remodel / restore

• Home repairs: should you do them yourself, or get help?

  
  reader Scott Gray sends in the following:

  Tackling home repairs and improvements begins with making a very
  personal decision. Are you capable of doing the job, or do you need
  help? How much help do you need? Maybe another experienced
  do-it-yourselfer can provide assistance, or perhaps you can take a
  course at your a local college or night school and learn how to do the
  work. Or maybe not. Professional help is expensive, but in some cases,
  you have no choice but to suck it up and call a repairperson.
  
  These are the things to consider:

  • Most repair work and maintenance jobs are a matter of understanding how things work and having the right tools to fix them.
  • Anyone can learn basic painting, plumbing, masonry, electrical or
    construction work, but for complex tasks, consider the specialized
    knowledge, testing equipment, and tools that might be needed. If it’s a
    radio, television, photographic equipment, camera, computer, or the oil
    burner in your furnace that’s on the fritz, you should call a qualified
    repairperson. Even if you have the courage to try and do the work, the
    cost of the testing equipment and specialized tools are probably
    prohibitive. If you want to rewire the house, there are safety issues
    involved and you really should consult a professional.
  • How accessible is the item to be repaired? If it’s something
    that is built into the house and you have to tear the wall apart to get
    at it, you had better know exactly what you are going to do when you
    get there; otherwise call a professional right away. It’s probably less
    expensive in the long run.

  Home Repairs – How to Get Started
  Can you really save money after laying down what seems like a fortune for tools and materials? Yes, you can.

  • Find a safe, protected work area, such as the garage, the basement, or
    an insulated and well-lit shed. You need to store tools and supplies
    and keep them dry and safe; and you need a place to saw, sand, and
    basically make a mess that won’t interfere with the daily lives of
    those who share your home.
  • Begin by stocking your work area and tool kit with the basics:
    You need a hammer, various sizes and styles of screwdrivers (at least
    four or five), an adjustable wrench, a crosscut saw, a
    measuring tape,
    two or three sizes of paint brushes, spackle paste or fill, duct tape,
    silicone caulking, penetrating oil and machine oil, glue, sandpaper,
    electrical tape, masking tape, and an assortment of screws, anchors,
    nails, washers, and o-rings. And that’s just the start. You will need
    to add other items as repair jobs and home improvement projects crop
    up.
  • Start with the easy stuff: replace the socket on that
    flickering lamp; paint a small room, replace the washer and the o-ring
    on that dripping tap; put together an easy-to-assemble doll house. Once
    you master simple repair tasks, you will have the confidence to try
    more complex jobs.

  The Sky is the Limit

  • As you become
    familiar with hand tools and simple home repairs and improvements, you
    will develop a taste for more complex do-it-yourself projects and
    hunger after speed and efficiency. You’ll realize that it’s easy to
    improve the resale value of your home by adding a deck, but first, you
    need to add power tools to your tool arsenal. And you can afford them
    now because you no longer throw out things that don’t work and don’t
    have to pay for professional repairs.
  • Check out Bosch cordless drills
    for drilling holes and driving in screws, and do some comparison
    shopping like reading reviews and reports on models by Hitachi, Makita,
    Delta, DeWalt, Ridgid, Ryobi, etc.
  • Don’t think about adding crown molding to your house without
    investing in a sliding miter saw, and again, check major brands and
    read reviews before you buy.

  For almost every hand tool there is
  a power tool, and you will love them all. And before you know it,
  you’ll be able to assemble a doll house in no time at all.

  Scott Gray is currently a home
  improvement handyman enthusiast and freelance writer who enjoys
  providing tips to consumers who are in the market for hand and power
  tools like
  compound miter saws.

  photo by Andrew Johnson

• Lead-based paint and real estate: how does it affect you?

  
  Reader and regular contributor Joel McDonald – a real estate professional who frequently writes on issues important to those considering buying, remodeling or restoring an older home – submits the following:

  Even though lead-based paint has been outlawed for a long time, it is still a very real issue for both homeowners and real estate agents. In 1992, the Housing and Community Development Act made it so that seller of real estate had to disclose potential lead-based paint hazards to the purchaser at the time of sale.  Lead was used as a paint additive for nearly 125 years before it was linked to health problems around 1978.  That year, it was determined that lead would not be added to paint as an additive any longer. Any home that was built prior to 1978 could potentially have a lead-based paint problem.

  The Hazards of Lead-Based Paint
  The presence of lead-based paint in a home environment can lead to lead poisoning.  Children under the age of six run the greatest risk of developing lead poisoning from lead-based paint because young, growing bodies absorb many of the minerals that they come into contact with, whether it is much needed calcium or very dangerous lead.  Continuously high levels of lead in the body can lead to brain damage, behavior problems, hearing problems, and damage to the nervous system.  These problems can occur in both adults and children, and additionally in children, normal growth can be impaired.

  Any home built prior to 1978 that has cracked, peeling, or chipping paint should be treated as a potential hazard and should be repaired immediately. If paint containing lead was used around the window or door frames in the home, the process of opening and closing these items may be creating a surprisingly large amount of dust containing lead. This dust is potentially hazardous and can be difficult to get rid of.  Vacuuming, sweeping, and dusting can cause the lead dust to reenter the air and dust will be kicked up every time you take a step within the home. The dust can also be tracked outside where it will contaminate the soil around the home.

  Does Your Home Have a Lead-Based Paint Problem?
  In order to discover whether your home has a lead-based paint problem, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that every home built prior to 1978 receive a paint inspection conducted by a trained professional. A paint inspection will let the homeowner know the lead content of every painted surface in the home and will uncover any areas or sources of serious lead exposure.

  Although there are kits available commercially that allow the homeowner to conduct the testing on their own, the EPA recommends an inspection conducted by a professional inspector to uncover any dangerous areas that may be overlooked by the untrained eye. Some states have very specific rules and regulations dealing with the discovery and remedy of a lead-based paint issue, and the professional inspectors will be able to advise the homeowner of these rules and let them know the next step in the process of removing lead-based paint from their home.

  Article contributed by Colorado’s Fort Collins real estate service, Automated Homefinder.

  image courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency

• Craftsman Kitchen Remodels III

  
  Fourth in our series on kitchen remodels (and about the 25th article on the subject; previous episodes here), this time we’re taking a look at Southern California. High-end kitchens from the area’s best contractors, relatively inexpensive DIY projects and various steps in between:

  • La Jolla’s IS Architecture remodeled this 1914 Craftsman bungalow; the project included "a complicated pier foundation and seismic retrofit." Check out the before & after pictures of the kitchen & bath. They are also responsible for this very pretty coastal Craftsman and its blindingly-white kitchen in La Jolla and a very pretty wood-grain kitchen in this Spanish Revival ranch house in Rancho Santa Fe.
  • Qualified Remodeler magazine’s 2007 Chrysalis Awards – the 14th year these awards have been given to residential and commercial modelers across the country – include a number of great Southern California remodels. A lot of the remodels are pretty hideous, in my own opinion – cabinets that clash with the style of the house, ridiculous French and English country cottage motifs that are inconsistent with the house and neighborhood, things like that. I understand that designers have to do what owners want, but there’s no reason to submit that kind of work for an award. It’s not all overdone, glitzy and ridiculous, though; for example, the winner of the 2007 Best Whole House Remodel under $200,000 award, Moving Mountains Design in Pasadena, did a pretty good job.
  • Stefan Hammerschmidt remodeled his 1924 Venice bungalow, including a spare and functional kitchen. Check out the marble counters and the beautiful stove & giant range hood. Read more about it at the LA Times‘ great remodel-focused blog, Pardon Our Dust, by Kathy Price-Robinson. Another recent column looks at "the best-looking DIY kitchen (they’ve) seen yet." Now, why can’t some big fancy magazine or newspaper hire me to blog for them?
  • PaysonDenney Architects‘ website is a bit difficult to navigate, but the kitchen they produced for another Venice home (scroll down for photos) – right on that community’s Sherman Canal – is worth seeing. I only wish the photos were a bit bigger!
  • Nest Architecture built this "Rustic Canyon Retreat" for two Los Angeles clients; the kitchen, with its butcher block island and all-around windows, is bright & airy.

  photo via Pardon Our Dust

• McMansions bring tensions to old neighborhoods

  A good article by Kytja Weir in last week’s Charlotte Observer, on the constant butting of heads between historic preservationists who look at a neighborhood as an organic whole and selfish me-firsters who want the freedom to do whatever they want with their own property, damn the neighbors and everyone else. Gee, can you tell which camp I fit into? An excerpt:

  Tim Griffin, the association president, had invited builders,
  architects and others, trying to inspire his neighbors about how to
  renovate their homes without changing the feel of the newly popular
  neighborhood.

  "I’m just so adamant about no more McMansions," he said.

  But
  he knows his neighborhood has no power to restrict renovations. "We’re
  not a homeowners’ association. We’re not a historic district. So the
  next best thing is to educate."

  The neighborhood of small homes,
  many dating from the 1930s, is starting to feel a tension already
  experienced in Charlotte’s older neighborhoods around uptown such as
  Dilworth, Myers Park, Elizabeth, Plaza-Midwood and Wesley Heights as
  people with bigger tastes move in.

  Today Americans seek more space than their parents. In new developments bigger homes can be built without hindrances.

  But
  the desire for more space creates a tension in some older
  neighborhoods, built for the needs of the past. Neighbors there find
  themselves walking a line between preserving the past and maintaining
  property rights, promoting growth yet controlling how it takes shape.

• Eco-Friendly remodel in Austin TX on This Old House

  
  The Healthy House Institute has an interesting article on a recent series of eight episodes of This Old House devoted to the "greening" of a 1926 Craftsman bungalow in Austin, Texas:

  Taking on its first-ever project in Austin, Texas, This Old House shares
  strategies and solutions for transforming a historic house into a low
  maintenance, healthy, and comfortable eco-friendly home.

  The renovation of a 1926 Craftsman-style bungalow for newly married
  homeowners Michele Grieshaber and Michael Klug will be “green” in
  nature, while making room for a growing family — including Michael’s two
  young sons, Sam and David — with the addition of two bedrooms and a
  modest full bath on a new second floor.

  By using
  technologies that conserve energy and water, and opting for durable and
  sustainable materials, This Old House is taking an outdated house and
  giving it an energy-efficient future, while showing that “green” does
  not have to be experimental, or expensive.

  Since this ground-up remodel included low-maintenance, low-water xeriscaping, that became one episode all by itself;  another was dedicated solely to the planning process – something worthy of extra attention whenever you’re working with new and unorthodox materials and techniques. The episode also generated plenty of materials for articles on subjects as varied as lighting and remodeling with and for families with children on the TOH website.

  photograph by Kenny Braun for This Old House

• Rich Baumhofer & Cindy Bechtel’s Curtis Park firehouse, part II

  Yesterday, HGTV ran an episode of their reZONED program on Richard Baumhofer & Cindy Bechtel’s beautiful Curtis Park home in a remodeled and restored firehouse, which we originally wrote about this week last year. Marybeth Bizjak has more on the house in her September 2006 article in Sacramento Magazine. Later in the article, Rich notes his favorite northern California salvage yards – which happen to be mine, too – Ohmega Salvage and Urban Ore, both in Berkeley:

  Vision. Some people have it; some don’t.

  Rich Baumhofer and
  Cindy Bechtel fall squarely into the “have vision” category. When the
  couple stumbled upon a dilapidated old house in Curtis Park, they could
  see it had major potential.

  Their friends told them they were
  crazy to consider buying the structure, which had been built in 1917 as
  a fire station and later converted to a private home. But buy it they
  did, setting out to restore its “firehouse charm.”

  They
  succeeded so spectacularly that HGTV will feature their house on an
  upcoming episode of “reZONED,” a show about people who turn commercial
  spaces into one-of-a-kind homes.

  “My intention was to
  rebuild in the spirit of the original firehouse,” says Baumhofer, a
  builder and general contractor who has worked on many old houses. He
  kept the shell of the Craftsman-style building intact while gutting the
  inside to create a spacious, family-friendly home.

     

  Congratulations to both Rich and Cindy – it’s nice when the rest of the world acknowledges all your hard work. And thanks, too, for sharing your home with all of us!

• Squak Mountain Stone: recycled fibrous-concrete countertops

  

  There are several different commercial formulations of concrete on the market for countertops, flooring and other interior architectural uses. Some are aerated or mixed by varying but mostly-similar techniques, some are molded or installed in different ways, and some are aerated, or treated with dyes or special sealants. But one in particular is as attractive as real stone, is made in a range of mineral shades and has a natural texture from inclusions such as recycled paper, glass and coal fly-ash.

  Squak Mountain Stone’s fibrous-cement material is beautiful and just as visually appealing as real stone – but it’s a truly environmentally-friendly countertop that makes great (re)use of some otherwise-ignored ingredients. It is available both in slabs and as tiles, and the maker is happy to work with clients on custom applications and mixtures. In that respect, it’s even more appealing than real or manufactured stone!

  According to developer and owner Ameé Quiriconi, the ingredients list reads like a how-to book for those interested in establishing a truly green, environmentally-friendly business:

  • Fly-ash is generated at a Washington-state coal-fired electrical generation facility. It’s collected and bagged for sale in Seattle.
  • The mixed waste paper comes from a small home-based document destruction business staffed by four young women with developmental disabilities (with the help of a job coach and the women’s parents.)This business is located in Issaquah, WA.
  • The recycled glass is mainly waste from local window manufacturers that is collected and processed by a local glass recycling company.

  We’ve put together a whole Flickr album of high-res images showing the product in use – if you are planning a kitchen or bath remodel, you really should take a look at this material before you finalize your countertop material plans.

  It is available from retailers up and down the west coast, including Green Sacramento, Ecohome Improvement in Berkeley, Greenspace in Santa Cruz, Eco Design Resources in San Carlos as well as EcoSpaces in Telluride, Colorado.

• a modern Craftsman kitchen

  
  Taunton publishes lots and lots of good books devoted to historic architecture in general and the Arts & Crafts movement specifically. I was happy but not surprised, then, to pick up a few back issues of The Inspired House, an (unfortunately out of print?) at a local used bookshop.

  The magazine seems to have halted publication mid-2006, but mining their online archive yielded lots of good stuff, including this article by Debra Judge Silber on a very modern yet classically attractive Craftsman kitchen remodel in a 1915 historic foursquare:

  When they found their brick foursquare in the
  mid-1980s, Ed and Kathy Friedman couldn’t believe their luck. They’d
  spent 10 years building a collection of Arts and Crafts furniture and
  decorative objects, and here was the perfect home in which to display
  it. The 1915 foursquare, with its built-in benches and bookcases, was
  as well preserved as if it had been locked in a time capsule.

  Except for the kitchen. Remodeled in the ’50s, the boxy room had plastic tiles running halfway around it and
  white metal cabinets backed awkwardly against the walls. Not just
  outdated, it was completely at odds with the purposeful beauty of the
  rest of the house.

  Visit their site for the full article. Floorplan by Martha Garstang Hill, whose illustrations and architectural drawings adorn many Taunton books.

• a new picket fence from scratch

  
  Reader and compulsive rehabber Matt Wyczalkowski writes in with another recent project. This time, as part of a general yard upgrade, Matt built a beautiful Craftsman-style picket fence from scratch. A Flickr photoset documents the project from start to finish. Matt, any time you want to come visit Sacramento, I have plenty of jobs I need done…

• “cannibalizing my Craftsman bungalow” on alt.home.repair

  from the Usenet group alt.home.repair:

  I have a modest 90yr. old Craftsman bungalow that I have owned for over 15 years. I recently bit the bullet and took the time (months!) and  money (you don’t even want to know) to have the old composite shingle  siding removed to expose the original redwood clapboard. My
  painter/restorer filled every nail hole, scraped every nook and cranny,  carefully and conservatively sanded off every layer, repaired every  corner of old window frame, etc. and finally completed a new coat of  paint that does my little place justice. It is constructed of solid old  growth redwood and feels like it will go another 90 years, no worries.

  Until today. My roofers came out today. This is a company I have used before – they re-roofed my detached garage a few yers back. I don’t have any leaks, but I’m trying to be proactive and not wait for trouble, so I signed up for a new 30 year shingle. After about two hours of banging I decided to go out and have a look at progress. I was stunned to see two workers in the process of nailing up a dinky piece of pine in the place where my front fascia used to be. This was a 12
  ft. long 2×8 that completed 1/2 of my front roofline – nice and wide with an angled rafter end tail. Gasping, I asked "What have you done with my redwood "Oh, there was some dry rot on the end" Well, I had known about that – my painter had informed me and we felt that during
  the re-roof would be the time to address it, repair and repaint. The involved area was about 1-2" deep along about 6" of the rafter tail.

  For this they removed the WHOLE thing. Just ripped it off – and were nailing up a piece of typical modern day lumber – in other words, too small in two dimensions. A 2×8 doesn’t measure 2×8 these days, but my old one did. Can you imagine how inadequate that was? I felt like someone had cut off my foot – being a preservationist is not easy. They looked at me like I was cockeyed, I was trying not to shoot anyone. 🙂

  My contract specifically notes that the owner is to be informed immediately if any latent damage is discovered, requiring any wood work. What happened!?! They acted as though they were doing me a favor – "Oh, we thought you’d want to go with the lowest cost option" Ack!
  Removing an irreplaceable lengtht of redwood is an option?! Gawd, if they’d only asked me first.

  Read the full article and folks’ advice for fixing this enormous cock-up.