Hi, all. Three years ago I bought my first home, a 50-year-old, 1500-sq. ft. 2BD/1BA ranch, expecting to spend my days there as a spinster. Wouldn’t you know, now I’m married and have a baby girl and hoping for another child in the the next couple years. We’re already pressed for space, but we absolutely love our lot (semi-wooded 1/2 acre in suburban Portland, OR) and our neighbors/neighborhood. Not wanting to increase the footprint too much, we have decided to bump out the back slightly to make a master bedroom suite and garden room, but get most of our addtional square footage (2 BD, 1 BA, plus craft room/guest room) with a second story. I have been toying with ideas for a while, but having just looked at the article about the second story addition in the Sept/Oct issue of Inspired House, I am now VERY inspired. The design solves many of the problems we face–large tree overhanging the front of the house, needing more light, not wanting the house to appear too much taller on our street of ranches–and it’s just plain beautiful to boot.
My questions are:
How do we start? I can draw a basic plan, though I’m having difficulty figuring out the optimal location for the staircase. Do we hire an architect, a structural engineer, or a contractor first? My understanding is that (typically) none of these professionals have much respect for one another…any hints on managing the relationships? What do you do when your contractors says, in so many words, your architect’s a flake? So we can have an idea of when to start, approximately how long should we expect such a project to take, from the day we talk to someone about our design goals ’til we’re moving back in?
TIA,
Chris
Replies
Some contractors are also competent designers. If you are fortunate to find one like that, it may be all you need. With most contractors, though, you'll get a bland, uninspired solution.
Architects are trained through a long program of study and internship to solve just the sort of problem you pose. The advantage is that you are likely to get a much better solution both functionally and aesthetically. You'll pay more but get better results. For you it's a cost vs. benefit judgement.
Structural engineers are educated to solve structural problems, but not in the functional and aesthetic aspects of design. Unless you had one that just happened to have a knack for design apart from his structural training, he would not be likely to produce good results. If a structural engineer were needed, either the architect or contractor would consult one themselves.
As in all walks of life there are difficult people. But you are no more likely to get a difficult architect than a difficult contractor. If any contractor can't work with a competent architect then he wouldn't be able to work with you either. For the project to be successful, all parties (including you) have to be able to work together. Your role is to hire an excellent contractor, and, if you choose to employ an architect, hire an excellent architect, too.
One tip. When interviewing contractors, ask them if they've dealt with architects before, who they were, and how it went. If a contractor says all architects are jerks, then it's a bad sign. If they have worked with some they like, that's a good recommendation to you for them both.
You didn't mention a basement. Any possibilities there?
Thank you (Wayne?) for your thoughtful reply. My husband and I have been discussing whether to first hire a structural engineer to determine our project's feasibility, but the more I research, the more it seems that such a project is structurally feasible. So, getting the design on paper sounds like the logical first step.
We do have a 600-square-foot basement with a bathroom, but my husband works from home and half the livable space is devoted to his office. The other half is supposed to be a craft room/guest room but is basically bursting at the seams with storage. The rest of the unfinished space is devoted to laundry/utility.
Also, I mistyped the square footage of the main level...it is just under 1300 SF, not 1500 SF.
One thing we are considering is doing some of the finish work ourselves. We finished our basement last fall and gutted and remodeled the main bath this summer, doing most of the work ourselves (including electrical, drywall, plumbing, painting) except laying carpet. It took us longer than professionals, but we are pleased with the results. I don't think we will ever hang drywall again, but it seems to me that once the walls were framed and the plumbing was roughed-in, we could do the electrical, finish plumbing, and painting ourselves (leaving drywall, trim, windows, and probably flooring to pros). Will contractors typically work with DIY folks? Or should we be our own general contractor? What are some of the risks (besides our kids being grown before we're finished building their bedrooms) to such an approach? We will have a free place to live nearby during the renovation, BTW.
Chris
Whether contractors will work with DIY'ers varies a lot. Most if not all contractors have experiences that went very badly with a client now and then. Those experiences have made many contractors shy of working to complexly (if that's a word) with home owners. Other contractors don't mind a bit. I had a wonderful contractor build me a house. Not only was I able to do some of the work myself, I was able to work when his crew was there, hire my own specialty subs (such as a stonemason), and he even after a while loaned me his tools. But cooperation to such an extent is unusual.
It's easier to accomplish if the contractor can make a clean break. Such as, he does the entire shell, then perhaps electrical and plumbing rough in, insulation and drywall. Then you pay him and he leaves. You do painting, trim, fixtures, and flooring or contract flooring with a flooring shop. Or higher other subs. Or whatever. When it's difficult to pull off is when the contractor has to wait for you. If he's ready for electrical rough in, and you are going to do it nights and weekends, at a pace slower than a professional, he has to have something for his crew to do somewhere else. That calls for extra scheduling on his part, weaving the schedules of multiple jobs together. Many contractors don't wish to do that.
Also, some contractors don't want to risk their reputation having part of the job done by home owners below the contractor's standards. It reflects badly on the contractor because people who see the job never quite understand which parts the contractor did and which someone else did. If the contractor does not know your skill level, he may not wish to find out the hard way.
As far as what to do yourself, consider your abilities and schedule. Also safety. And a project this size will need inspections, so you have to meet code to the letter whether you agree with it or not. And the house won't be the only demand on your time.
The pace also affects financing. If you are working on borrowed money, the longer it takes to do the work, the more interest you'll pay. If you are on a home equity loan it won't be so bad. But if you are on a construction loan the bank won't release money until certain stages are done. If you buy materials and begin, but don't finish, you will have to pay for the materials before the bank pays you. And construction loan interest is not deductible on income tax as mortgage interest is. Rather, it is capitalized as part of the cost basis for the property. So dragging out a construction loan results in a small loss of tax deduction.
Dragging the work out way too long may stress the hospitality of your alternate hosts.
Those are the considerations that pop into my mind now. I hope I remembered the important ones without being long-winded. If you are up to it, and find the right contractor (which is certainly possible) you can do much of the work yourself.
What a great list of things to consider. I hadn't thought about the financing issues, though I have a friend building a house that's taking longer than he expected and his borrowed money is now on borrowed time.
You've not been long-winded at all and have made a valuable contribution to my thought process. Thank you very much!
Chris
Just one more note about borrowed money. Many people chose the demolition portion of a job as a place to save money. Make sure you have your financing signed off on (i.e. you've gone through closing on a loan) before you start demolition. A house with no roof appraises as worthless because it is uninhabitable, so home equity loans are impossible at that point.
If you want to do some of the work yourself as indicated, I'd advise that you be your own general. Most GC's are going to get frustrated with your schedule - it is by being master schedulers that they make money, and you will not work at a professional pace. If you are your own general, then you can schedule the various subs for when you are ready for them. A word of caution though. GCs are a source of repeat business for a subcontractor, so they get first on the schedule and frankly they sometimes get a better quality of work. You are a one-off and unlikely to be a source of much business, so who cares if you get angry? Be prepared for subs that don't show or do work that isn't up to the standards you saw when you checked on their references. We built our addition during a local construction boom, so couldn't find any good GCs that were interested in our little project. Likewise, all of the reputable subs were pretty busy as well. As such, I could list a bunch of headaches that I'd have preferred to be able to pay somebody else to deal with. The up side was that we went at our own pace, doing things as we could afford them so we didn't have to finance the project as we would have with a GC.
I would like to quickly thank waynel5 for taking many of the words out of my mouth. When I read pdxgreengrrl's comment about the butting heads between the professions, I had to reply. This is a common myth. "not getting along" is for the playground. Real professionals will work together. "Cowboy Builders" who think architects are a pain to work with should be avoided at all costs. That builder may have done poor work and an architect may have called them on it. As a home designer, I think it is crucial to get an architect. Renovations are typically much more difficult to handle than with new construction. You must find an architect with experience with cases similar to yours. Design without care for aesthetics or care for efficiency of space can actually take equity out of your home rather than add it.
Get an architect first, the architect will obtain the structural engineering and get a very reputable builder early because they bring good feedback to the design process to keep budget concerns under controll. Some may be more expensive but never take the cheapest. Pay now or pay later is never more true than with construction on homes. I have seen what should be an 8 month project take double that. It was a renovation project and the builder, a nice guy none the less, may have taken on a project beyond his level of experience