Photo Update

Front Excavation

New Path to Front Door (Starts over by the mailboxes)

It has been a busy seven days with lots of progress forward. I had the tractor for that time period and it sure helped move things along. I only have a couple of pictures right now as the camera was on some weird setting and was doing out of focus shots. I did document Keith focused at the task at hand of digging out a large tree root and prepping for footings. The pile of rocks by the drive are from the lower rockery and the front and rear footings are shaping up nicely. I need to finetune the final grades in each area over the next few days. I also need to create a good access path so we don't have to walk through mud to get in the house. Then next up is the demo of the living room floor to prepare for the new foundation in that area.

Tractor Time

Having the correct tool for the job sure helps! Renting the tractor was a wise move. I have already filled a 24 yard dumpster with concrete and have a second 12 yarder ready to go. That would have killed me to move by hand. The bucket and back hoe are great for roughing out the excavations for footings and foundations. I might not be the best at using it but it sure makes fast work moving the dirt around.

I decided I would move the lower rockery to save the rocks for future landscaping. While doing it I punctured the water main line! We had a little Lake Pollard for awhile :-) Actually I quickly shut off the water main wiht minimum leakage and patched up the line with Arne's help. No problem. It looked like the water line was sitting right below the bottom rock, at least within a few inches.
I will get some pictures posted tomorrow.

Busy Day

So today I rented a front loader/back hoe, got a new dumpster for the concrete and got all the utilities marked out. Oh yeah and went to the dump this morning. The dumpster didn't arrive until 3pm so I spent the morning getting familiar with the tractor and figuring out how to get it into the back yard to pick up the concrete. It's a tight squeeze at the side of the house and I had to take down some of the fence but it worked out great. I figure one bucket load is like 4-5 wheelbarrow loads plus it would be very tough pushing the wheelbarrow up the drive and then into the dumpster, which is on the street. Much pain and suffering has been avoided! Tomorrow I hope to get all the concrete loaded up and start excavating for the footings. Look for some big changes soon!

No Front Porch!

Over the last couple of days I demo'd part of the actual house! To dig for the new front foundation/addition I needed to remove the front porch. I just decided to take off the whole thing; slab, roof and columns. The house looks a little naked and sad now ;-( I might try to reuse the old 4x12 beams in the remodel somewhere. Maybe new stairs treads? I like the idea of having some of the old house as part of the new and the old lumber might look nice and is far better than the new stuff. I will put them in the growing storage pile for now. Today we get another dumpster and I am renting a tractor for hauling the concrete and digging the new foundations. FYI, if you are ever digging on your property be sure to have all the utilities located before you start. "Call before you dig" is usually a free service by the utility companies. They come out within a day or so and mark where everything is. We have a gas line coming to the corner of the garage and I definitely want to know where that is! And I don't want to find it with the back hoe:-)

Craigslist is Great!

I recently put an add on the Craigslist website to sell some belongings instead of putting them in storage. Three days later I sold a radial arm saw, a lawn edger and one big drafting table! Plenty of extra cash plus I didn't have to move them! In the past I bought a great winter bike off of Craigslist and now I am keeping my eye out for building materials. One persons junk is another persons gold, plus you can get good prices. Not to mention it is the ultimate recycling/green approach! Check it out

http://seattle.craigslist.org/

RUBBLE!

I am so done with jack hammering concrete! We have numerous piles of broken up concrete slabs all around our house right now. The latest is the garage and front porch. Plus the first aprt of the driveway where the addition will go. Next week we will get another dumpster and I am going to rent a Kuboto Tractor/Back Hoe to move all the concrete. With our steep drive it would be just backbreaking to move all this material by hand. I will also use the Tractor to dig out for the new foundations and footings. It's truly starting to look like a major remodel now.

Garage Cleanup

It always amazes me how much stuff we collect. Tif and I have kept things to a minimum but by the time we cleaned out the attic, the garage was full! Most everything in the garage has been moved to storage now. We got a 10x20 unit that is just 1 mile from the house. Very convenient, which is nice since I have been making numerous trips back and forth. Next up is more jack hammering! We have to remove the garage slab and part of the driveway to prepare for the addition. The current garage will become the Master bedroom and bathroom. They will have a heated and stained slab but the old slab will not work. Wrong elevation, no insulation, etc, etc. So out it comes. I am becoming an expert with the jack hammer :-)

Be Careful With Concrete! or Lesson 2

After much recent research I have decided that concrete is a dangerous material that needs to be treated with the utmost respect. One should be very careful where you use it because someday you might have to remove it................................and that is hard, backbreaking work! As you can see by the numerous piles of concrete around our house, the previous owners used lots of concrete. I have now demo'd two concrete rubble rockeries, numerous small slabs that were left under our wood deck, and one large and very thick slab that was for the hot tub. Next step removal. I think I will rent a tractor/back hoe since I can't envision pushing way too many wheelbarrow trips of heavy concrete up our steep driveway into the "next dumpster". Cheers for now, my hands are tired from jack hammering for 6 hours straight!

Get A Bigger Dumpster

Lesson #1 - You will always underestimate the amount or volume of "stuff" by a factor of two! :-) I have been clearing and demoing in the yard to make way for the remodel work recently. I tore off the deck at the back the house, Took down the trellis and vines, removed rhodedendrons out front and a bunch of other misc cleanup. I figured I would get a 12 yard dumpster instead of making a bunch of trips with my truck. The dumpster company convinced me a 25 yard unit would take up the same space in the drive and not cost anymore so I got it. 2 days later the entire dumpster was full to the top!

The Tree

So right next to our driveway we have this really cool Pine tree. It's got one huge horizontal branch that goes right over the house. Unfortunately it also has a huge root that is breaking up our driveway and the tree drops tons of needles,12 months out of the year. Plus our addition will be close to the tree base. After careful consideration we decided to remove it. Sounds simple but you must first get city approval. We did this as part of our building permit. City's are becoming very protective of the environment and Kirkland is no exception. The rules and regulations on trees are some of the most complicated regulations I have ever seen in my 10+ years of doing architecture throughout the US and Canada! Dont' believe me? Check the link out, Chapter 95!

http://kirklandcode.ecitygov.net/CK_KZC_Search.html

So anyways I hired someone to take it down since it was over our power line, plus I did not feel confident with such a large tree. It came down in one day and the big rounds were picked up for firewood through a "Craigslist" ad. Very cool. Now things are a lot more open and NO MORE PINE NEEDLES!

Design 101

Well the design of our house took over FOUR + years for me to create. Now I know that doesn't seem like a positive but because I had the opportunity to "play around" with lots of ideas, I feel confident that the final design solution is a successful one. We balanced our relatively simple needs with what the neighborhood market requires and came up with a very inventive major remodel of our exisitng rambler.

By using most of the existing structure we are saving on some labor and material costs for sure. Another big savings that you might not think of is in permitting. Our remodel permits were about $4-5k. I estimate that a new construction permit would have been in the mid $25k range. That's a $20k saving right up front! Not to mention that with a new house the jurisdiction would have additional requirements that would have added $. It might have been easier to demolish our rambler but I believe that we will save quite a bit with our thoughful design. Plus we are truly being green by reusing much of our existing 1968 home.

Our remodel will be approximately 2900sf with a three car garage. The main living space is on the upper floor but this level will be at street level due to our sloping lot. The bedrooms are downstairs, which encompasses the existing structure. An interesting twist is that the garage will be over the Master Bath, Media, and Laundry area. This allows us to eliminate our sloped driveway which I hate currently! A little different layout but it's a good solution for our unique site topogragphy. With the great room and deck on the upper level we should get some great views of the neighborhood and perhaps a glimpse of Mt. Ranier! This space will have a sloped ceiling with exposed GluLam beams and connections. Somewhat reminiscent of a loft hopefully.

The front of the house will have what I call a "butterfly roof" with the main elements sloping towards each other. The materials will be a mix of metal, wood and smooth finished panels. Northwest Contemporary with lots of connections and details and warm wood finishes.

Ok enough on the design for now. I will talk more of my design thoughts as the project progresses. Time to get STARTED! :-)