TAC Central => Hobbies => Topic started by: Jack on March 11, 2022, 02:03:33 PM
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I know most on here are handy and like seeing construction projects and therefore I'll share my house addition that was completed few years ago. I think it will be interesting to see how things are done in the northeast and this gives my a chance to show off my construction skills :D :lol:
I'll be very specific as to what was done by me personally vs. the contractors and provide a lot of pictures.
Basically my house use to be a small ranch (approx. 2,400 s.f. on 2/3 acre land) 3 bedrooms, two baths, very small kitchen and combined living room/dinning room. The addition was approx. 1,100 and added a master bedroom with 2 walk-in closets and a master bath; and an eat in kitchen (about 600 s.f. master bedroom and 500 s.f. kitchen). The three existing bedrooms were combined into 2 and each was provided with a walk-in closet. Other things done to the existing house include adding a half bath, family room (you won't believe this) MOVED a fireplace and converted to gas, cut in a new lower level entrance (was not fun).
I designed and drew all plans as well as designed/sized all structure elements. I've also done most of the interior finishes but will detail as we go alone. AND we did all of this without moving out... Correction we moved out for five days to get the floor redone.
This is what the rear of the house looked like.
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I demo'ed the porch and excavation started.
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You had me at "small ranch- 2400 square feet". Around here, we call that huge! My current house is only 1600 or so.
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The 2,400 s.f. included the finished basement, complete with a kitchenette and the second full bath. At the time with did not use it much and therefore the house was small for us. Now I pretty much live (work) in the basement...
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You had me at "small ranch- 2400 square feet". Around here, we call that huge! My current house is only 1600 or so.
I was gonna say, mine is only 1300 lol. That doesn’t include my basement either though which is finished
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More excavation and now you see the outside wall of the existing basement. Also the bulkhead removed exposing the basement door.
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This also exposed un unpleasant surprise, the section of the house to the left use to be a sunroom/porch which I converted to an interior space long ago (use to be the family room). That portion of the house did not have a basement or a foundation... Also this solved the mice problem, for a while I could not find where they were entering the house and the rotted wood with mice dropping's reveled the source.
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Footing time but again we ran into issues, this time it was ledge, the options were to blast or build around and on top of the ledge.
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Concrete footing poured (more like pumped over the house - not cheap)
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Wow! This is pretty darn interesting!
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Footing forms removed (note keystone for the foundation wall) also poured a footing in front of the area that did not have a foundation/basement (last pic).
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Basement foundation wall forms and existing building tie-ins.
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Round 2 concrete poured (actually pumped)
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The blob of concrete in the center (last pic above) is for a lally column that will be installed under LVLs to span the floor. Basically it's a footing that will get covered up by the floor slab so no need to form it or make look pretty.
I also went with 8' panels but should have gone with 10' to give me more headroom in the new basement, but that would have required excavating 2' more and ledge blasting. I did not want to spend anymore especially since I don't need the basement space and I now use it for car parts storage. It's not pretty but the car parts don't mind.
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Forms removed and now you can see the future basement/storage, also the huge concrete shelf (that I currently use as a work bench) was poured to retain the dirt foundation under the original porch. Of course it rained many times and I had water in the house few times during construction.
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That is some serious work! I like it!!!
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Time to backfill and grade, I don't remember how much dirt was hauled away but it was a lot.
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First shipment LVL and I joist. Most of the I joists were installed the same day.
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Wow that is quite the project!
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I love it Jack, that was quite an undertaking. I can speak from experience, none of that was easy. Interesting that you formed your footings. We had a guy working for us that came from Cape Cod. He was dumbfounded the first time we dug footings. He had never seen it that way, and told us that he always formed them like you did. We dig them into the ground. On a job like yours that is particularly fun. Takes some special backhoe skills, LOL. I also like you comment about the 'blob' for the lally support. Our footers (again, always dug) had to be perfectly square and good sharp corners at the bottom. Pop wouldnt let us dig them sloppy.
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It definitely was a very stressful time especially since I was acting as a GC and did fair amount of the work myself (finishes - I'll explain out as I go alone). It took over a year to plan and obtain all permits. I drew all of the plans on AutoCAD including sizing and scheduling everything. And we never moved out (with the exception of few days as the floor was drying).
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Subfloor installed minus sections to allow them to go down to the basement.
Basement slab poured (no pics)
Framing started using 2x6 for exterior walls and 2x4 for interior.
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The roof was next.
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Of course it did not rain until the old roof came off... fun times.
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Roofing including replacing the old one is complete.
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The existing house's roof is trusses that spans the short side of the house, I looked into trusses for the addition but decided to go with conventional framing to avoid tie-ins complexity with the existing system.
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You certainly transformed your home. That is incredible work IMO. You had to have put a lot of thought into how you wanted it to turn out.
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Very nice Jack!! Keep those pictures coming, I love it.
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6 months into construction and now it was end of December. It was cold but at least the house was weather tight and the existing portion of the house still intact (you can see the old windows, exterior door and patio door still in place).
New windows and door installed.
Rough plumbing was done, and I did all of the rough wiring.
From this point on I did a lot of the work myself, including all interior walls and the modifications to the existing portion of the house.
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We also use strapping which I was surprised to hear is not used down south.
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That’s quite the undertaking. Thanks for posting the process. Very nice
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You certainly transformed your home. That is incredible work IMO. You had to have put a lot of thought into how you wanted it to turn out.
Thanks, it was a lot of work and took one year of planning (drawing many options and constantly arguing with the wife :lol:) But at least I was doing it myself and not paying an architect to draw many options and designs.
But the hardest part was being the GM/CM and to save money I was sourcing all materials and hiring subs. I also made many trips to tax free NH for all major purchases...
Very nice Jack!! Keep those pictures coming, I love it.
Good to hear. Just wait to see what I've done myself.
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By strapping, do you mean those strips nailed underneath the floor joists (well, technically ceiling joists from the basement looking up)? If so, we call them laths and use those on all our barn roofs to nail the tin to :lol: but I've personally never seen them done on a sheetrock ceiling. We just screw the sheetrock to the joists/trusses now. Other than lowering the ceiling an inch, what is their purpose? Just kidding, in the house where we live now, lumber was cheap when I built it. I bought a whole load of 1x12 boards in various lengths. My entire roof is decked with boards, and all my ceilings are solid as I nailed 1x12's to all my ceiling joists. Anywhere you drove a screw for the sheetrock, you hit wood. However, I cannot afford the wood for that at today's prices, and the sheetrock will be screwed straight to the trusses, I'm sure.
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Keep in mind I am a 4th gen builder, and watching this old house was the first time I had ever seen the strapping on the bottom of the ceiling joist. Never done in the mid atlantic. Must be a new england thing. It make sense when trusses are used at 24 o.c. but other than that I dont see what it does. With trusses they are typically braced like crazy in the attic, with hand framing we put a couple of stiff backs centre of the room on top of the ceiling joist.
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I like to say it's for the wiring but was told it's to allow for movement and avoid cracking. I'm not sure I agree but again every house in New England has it. You can see the wiring attached to the ceiling joist/rafters. I've also found running new wires in the future to be much easier as you don't need to drill the joists.
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The house is on a hill and with the bulkhead gone we needed a second means of egress out of the basement. Additionally I always wanted a front lower door so did this by hand. With the exception of saw cutting the opening I did everything else myself without the use of any machines.
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Cutting 12"+ of concrete wall was the worst job, I had to clean up and install the door the same day. Directly inside was our old laundry room and I was cleaning up the concrete water mess for weeks.
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If anyone is wondering what that pipe is, it was the gas line into the house that was re-routed few months before I dug. Here in MA we have a free service called "DIG SAFE" they come out and locate all underground utilities, I've done that before digging.
Also I did compact crashed stone under the block wall (the first pic was just a test fit).
Having the lower door was the best part of the project as we use it all winter and I don't typically shovel the stairs.
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If anyone is wondering what that pipe is, it was the gas line into the house that was re-routed few months before I dug. Here in MA we have a free service called "DIG SAFE" they come out and locate all underground utilities, I've done that before digging.
In Kentucky we have "Call BUD" at 811. Bud is Before You Dig. It is also free. They have to come out within 48 hours after you call.
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We have free 'dig safe' services as well. Used to be 24 hrs. but now its something like 72hrs. If you dont call and hit something, Look out for the fines :shock:
We renovated half of an old grocery store into a town police department. A few years later we got the contract to finish the other half of the building as the new town hall. I had to dig footings in the back and called dig safe. The guy came out and said everything was clear. I argued knowing there were major lines in place from when we worked there the first time. After a bit of going back and forth he finally did find everything.
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So, Jack- is this the end of the remodel thread, or are you taking a well-deserved break after that huge undertaking? I just went back and looked through the entire thread again. All I can say is WOW- I am seriously impressed with your work!
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Mike - I was traveling and therefore did not post any updated.
But to be clear so far my physical involvement was limited to the last few posts, doing a lot of hand digging and building the retainer walls. Moving forward with the post most of the work including all interior walls reconfiguration and finish work is all be me.
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At this stage I took over and was doing most of the work myself. The old kitchen was converted into a half bath and other portions of the kitchen was converted into a corridor that tied the old and new space together.
Having the plumbing there helped as the vanity occupied the space of the old kitchen sink.
You can also see the outline of the old kitchen (area without hardwood floor).
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Completed framing of the kitchen to half bath + corridor + extension into the living room. The old living room was connected to the kitchen via a very small dining room (which was not much of a room).
They had used a mixture of 2x3 and 2x4 for interior walls, I had to match the 2x3 and it was extremely tough finding decent 2x3.
Another challenge was patching downlight openings and old ceiling.
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The first pic shows one of the bedrooms with the external window, which I had to fill in and open up a door for a walk in closet from the old bedroom.
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Next up was the new kitchen, my brother helped me with the floor tile. We laid it out to frame the center island. The last picture you can see all of the downlights, all were perfectly spaced and arranged around the island and cabinets.
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There had to be a LOT of brainwork that went into this project before a single tool was used! I want you to be my design engineer if I ever take on another remodeling project (which, at my age, I likely am never going to do another one).
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Very nice work Jack, I could use someone like you on my team.
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Very nice. I can attest Jack does great work and is very meticulous. I want him to do more, but no he had to get a full-time job. (Which I hope is still working out well for you).
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Thanks Steve, if it was up to me I would have been a carpenter... But I really like my current job, its more of a career change that still allows me to use 30+ years of experience in a different way.
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One of the crazy MA requirements is that you can't have any water run off to the street. For all additions with 75 s.f. or higher of impervious surfaces you need to capture that water and keep it on your land. I had to hire a civil engineer to perform calculations and size the tanks for a 20 year storm. I dug the pit and installed two tanks that connect directly to the addition downspouts.
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Next was the exterior stair and patio. I had the cobblestones and saved them (you can see them in the very first pic - start of the post). I rented a compacter but should have installed more of a base under the stones.
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Those cobblestones look fantastic 8) The water runoff deal... I've never heard of that before. One more reason I better stay down south :lol:
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Those cobblestones look fantastic 8) The water runoff deal... I've never heard of that before. One more reason I better stay down south :lol:
The water runoff does not make sense especially since the additional runoff will be on my landed and backyard... but city officials don't have common sense and they simply tell you it's the law.
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Haven't updated this in a while but I'll start again by showing the finished kitchen.
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Wow! That is absolutely fantastic! I can't let my wife see your kitchen. Otherwise, we will be remodeling before we even get ours done.
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Beautiful job on your kitchen Jack. Nice layout and tons of counter space.
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Thank you all, the kitchen was the hardest, most expensive and involved the most planning (and almost caused a divorce :lol:) BUT the most rewarding part of the addition. If you go up you'll see the tile work and how I framed it around the island and created a border that is perfectly symmetric.
Regrets with the kitchen - I only planned for and have two smaller windows. Both windows are perfectly placed and centered to have perfect symmetry (cabinets and spacing) and exactly across from the side window I have the hood.
For the counter top we went with leather finished granite which was one of the better decisions my wife made. The granite surface is not smooth but it is very forgiving and seems to hold up better.