Modern Austin Homes at InspiredAustin.com » My Remodel

My Remodel: Framing

Ryan Brown — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:09:53 +0000

This is the seventh post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas. Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

With a new slab we are now ready to start framing. This is one of the most exciting parts of building a new home because dramatic changes occur very quickly. One day you have a bare slab, the next day most of the walls are up. Framers are fast! Here is a photo from our first week of framing:

At this point you can start to get a feel for the spaces you are creating – the size and shape, the window and door locations, etc. Of course, there was also a large pile of scrap lumber in the front yard. Instead of sending it to the landfill, we hired Construction Waste Recycler of Texas to shred the wood (while removing nails, etc.) and spread the resulting mulch across the lot. This worked very well to keep our lot from turning in to a mud pit.

After the structure was complete, the framers moved on to installing the sheathing, and then the windows and doors. This process takes a bit longer, but it is critical as there are many essential waterproofing steps. During this process we also made the final siding decisions – choosing to use Douglas Fir siding (see below) as our builder found a great deal on the material (excess from a very large project). Here is a photo of the pre-finished result, gallery below.

Framing Photos

My Remodel: Kitchen Before and After

Ryan Brown — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:52:42 +0000

I just finished posting about the new foundation (I’m slacking), but today you can see photos of our new kitchen on Cindy Black’s Hello Kitchen Blog. Here is one of the great photos taken by Valarie Campbell:

Click on over to Hello Kitchen for more photos & details. I’ll provide background on some of our design decisions in a future post. Thanks to Cindy for a great post and of course to our architect (Robert Shelton), builder (Modern) and contractor/cabinet craftsman (Michael Dickson).

For reference, here is the before photo:

My Modern Remodel: A New Foundation

Ryan Brown — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:28:31 +0000

This is the sixth post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas. Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

After finishing the demolition and site work, our lot was now prepped for construction to start. Our foundation subcontractor began by locating the corners of the slab and setting string-lines. This would allow the surveyor to confirm their locations and make sure everything matched the drawings.

Next we start building the actual concrete forms and filling in with sand. They used sand (and sandbags) to form the concrete beams that support the home.

At this point the plumbers took a week to run all of the water and sewer lines that travel through the slab. We triple-checked all of the locations where the pipes entered and exited the slab as these errors are hard to fix after the concrete is poured.

After all of the water and sewer lines were located and pressure tested, the foundation contractor returned and dug the remaining beams and installed the steel support (re-bar) as specified by the foundation engineer:

Finally, after all of this work, we were able to pour concrete. We were very fortunate to have near-perfect weather for our pour, which resulted in a very smooth finish in our floors. It also helped that our builder specializes in high-end pools and hardscapes, making them experts in concrete. We were very happy with the results:

Over the next few days we watered the slab to help it cure with minimal cracking. Now we’re ready for framing!

Vacation is Over, Ready for Feedback

Ryan Brown — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:30:41 +0000

You may have noticed that things have been a bit slow around Inspired Austin lately. I have been travelling quite a bit, most recently on a long overdue vacation.

In any case, I have some work to do to get my Modern Home List back up to date. The Austin Board of Realtors recently changed the data format of their MLS feed. As a result my modern home lists and search will be down for a bit. If you need help in the meantime send me an email.

While I’ve got the hood open I plan to tweak the design of the site as well. If you have any feedback on the layout, content, etc. please let me know. One common complaint is that my contact info is too hard to find, so here is my email:

ryan at inspiredaustin dot com

I also apologize to those following my remodel blogging. I did not live up to the example of timely blogging set by the Erwins and Schusters who went before me. I do plan to finish out the series as I believe it is helpful for those planning a similar path.

I am now living in the home, and I love it. Photos to follow, but here is a sneak peek of the exterior:

Again – please don’t hesitate to email with any questions or feedback on the site.

The Remodel Begins – Demolition

Ryan Brown — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:39:27 +0000

This is the fifth post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas. Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

Note – I’m way behind on ‘My Remodel’ posting. Bear with me as I catch up. If you have a specific question or interest feel free to send me a note – ryan at inspiredaustin.com.

Also – I’m going to gloss over the financing and permitting aspects of the process. While these are critical and can take a lot of time, I don’t think it makes for exciting reading. My general advice in this area – work with architects/lenders who are very familiar with the process.

Phase 1: Free/Paid Demolition via Craigslist

Prior to construction, we lived in our house for over a year. While it wasn’t it great shape, we knew there were many items that could be reused. Craigslist to the rescue. We quickly sold our appliances and several light fixtures along with some of our furniture. Great! But we still had several items that could be reused and would be expensive to demo – like concrete pavers, wire fence panels, and our old garage:

The answer – list them on Craigslist for free. But be warned – this will result in an onslaught of calls and emails. We got rid of the pavers and fence within a few hours of the posting. People were happy to dig them out and take them away. Several people came by to look at the garage but found that the trees on our lot would prevent extraction. In any case – materials removed free of charge that won’t end up in a landfill.

Phase 2: Selective Demolition and Extraction

Next we started true, messy demolition. While we considered going with Habitat for Humanity’s DeConstruction service, our builder had a strong relationship with another contractor who’s price couldn’t be beat. He also sorted and recycled materials so it was an easy choice. The crew first went through the house and removed all materials that could be re-used. These ended up at habitat for humanity mostly – some I think the men may have detoured to a local flea market. In any case – not a landfill:

If anyone is interested in the mustard-swirl colored cultured marble countertop with inset shell sink it may still be available at the Re-Store.

We were also able to sell our 50 yr old wood windows on Craigslist to a man restoring a similar home in East Austin – he was pretty excited so I probably didn’t charge enough for them. I was just glad to find them a new home:

Phase 3: Structural Demolition

And then the walls came down. It was neat to see them sort the lumber they had removed – some of it we reused on site (50 yr old lumber is stronger and straighter than today’s 2×4, or so I’m told), and smaller pieces are taken to be re-used as concrete form stakes.

The rest of the materials were taken away in dumpsters – which you can sort for recycling as well. They can even recycle busted up concrete. Finally we were left with the shell of our home, ready for a new addition. Here are some photos:

Stay tuned for another exciting post on ‘My Remodel’ – A New Foundation.

Finding Our Modern Builder

Ryan Brown — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:33:23 +0000

This is the fourth post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas. Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

With our remodel design in hand (see previous post – Designing our Central Austin Remodel), we were ready to begin the search for a builder. This was probably my least favorite step in the process, and yet probably the most important step in ensuring the success of our project.

As with Our Central Austin Home Search, we first thought about the characteristics we were looking for in a builder to make sure we were efficient in our search. Here is our list (in no particular order):

Affordable and available in our timeframe
Good references and relevant experience
Experience remodeling older homes
Detail oriented
Creative problem solver
Open to trying new technology
Interest/experience with efficient (green) building
Experience with/interest in modern design
Understands architectural vision and can interpret details
Interested in/excited about our project
Fun to work with

Most of these are fairly obvious, and some not entirely critical. We were hoping to find a builder with an interest in modern design, but this was not a deal breaker. It was more important that we were confident in their ability to execute the architect’s vision on time and on budget. Of course we had to be able to tolerate spending a lot of time together as well.

In generating our list of potential builders we tried to stick with those who came recommended by friends and neighbors. We ended up with about 6 solid options based on this input. The first three were eliminated quickly based on availability and one firm who only builds their own designs.

The Low Point in the Builder Search

We were a little discouraged at this point, but we pressed on to the remaining three. We finally got a meeting with the first of these, who we’ll call Builder A. Builder A does a lot of work in Central Austin and therefore has a lot of experience in remodeling older homes. We had seen their work on a home tour and were generally impressed with the quality.

Of course we were very nervous for the meeting, as this would be the time that a real dollar amount would be assigned to the project. During the meeting Builder A reviewed our drawings, asking questions about how we would like certain details finished out. After about an hour we left, Builder A promising to send us an estimate by the end of the week.

After two weeks and no word from Builder A, we were a bit discouraged – strike four. When we finally received a voicemail from the builder’s assistant a few days later he gave us a very high rough estimate (1 significant digit, about twice what we expected). Clearly they weren’t interested in the project, which is fine. However, the high number certainly didn’t help our morale.

Close but no cigar

For our 5th try, we spoke with a builder that came highly recommended by a good friend. Nana Kim designed and built her own house in South Austin. The design is very well done and the builder did a great job in executing the details. If you’d like to see this home in person, be sure to buy your 2008 AIA Tour Ticket. Here is a sneak peek of Nana’s front door (I love the wood):

So we met with her builder, Larry Anderson.

Larry was extremely helpful, taking the time to talk us through the costs of various aspects of our project. He has done several similar remodel/addition projects and had a lot of data at hand, which was helpful to give us a rough cost estimate. This was much more detailed than the single number we received from Builder A, and much more in line with our expectations.

Unfortunately Larry was in very high demand, and booked for the next 12 months! So back to the drawing board…

One last try

We had one more builder that came highly recommended from an acquaintance. We also had a favorable impression of their work based on their entry on a previous Green Homes tour. However, this builder was a bit different – it would require my wife and I to manage the project.

We met with Mark Pritchard of UBuildIt several times to discuss our project. He was very helpful and gave us a fairly detailed cost estimate, which was inline with our expectations. However, in the end my wife and I decided that we wouldn’t be able to dedicate the time required to manage the project at the level we wanted as we both work full time. What now?

Modern Design Build to the rescue

At this point I was frustrated and telling any friend who would listen about my fruitless search for a builder. One of these friends decided that he could do something about it.

Modern Design Build is a small company in West Austin that does a lot of very high end projects. They don’t really advertise, staying busy based only on referrals. Their reputation for stunning design, flawless construction and excellent customer service precedes them.

They are outstanding with details, here is an example. Have you ever seen jobsite sign like this:

However, Modern DB mainly works in West Austin (West of Mopac, to Lakeway and beyond), and on much larger projects than my remodel. They focus on pools, landscaping, and outbuildings but have experience in residential construction.

But I had two things working for me – I have known the owner of the company for many years and he has always been interested in efficient (green) design and construction; and they had an opening in their calendar that matched my schedule. Woo hoo!

So Modern DB superintendent Michael Dickson took on our project. We were very fortunate here as Michael has significant experience working with many architects and builders in Austin. He grew up doing cabinet and trim work on high end homes around town and went on to build several homes in West Austin.

Michael reviewed our plans quickly and noted many details that my wife and I hadn’t even noticed. He discussed several implementation details with our architect on the spot. We could tell that he was very interested and excited about the project, it was both impressive and encouraging.

A few days later Michael gave us detailed bid and rough schedule. We met a few more times to iron out details, but there was really no question. Michael and Modern DB were by far the best fit for us. They completely understand the design vision of our project and they produce an extremely high quality product. Michael is great to work with and made many suggestions to help us get the most for our money. Here he is in deep thought:

Needless to say, we are extremely satisfied with Michael and Modern Design Build (we are about 3/4 through the project – I’m way behind on blogging!). I would highly recommend Modern DB to anyone considering a remodel, a new home, or a pool. They are of the highest integrity and I couldn’t be happier with our house thus far.

Designing our Central Austin Remodel

Ryan Brown — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:46:18 +0000

This is the third post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas. Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

As I covered in the Home Search post, we considered our remodeling options when we purchased our home. We found a small home on a big-enough lot and began to plan our project.

Starting Point

The original home sits towards the front of a long, narrow city-size lot with homes on either side. There are several medium sized trees on the property and one large Elm on the North property line, all of which shade the rear of the house (West) from the afternoon sun. Here’s a top view of my rough model (North is up):

While the existing garage was moments away from collapse, the house was structurally sound. We wanted to re-use as much of it as possible. Here is the floorplan:

You can see that the home was originally a 3 bedroom 1 bath with a small living room and kitchen. We think the rear addition was a closed-in back-porch that was completed in the 1970’s or 1980’s. It wasn’t well built, and had several structural issues.

Here are some photos of the original house:

Design Goals – Fashion and Function

With a long and narrow lot, an existing house, and several good sized trees, we knew our remodel/addition design would be challenging. We did our best to keep our program simple and to stay open to our architect’s ideas. Here is a list of our ‘functional’ criteria:

Open and connected common areas (living, dining, kitchen …)
Strong connection to the outdoors (lots of glass, outdoor living)
Energy efficient design (minimize solar heat gain, maximize breeze …)
Main floor master and guest bedrooms
Secluded office (I like quiet, my wife likes to hide my mess, win-win)
Option for separate studio and workshop

As for fashion, our tastes lean towards Modern and MCM architecture/design, however we also wanted our home to relate to the design elements of our neighborhood (mostly Craftsman and some Victorian). An interesting challenge, so we left this up to our architect . Lets see how we did before this post gets any longer.

Design Details

Below is the layout of our remodel/addition. You can see we re-oriented the spaces in the original home, while adding a kitchen, sitting room, and master suite.

The key challenge in our design turned out to be the large tree just behind the old addition. Fortunately we were able to use this to our advantage and design a courtyard around it. This is one of our favorite elements of the new design.

The kitchen opens to this courtyard, and is connected to the living/dining area in the old house. We also added a clerestory to bring light into the Living/Dining room and allow for ventilation.

Not shown above – there is a room above the master suite, which is my (secluded) office. Finally, our architect designed an optional secondary workshop/studio structure at the back of the lot. Here are a few images of the mostly-accurate 3d model:

With that our architect addressed all of our needs while keeping the design within our budget. At each step he provided suggestions that were usually right on target and often saved us money. Needless to say, we are happy clients!

Great! So who is your architect?

In Austin we are fortunate to have many amazing architects. Guiding my wife and I through the design process was my good friend from college, Robert Shelton. Robert works here in Austin and has designed several residential and municipal projects. He designed one of my more popular listings, a ‘Hill-Country Modern’ home with a view, which I will be re-posting soon.

Robert’s website is under construction, so if you’d like to contact him about your project in the near term go ahead and send me an email – Ryan at InspiredAustin dot com. I will update this post with his website as soon as it is ready.

Stay tuned for my next post – Finding a Builder.

Our Central Austin Home Search

Ryan Brown — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:26:30 +0000

This is the second post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas.
Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

We started our home search about 4 years ago. We wanted to find a small home in Central Austin that we could live in immediately and remodel in the future. Like every home buyer, we were first concerned with location and price.

Step 1 – Use Map data to find target areas

To help narrow down our options we began by plotting homes for sale in a way that would allow us to quickly evaluate the price relative to the area. We used Google Earth to visualize this data, here is an example map (icon colors indicate relative $/sqft):

Mapping the relative prices of homes for sale allowed us to quickly identify areas and properties we could afford, or where there was an anomaly (a good deal). We honed in on these areas and began looking at houses.

Step 2 – Look at houses to buy and to learn

We probably toured at least 100 homes. Large homes, small homes, new and old. This gave us an excellent understanding of the home values for the different areas. Seeing the new homes gave us ideas for what to do (and not do) when it came time for our remodel.

Side Note: It is a good idea to check out remodeled homes in your area when planning a remodel. This not only gives you ideas, but also helps you understand values in the area.

Step 3 – Evaluate houses for living and remodeling

When we found a good price/location match, we then had to examine its potential for remodeling. Here is a list of the criteria we considered:

Lot size & orientation
Tree locations
Power lines at side or rear
McMansion Ordinance Implications
House condition (aesthetic & structural)
House location on lot

All of the above will determine the possibilities for an addition/remodel. In our case the lot orientation and tree locations as well as the condition of the existing home were most important. The lot orientation and tree locations not only determine where you can build (due to protected trees) but also the sun exposure and prevailing winds – very important for an efficient home.

As to the homes condition, we had two rules:

The home had to be livable, because we needed to move in immediately. This was not only to get a feel for the existing spaces and the lot, but also to meet the neighbors and enjoy the area.
The home had to be mostly original. We did not want to pay for someone else’s remodel that didn’t meet our taste or standards.

Conclusion – What we found

Ok, I know what you’re thinking – “Get to the point. What did you find?!” We found a few great homes, made offers on 4, and had 1 offer accepted. During the option period we had an architect and builder review the site to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. With a clean bill of health we closed and moved in to this home:

Click below for more photos and details…

It had 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a dining room, small kitchen, and living room. It also had a poorly built addition at the back of the house, which was used as a dog/laundry room. Here are more before photos:

As you can see, definitely livable condition. The home is on a large lot (7800 sqft), is shaded by several large trees, and faces East. Of course I had to build a quick Sketchup model during the option period to get a feel for the lot:

And then we moved in, and lived happily ever after… for about a year… stay tuned for my next post – Designing our Central Austin Remodel.

My Modern Remodel

Ryan Brown — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:48:26 +0000

This is the first post about my modern remodel in Austin, Texas.
Click here for all ‘My Remodel’ posts.

In the past I have suggested that building your own modern home is a great way to get the home you want in the location you want. Well, now it’s time that I put my money where my mouth is.

In the tradition of great Modern House blogs that have gone before me, I will record my own modern remodel here at InspiredAustin.com. My wife and I are nervous and excited to tackle this project, and to share our journey with all of you.

Here is a sneak peak of a before photo and an after rendering:

Why blog this?

Of course, I really enjoy following these types of projects, and I think other people do too. Home makeover blogs, magazines, and television shows are very popular. Everyone loves to see the scary ‘Before’ and the amazing ‘After’ (all in 30 minutes!).

However, the primary reason to blog our remodel is to share knowledge. I have learned a great deal from following other renovation project blogs relating to design, permitting, contrators, loans, etc. In fact, before we started planning our project I spoke to other house-bloggers to learn more about the process and the team they hired. It was a great education, and didn’t cost me anything! (besides a meal or two).

I hope that by following my project you will be able to learn about the process through my successes and setbacks.

Note – I do not intend to fully dedicate this space to my renovation. I will still cover local architectural, green building, and real estate issues. All posts related to My Remodel will be listed under the My Remodel tag (at right).

Stay tuned for my first post – Our Central Austin Home Search