Entries tagged with remodel ↓

Did you know that you don’t need any special license or certification to operate a backhoe on private property? When I needed to break up my concrete driveway and garage floor I called up an equipment rental shop to ask about renting a backhoe with a breaker attachment - no problem!

And to top off the experience, the equipment rental shop is less than 1 mile from my house, so I just drove the backhoe to the shop when I returned it. Nothing like driving through the middle of Bellevue in a backhoe :)

Of course I have pics of the concrete demolition too.

Toolmonger just picked me as their Demo Glove Winner for this week for the garage demolition photos I submitted. Woohoo!

I’m migrating all my pics to Flickr; last night I uploaded a couple collections from my house remodel/demolition from last year:

• Garage Demolition I
• Erosion Control

The new additions & garage require concrete foundations, and that’s too much for me to do myself. I’ve hired a concrete company to come out & excavate the new crawlspace, pour the foundations, and get everything ready for the new walls to be built.

Of course, it’s not that simple.

Because of how close the new additions are to the property setbacks for the side yards, the city requires that have as-built surveys performed to insure that I’m not exceeding the setbacks. When the city inspector came out the first time he also didn’t like the look of the soil, so he requested a soil engineer come out & check that the soil was strong enough for the new new additions.

Also, due to the construction and it being winter (lots of rain), I had to install erosion control (silt fences, straw bales, etc) to keep mud from flowing off my property and into the street & drains.

Foundation: \$31,000
As-built surveys: \$1600 (2 x \$800)
Soil engineer: \$300
Erosion control materials: \$400

With the plans for the remodel finished by the architect and passed engineering review, it was time to apply for a permit from the city. The actual process wasn’t too bad, except for the part where I had to fill out the expected cost of the remodel. I had no clue…but I did know how much money I had available, when I ran out of money the remodel would be done ;) Thankfully there’s a workbook for this, and the architect had already figured it out for me.

I dropped the plans off at the city and waited a month for the approval.

Permits: \$3000

While the architect and I were working on the new house plans, I hired a tree removal company to cut down some massive cottonwood trees in the backyard. Besides being horribly allergic to the cottonwoods, they were also nearing the end of their life & sprouting new saplings all over my yard & the neighbors.

There were 9 trees to be removed, 4 of which were 80+ feet tall and had trunks 3 feet across! They had to climb the trees & cut off branches on the way up, then cut sections of trunk on the way back down. As each section of trunk fell it shook the entire neighborhood.

Tree removal: \$5000

After the survey for the property corners, and my house’s location on the property, I worked with an architect to have drawings made for the remodel. I’m adding 2 new additions - rebuilding the garage & adding a rec room/laundry/bathroom on the N end of the house, and a new master bedroom & master bath on the S end of the house.

There’s also lots of tweaks happening throughout the rest of the house, as well as an entirely new roof & higher ceiling.

Architect drawings, engineer review: \$7000

When I first contacted my architect to have drawings made for my house, we found that the county didn’t have exact measurements for my property - no one knew exactly where my W or S property lines were! I had to hire a surveyor to come out & find the corners of my property based on the legal description (which is very cryptic), and they had to start measuring from a known-good location 4 blocks away.

Property survey: \$2000

Home remodeling always costs more than you expect. Especially when you keep growing the project as you discover more things that you want to change. This is a peek at the hurdles and their costs for my house.

Ok, the last big push didn’t get very far with the house. Now it’s time for the second attempt…I’m getting the foundation guys back on the schedule to finish the foundation, I don’t want to go through another winter with only a muddy hole in the ground to show for it.

I also have some carpenters lined up to do the new additions and roof. I’ve decided to replace the entire roof instead of only adding the additions, which changes a lot of the plans for the exterior. The good news is that I can solve many problems and reduce the complexity of the remodel now by replacing the roof.

What were the problems? The house currently has only a 7.5′ interior ceiling - that’s too low. The roof pitch is also very steep, about 8/12, where a normal roof is 6/12. By replacing the entire roof I can correct the pitch and raise the ceiling height to 9′, which will be awesome.

New drawings have already arrived from the architect with the adjusted roof pitch and ceiling height, everything looks awesome. Since the ceiling is being raised I won’t need a cathedral ceiling in the new family room, but I’ll be keeping it in the new master bedroom to allow ceiling fan to easily fit. Ceiling fans are the poor man’s air conditioning, much cheaper than trying to install whole-house AC!