siding (courtesy of a hurricane-induced tree across the back of the house), re-did the driveway, had new windows put in, and just to keep things interesting, installed an in-ground pool which required a retaining wall, patio and fence. "Didn't you say the house was in move-in condition when you bought it?" my mother would jokingly ask on occasion. "Sure it was," I'd reply, "for other people."
Thursday, August 27, 2009
In the Double Digits
When I was 10, my brother was born and I moved into one of the two upstairs bedrooms. Both half-dormered with angled walls, the other room was a combination guest room/home office for my father. My parents, students of the 'out of sight, out of mind' school, really didn't care what I did with my room. They also didn't think much money should go into it, so the room was basically furnished with hand-me-downs.
I discovered an innate sense of creativity. Whenever I became bored I would rearrange the furniture (a habit that died hard, apparently, as years later somebody I was dating hated getting up in the middle of the night because they never knew where the couch would be). A pair of curtains and matching bedspread were found in the clearance corner at Newberry's. One day, while on a construction site with my dad, I found a half-gallon can of paint in an interesting color that seemed as if it would complement my linens. So I took it when nobody was looking, and painted as many sections of the room as I could until the paint ran out. Who knew I was creating accent walls at age 12?
In college I did what I could to personalize concrete-block dorm rooms and an aging frat house. Paint, salvaged carpet cut into area rugs, artfully arranged furniture - you always knew when you were in my room and my roommates never seemed to mind.
After college I moved back home, where my parents were about to embark on building on a family room and making a few other changes to the house. Being around a lot I was able to oversee the construction, and here for the first time I can publicly admit that I managed to get the original estimate of $12,000 (1982 dollars) up to over $30,000 by the time the work was finished. Again - I should have paid more attention back then.
In 1985 I bought my first co-op, where I discovered the joys of wallpaper, creating built-in bookshelves, even re-facing kitchen cabinets. About 11 years later, my future husband and I moved into a slightly larger apartment where the whole process began again. We even re-did the entire kitchen and bathroom. Then, in 2001, it was time for a bigger canvas, which brings us to The House.
I discovered an innate sense of creativity. Whenever I became bored I would rearrange the furniture (a habit that died hard, apparently, as years later somebody I was dating hated getting up in the middle of the night because they never knew where the couch would be). A pair of curtains and matching bedspread were found in the clearance corner at Newberry's. One day, while on a construction site with my dad, I found a half-gallon can of paint in an interesting color that seemed as if it would complement my linens. So I took it when nobody was looking, and painted as many sections of the room as I could until the paint ran out. Who knew I was creating accent walls at age 12?
In college I did what I could to personalize concrete-block dorm rooms and an aging frat house. Paint, salvaged carpet cut into area rugs, artfully arranged furniture - you always knew when you were in my room and my roommates never seemed to mind.
After college I moved back home, where my parents were about to embark on building on a family room and making a few other changes to the house. Being around a lot I was able to oversee the construction, and here for the first time I can publicly admit that I managed to get the original estimate of $12,000 (1982 dollars) up to over $30,000 by the time the work was finished. Again - I should have paid more attention back then.
In 1985 I bought my first co-op, where I discovered the joys of wallpaper, creating built-in bookshelves, even re-facing kitchen cabinets. About 11 years later, my future husband and I moved into a slightly larger apartment where the whole process began again. We even re-did the entire kitchen and bathroom. Then, in 2001, it was time for a bigger canvas, which brings us to The House.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Foundation
Some autobiographical information will help put the project in perspective. Because, I was clearly born to build something.
When I was about 5, I began taking my parents' LP records out of the sleeves to build houses on our living room floor. I would stand the sleeves on their sides, using the double-sided sleeves - big in the early '60's - as supporting corners, leaning the single sleeves against them for walls. Apparently I was a structural integrity prodigy. I did layouts of the entire house with rooms - nothing too elaborate, just the average designs of a 5-year-old architect. My dad, never quite having gotten over my breaking his original 78 of "Sing, Sing, Sing" as a toddler, wasn't all that happy. My mother was more encouraging.
Around Thanksgiving 1966 my family moved into a new house. Well, new for us - it was actually about 20 years old at the time. An expanded Cape Cod-design, it consisted of several rooms, with none of them large enough to easily arrange furniture in. I occupied the second downstairs bedroom behind my parents'. After living there for a few months, my mother heard of an interior design class being taught at the local adult night school. Thinking this could provide some much-needed ideas, she enrolled and quickly threw herself into the first assignment - the students had to draw scale layouts of their own homes, with tiny scaled cutouts of furniture. She diligently completed the assignment and proudly brought it into class one evening, showing it to the teacher and asking for his advice. After studying it carefully for a few moments, he politely yet firmly replied, "Sell the house." My mother was highly offended. I, at 7, was highly amused. I should have paid more attention.
When I was about 5, I began taking my parents' LP records out of the sleeves to build houses on our living room floor. I would stand the sleeves on their sides, using the double-sided sleeves - big in the early '60's - as supporting corners, leaning the single sleeves against them for walls. Apparently I was a structural integrity prodigy. I did layouts of the entire house with rooms - nothing too elaborate, just the average designs of a 5-year-old architect. My dad, never quite having gotten over my breaking his original 78 of "Sing, Sing, Sing" as a toddler, wasn't all that happy. My mother was more encouraging.
Around Thanksgiving 1966 my family moved into a new house. Well, new for us - it was actually about 20 years old at the time. An expanded Cape Cod-design, it consisted of several rooms, with none of them large enough to easily arrange furniture in. I occupied the second downstairs bedroom behind my parents'. After living there for a few months, my mother heard of an interior design class being taught at the local adult night school. Thinking this could provide some much-needed ideas, she enrolled and quickly threw herself into the first assignment - the students had to draw scale layouts of their own homes, with tiny scaled cutouts of furniture. She diligently completed the assignment and proudly brought it into class one evening, showing it to the teacher and asking for his advice. After studying it carefully for a few moments, he politely yet firmly replied, "Sell the house." My mother was highly offended. I, at 7, was highly amused. I should have paid more attention.
Four Pieces of Slate
There is a scene toward the end of the film "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" where Cary Grant, playing the beleaguered title character/new homeowner, receives a bill from the contractor for over $1,200 (in 1947 dollars) for a slate floor. Outraged, he demands to know who ordered this change and why. His wife (Myrna Loy) hasn't a clue. Finally, she admits to having seen four pieces of slate lying unused and asking the contractor if they could be placed in a hallway near the kitchen so she could have an area where she could cut flowers without getting any water on a wood floor. The architect figures out that the contractor probably thought a drain was needed, which meant running a pipe under the floor, installing a new sub-floor so the drain would have a proper slope, cutting through a supporting joist that runs under the hallway, moving a nearby column, patching and re-installing the nearby cabinets, and re-painting the whole surrounding area. All because of four little pieces of slate.
My tale is an updated version of this story, as I try to describe our experiences during what has turned out to be a major renovation of our house. Our four pieces of slate, as it were. I started keeping a journal back in May so the dates of the first several entries won't reflect what happened the date they are entered. But, based on the pace of the work we've seen so far, I'm pretty confident I'll catch up on my backdated entries before the project is finished.
My tale is an updated version of this story, as I try to describe our experiences during what has turned out to be a major renovation of our house. Our four pieces of slate, as it were. I started keeping a journal back in May so the dates of the first several entries won't reflect what happened the date they are entered. But, based on the pace of the work we've seen so far, I'm pretty confident I'll catch up on my backdated entries before the project is finished.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
