Moving In

The construction is complete and the last minute finishing details are being finished. The owners have started to move in to their remodel and the whole family is excited to get back to living in a building instead of the back yard "mobile" home.

The changes to the house have been considerable. The contractor has done a great job working with the client and the client has done a great job keeping communications open with the contractor.

The elevated, backyard deck is complete and awaiting patio furniture and a new bbq grill.  The entry is finally done and the garage door has been installed.

The interiors can now be enjoyed since the removal of masking and drop cloths. The hardwood floors that were original to the house, have survived and the new areas blend well. The owners have added their personality to the interior detailing of the house. Tile, hardware and lighting choices blend well together.

The next step will be landscaping and planting. The owners will be working on this all spring and well into the summer. We look forward to adding more photos of the house being "lived in".

We have also started a new blog for Peter Swindley's Architects at www.pdswindley.com/blog

Painting Weather

The sun has come out for a few days in February. The contractor has taken this opportunity to get the exterior of the house painted. The painters started in the back and are working toward the front. The neighbor's cars, houses, landscaping and pets have been masked off to ensure no over spray finds it's way to the wrong place. The 1^st coat went on Thursday and the second coat will be sprayed today.

The old concrete retaining wall in the front of the house has finally been removed and a stacked rock wall no holds the front yard back from the driveway. The old concrete driveway has been removed, and the new driveway will be poured soon. In the back yard, the elevated exterior deck railing is being installed this week and the stair from the back yard to the deck will be constructed next week.

 

  On the interior, the hardwood and tile flooring work is nearly done. All the door trim, window trim and window and railing sills have been installed. There are some splashes of color upstairs where the owners have made some final color decisions and the interior painting has begun.

 Some plumbing fixtures have been installed and most of the cabinets are in place. The owners have been spending some evenings putting together closet organization systems. The completion date is just about a month away.

Happy New Year!

During the last month, the construction details have began to transform the remodel. On the exterior, the contractor has been installing siding and putting up the trellis supports. The ledger support for the elevated deck, on the east side of the house, has been installed and the concrete deck post footings have been poured.

The interior has also been taking shape. Drywall has been installed and is being prepped for paint. Scaffold work has enabled the drywall subcontractor to reach the high vaulted ceiling and the skylight wells are bringing daylight into the upper floor spaces. The tile sub-contractor has started the preparations for the interior tile work on the Kitchen and Dining Room tile floors as well as the Master Bathroom, walk-in shower.

Kitchen cabinets have also been delivered and installed, but are presently hiding behind plastic sheeting to protect them from the drywall sanding dust.

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Thanks to the Arctic air coming down from the north, Seattle has been experiencing some very low temperatures this week. And just in the nick of time, the interior of the house is warming up with the addition of the interior insulation. All exterior windows and doors are now installed, except the front door. The deck revision has cleared the building department review and the deck construction will be starting very soon.

On the upper floor, the vaulted ceiling provided by the scissor style truss, puts the “great” in Great Room. Standing in the proposed kitchen, the entire upper floor feels very open and connected to the exterior. The Dining Room has great views from the snow covered Olympics to downtown Seattle. The Kitchen has a great view of Elliot Bay, Downtown and to the north and east toward Mount Baker and the Cascade Range. The Living Room has a glass patio sliding door that will open onto a new deck.

The construction has been moving right along and is staying very near to the proposed schedule.

Character Building

The exterior of the remodel has really come along in the last couple of weeks. All of the windows and some of the trim have been installed and some of the siding work has started. Inside there has been a lot of sub-contractor work occurring. Electrical, Heating and Plumbing rough-ins are nearing completion.
It is a very rare occasion that a remodel project, like this one, goes from the beginning of construction to end without some sort of changes or revisions. The Dining Room and Kitchen were originally planned to be wood flooring, but after further thought by the owners, tile floors will be used there instead. Also, the elevated deck that is on the east side of the house will be enlarged slightly. This change will allow a new sliding door in the Living Room, where 2 windows were originally planned.
After a recent visit to the site, Peter Swindley suggested a bigger center fixed window in the Kitchen. A few options were discussed, but the end result will be a larger window than expected in front of the Kitchen sink.

Great Progress

The building system “rough-in’s” have been moving right along and this week. The heating and ventilation contractor, the electrician and the plumber have been hard at work routing the new systems for the house. The owners and the contractor have been meeting weekly in order to keep everything moving along as smoothly as possible.

The window installation was also underway this week. Most of the installation looks pretty straight forward, but the new dining room window will be the biggest picture window that is made by Milgard. Not to make things easier, but the installation will be on the tallest part of the exterior. How many guy’s does it take to put in an 11’ wide x 4 1/2’ tall window? This window will be one story above where the original picture window looked out toward Elliot Bay and Downtown Seattle.

With the temporary plastic removed from the window openings, downtown Seattle will be in direct view when working from the kitchen area.

Racing the Rain

The owners provided pizza for the whole crew on Friday to show their appreciation for all the hard work that STS Remodeling has done so far. Late Friday afternoon the patchy clouds had the project in the shade, but the downtown skyline was brightly lit by the low sun.

The roofing went on at the beginning of the week, and the contractor has been working on the interior walls and earthquake hardware in preparation for the shear wall inspection. Some of the windows have arrived and STS will begin the installation after the shear wall inspections are completed.

Earlier in the week, one of the neighbors was wondering why the house had no new south facing windows, but now that the window openings have been cut out of the exterior sheathing, the window locations have become more apparent.

The exterior of the house is shaping up. The original siding hints to the impact of the new additions to the original construction.