The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Well, it was our last week with our contractor and crew!  The floors received their final finish and coat, and the painters came back to touch up a few areas.  The glass was installed in the cabinet doors and our lighting fixtures are mounted and working.  Our architect and contractor, Jeff and John, met us in the kitchen to give us back our keys and our house.  They actually had a ribbon across the kitchen entry!  We love the finished product, and just wanted to also give credit to Tobin Weaver, architect, who worked with Jeff on the original design.  We love the repeating wide doorways, and the attention to period details.

The cabinets turned out gorgeous as well.  We are very happy that we opted to get the soft close feature for the kitchen drawers.  The access to the backyard is much easier, and we have enjoyed our outdoor fireplace, which we can also see from our new den.  We have spent more time out there in the past week, than we did all summer!  Of course, there are the updates that we can’t see, like the new electrical and plumbing.  It is nice have to have an up-to-code electrical panel – it feels a little safer than the old panel that kept shorting out.

We had an amazing renovation experience, due to the vision, organization and communication of Urban Design Build.  We even finished on the scheduled day!  We still have a small punch list, but those are already scheduled to be addressed.  Thank you  Jeff, John, Tobin, the UDBC crew and subcontractors for making this project such a positive experience for family!

Julie, Brian, Collin and Ian

View of kitchen and den

Cabinets w/Rejvenation Bin Pulls

Look at that counter space!

Info center and pantry

Den with new windows and french doors

The Last Week of Dust & Chaos

The end is near, and we will have our house back in a week!  It is looking amazing and we can’t wait to get our dishes out of the bathroom (which is pretty gross when you think about it).  The crew is working on the punch list, and the painters are coming back for a final coat.  The lights are in and the floors will be finished in a few days.  The black plastic is coming down so it will be the first time we will have seen the kitchen from the front of the house.  To do this project, we did give up a bedroom and a half bathroom, with the idea that we would remodel our attic in 5 years.  However, we are already feeling the effects of having only one bathroom.  Luckily we still have the porta-potty in our front yard.

New Rejuvenation Lighting above sink

Info center with school house lighting

New stove and hood

Sink, dishwasher, and undermount microwave

New sunroom with Rejuvenation - Hudson lighting

The End is Near

The cabinets are in, the trim has been painted and the windows are in our den.  We can see the end in sight!  It has been a dusty and stinky past week and a half.  The crew sanded the mill work, prepping it for painting.  It is amazing, despite plastic taped up and closed doors, how dust can coat every single surface in the house.  The primer and paint were sprayed on, and even though our house smelled terrible for 2 days, it looks amazing!  The Urban Design Build crew customized all of the new trim to match the existing and it looks great.  The paint is so smooth – it makes our existing trim look like crap, so we have some work ahead for us after the remodel is done.

The windows were also put in and trimmed out – it adds so much light to our house and although we have stayed with the look of the period (1917), it really gives it a more open feeling.  Right now, we are looking at our neighbors large cement wall, which anchors their garage, but after some landscaping, it should be a better view.  We also just received our kitchen hardware and lighting order – that was difficult to make all those decisions!  But after looking through tons of magazines, which surprisingly featured Rejuvenation fixtures and lighting constantly, we really like what we ended up with.  Our contractor said we have 3 more weeks to go – can’t wait use our kitchen!

Kitchen cabinets soon to have fridge and stove

Updates from the last month

We have seen a huge amount of progress while we were out of town for the last 3 weeks!  The drywallers made our kitchen and den look like real rooms, and the painters came in a week later.  It was pretty amazing when trying to pick a color for the kitchen cabinets and trim.  Brian and I both agreed that we liked the look of white cabinets over wood for the period of our house.  However, we did not know that Benjamin Moore had over 150 whites!  Of course, each white looked different in different lights.  We settled on one and love it, but it was a little crazy thinking about how many variations of white are out there…

The first picture is our counter top – soapstone.  It is exactly what we were looking for!  The second picture is looking from the den into the kitchen.

The 3rd picture is one of our favorite features.  Jeff, of Urban Design, designed this info center to store all of our technology that used to be dispersed around the house.  It is between the kitchen and our den.  The lower cabinets will hold our printer, files and other assorted junk that tends to gather in piles.  It counter is at standing height, so we can use our laptop standing or pull up a stool.  We love it so far!

And speaking of Urban Design, we have had an amazing remodel experience.  We are right on time and any increase in budget has been a few additions that Brian and I chose to add.  The next week, they are installing the french doors in the den.  Can’t wait to see them!

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Demo Days

Life has been hectic the last couple weeks. The demo was completely fairly quickly and the new walls have gone up. One of the design goals was to allow easier access to our backyard and we hope new french doors will accomplish that. We love not bumping our heads on the new stairs! Electrical rough-in and plumbing are next. After those pass inspection, it’s on to insulation and drywall. Time is flying!

The backyard

New kitchen view towards backyard

New Attic Stairs

The Second Week

It has been a loud week at our house, and there is a fine coat of dust on every surface despite a very thick plastic wall that has been put up to separate our “living space” with the construction site. This is one of the many things that I have appreciated about Urban Design Build. They have really tried to keep certain areas of our house and our yard as “ours”, and it has been nice to know that your whole house doesn’t turn into a construction site. Not that our rooms look organized and tidy in our living space. Because we are having work done in the basement, the attic and on the main floor, we had to store all of our kitchen stuff and den furniture in our living room and bedroom. We have also had a double sink vanity sitting in our living room, waiting for the install. I am sure our house looks like a disaster when friends and family come over, but it is a little sad how quickly it blends into the background.

Getting back to the remodel, the basement stairs were demolished, and new construction grade stairs were built. They were extended about 3 more feet, and widened 6 inches – what a difference it makes! We no longer need to duck at the bottom of the stairs, or risk our life carrying down a laundry basket. Speaking of laundry, access to our washer and dryer is much easier. We also had a new electrical panel installed. Brian was very excited about that (I get more excited about counters, etc.). We met with Jeff, our architect/contractor, and discussed our lighting plan. The electrician will be coming back to rough in the electrical boxes. We visited Rejuvenation and picked out our lighting fixtures for the kitchen. We are going with the very classic schoolhouse lights with some pendants over the sink. We also looked at hardware for our cabinets, which will be white, with recessed drawers and cabinets. We really like the latches and bin pulls, trying to keep the kitchen details as period as we can. So many fun choices!

Next week, the plumber comes out and our attic stairs will be removed and rebuilt.

Windows will be replaced with french doors and casement windows

Before Pictures

Finally, some before pictures. Between the kitchen and the back bedroom are a closet, half bath, and a mud porch to the side yard, but not for long! Also, those steep, narrow, stairs (located in the space behind the Fridge) won’t be around much longer either.

Kitchen – North wall

Kitchen – South wall

Attic stairs

Basement stairs

Back bedroom

The First Week!

We have been eagerly awaiting the beginning of our new kitchen and den, and demo day is here!  We spent the weekend cleaning out cabinets, and setting up our makeshift kitchen in our adjacent dining room.  When we all left the house the first morning, we were excited to see the results when we came home that afternoon.  When we walked in the door, we were not disappointed!  There was plastic surrounding our doorways, sealing off the rest of the house from the dust.  We went through the zipper door the crew had set up, and everything in the kitchen was gone!  It was amazing how much was demolished in such a short period.  Of course, our six year old son ran outside to check out the dumpster (and the honey bucket), which was more than half filled (the dumpster, not the port-a-potty).

 By the end of the week, the kitchen and den were down to the studs, and our half bath and closet were gone.  And also by the end of the week, we were already tired of washing dishes in the bathtub.  I had envisioned barbequing and even breaking out the crock-pot, but we ended up eating out every night but one (our friends had us over for dinner).  I am sure that we will become more motivated next week, as take out food is already getting old, and going to a restaurant with young kids is not always pleasant (especially for the lucky ones seated next to our family).

 Next week, the crew is planning on taking out the basement stairs, and replacing them, and taking out the chimney.  Speaking of the crew, we checked in with our neighbors to see if they had any concerns.  All they had to say was how polite and conscientious all the workers have been.  We are off to a great start!

Before photos to come…

The Adventure Begins

Our remodeling adventure began in the summer of 2007, when Brian and I decided to finally act upon our dreams to expand our house.  We had done some research and found Urban Design Build, a company who engaged in good building practices, and performed excellent work.  After talking with Jeff Bromwell, an architect and builder, we discovered we had actually played Ultimate Frisbee together, years ago.  The deal was sealed.

Brian and I knew that, in 2007, when the market was still strong, remodels were about a year out, so we met with Jeff and Tobin Weaver, an architect working with the company, and looked at starting in June of 2008.  We currently own a bungalow in NE Portland, built in 1917.  All of the main living areas are on the main floor, and we wanted to expand into our attic to create more space for our family of 2 grown ups, and two young kids.  In March of 2008, we started the design phase, and came up with a great plan to add approximately 1000 sq ft by creating a new second floor, while maintaining the look and integrity of the home.  After reviewing the scope of work, we all decided that we would wait until March 2009 to do the extensive first phase of our remodel (complete second floor, water tight box, but with one large space upstairs until phase 2, some years later).  At this time, the market was struggling, but the NE real estate market was still stable.

As the start date neared, Brian and I started the official loan process.  While researching options, we hit the market at the right time with interest rates for refinancing in the low to mid 4%s.  To qualify for this amazing rate (almost 2% lower then our then current rate), we needed an appraisal.  We also thought we may be able to use the appraisal to secure the line of credit for our remodel.  Well, our appraisal came back much lower than expected.  In fact, our house had dropped by $50,000 as compared to the year before.  Brian and I were shocked and unsure of what to do next.  We wouldn’t be able to finance our remodel, the economy was plummeting downward, and we had to take our job stability into account.

After weighing several options, we talked with Jeff from Urban Design Build, and decided that we would focus on improving the main floor, completely gutting the kitchen and converting a bedroom into a sunroom/den so that we had better access to our backyard.  We could still afford this option, and although our two boys will need to share a room, they are still young and we won’t need as much space for a few more years.  We would be able to enjoy the remodel right away, and even though our design phase had focused mostly on the second floor remodel, we now had the long-range plan, so that when the kitchen was remodeled, we would be accounting for other construction in the future.

We then started the process of securing a home equity line of credit.  We were initially working with one bank, and thought we would be able to qualify for 100% financing.  Even though their web page still offered 100%, the loan officer stated that they were not doing any loans above 80%, if your house was worth more than $400,000.  After a few more days of research, we happened upon a local credit union who had low rates, a great loan officer, and a smooth process.  We secured our loan after meeting all of the criteria, and paid our first bill from Urban Design Build!