Starting to Move Back In

As do-it-yourselfers, it becomes readily apparent just how much extra work a general contractor does to complete a project. It's not very apparent from these photos, but we have kept the job of caulking and painting the trim for ourselves... something that would ordinarily cost around $7000 to have done by professionals for a house this size (2500sf).

So, we have moved in a minimal amount of furniture to make it easier for us to finish up the caulking and painting. As you might notice on the photo above, we've also reserved the job of tiling the fireplace! My mother and I plan to work on it this summer.

Kitchen Improvements

From the beginning, we knew that just a few changes would greatly improve the functionality of our kitchen: 1. We opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining rooms, and moved the circulation to the center of the house, so that the kitchen work area would be a simple U configuration. 2. We moved the sink to face the dining room, and moved the range to the outside wall. 3. We installed a microwave/vent over the range! This house did not have any ventilation in the kitchen at all when we bought it.

It is wonderful to look out towards the dining, living, and entry rooms from the kitchen sink. And it is incredibly easy to clean up afterwards. The ledge behind the sink allows me to be messy in the kitchen without it being visible in the entertaining space. And in the winter, that little heat vent in the toekick below the sink keeps my feet warm!

We built a tall pull-out pantry next to the refrigerator, and it is one of our favorite features of the kitchen. That pantry contains all of the dry food we need to keep in the house, and with the full-extension heavy duty slides, we can access every inch, no problem.

Drywall

As an architect, renovating my own house was a great experience. More than anything, it gave me some insight into the range of emotions that my clients go through over the scope of a home renovation project.

Just before the drywall was installed, I reached a point where I was so used to looking at framing that I stopped imagining my house as a home! It felt like it would never be comfy and clean and quiet again! It takes a while to get all of the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC work done, and to the homeowner, there's not much to see during that phase. Then, as soon as the drywall is installed, the house transforms and begins feeling like a home again. It's still messy and noisy, and there's nowhere to sit, but at least the walls are up and it looks brighter and cozier again. Below is a picture of the little 'living, dining, kitchen' space in my basement:

Paint

In September, primer and paint went on. Charlie Slaughter, our neighbor, painted our house! His #1 piece of advice: use oil-based primer. So that is what you see here. In the meantime, there is Julie, working on the formwork for the front steps.

One week later, Charlie sprayed the house with my paint color choice. Tom and I both really like the color - for me, it is especially good because of the way it changes in the sun. The house looks almost yellow in the full sun, but it's a solid green in the shade.

Window Wells

If you are hoping to remodel your basement, chances are that you will need to build a window well. Fortunately, these can overlap your property line setbacks, but it is still a lot of work. Ken Shannon of Cascade Concrete Cutting cut the openings for me, and Seth Truby formed up the concrete window well structure on the outside, and he also helped me install the window when it arrived! I actually built two window wells in addition to the new basement entrance door, so my basement doesn't feel like a basement at all anymore... it's very bright and cozy.

Here you can see one basement bedroom with the window installed, and you can also see the concrete window well beyond. There are some important Code requirements to keep in mind on window wells. First, the sill of your new window must be no higher than 44-in. above the finish floor. You are allowed (in the City of Portland) to build a permanent step 12-in. high right under the window if you need to. Second, the window must allow for emergency escape and there are specific dimensions to meet that requirement. Overall, the window must offer a minimum of 5 sf of clear open area. In addition to that, the window must meet certain minimum dimensions - 24-in. tall and 20-in. wide. Also, the window well must have at least 3-ft. clear perpendicular from the window to the concrete.

Design Idea

According to my husband, enclosing the front porch was one of the best design moves we made in the remodel! The primary reason is because it really increased the size of the living space without adding much cost (with an existing roof and floor... we just needed walls and windows). Bungalows, for the most part, were built with porches but without an entry space. In Portland, this is a problem because every visitor must first disentangle him or herself from layers of wet coats, shoes, and umbrellas before coming in to sit on the dry furniture. Come to think of it, I should have installed some wall-mounted blowers in the entry! A perfect Portland touch.

The secondary reason why enclosing the porch was a good move is because we live on the corner of NE 30th and Prescott. Prescott is sort-of busy. So sitting on the porch wasn't THAT enjoyable anyway...

Can you see that crown molding between my ceiling and wall? It was a major feat to keep that molding up throughout the process - almost every trade (framers, plumbers, electricians, etc) asked if they could remove it! I had no idea that simply keeping a piece of crown molding would require so much explanation! If you are a homeowner and you hire a general contractor to manage your project, my advise is to just give up on keeping existing molding. Have them install new stuff.

Concrete Control Joints

Concrete cracks. And for some unknown reason, people seem to hold that against the concrete! There is a way to control the cracking, and that is to build in joints to control the cracks - in essence, forcing the cracks to crack along straight lines! One way to create a control joint - the way I did it here - was to cut the surface of the concrete about 3/8" down on the day following the concrete pour.

The concrete cutter guy cut the floor into sections about 8x10 in size, though some joints were closer together due to the 'look' I wanted. It was a lot of fun laying out where the cuts would go and then seeing it all cut into sections.