Bedroom addition
December 28th, 2006So the bathroom project is largely completed, and I immediately delved into my latest home remodeling project. Its fair to say that remodeling is an addiction.
Our house was built in 1970, and is a basic 1 story ranch with 3 bedrooms. On the south side there are two bedrooms and a bath, and on the north side the garage is in front, and the master bedroom and (newly remodeled) master bath in back. Between the ends there is a formal living room with entry, and formal dining, both in front, and behind each is an informal living room, and informal dining room and kitchen. In 1985 the previous homeowners tacked on a 15×20 foot two story addition off the informal dining room in back. In the southeast corner where the addition and main house join there is a 1 story 8×10′ room connected with a doorway into the addition.
When the addition was created the homeowners chose to remove almost all of the rear windows of the house. (Possibly to prevent light pollution from falling on the 2 story observatory in the backyard, but that is another story.) The master bedroom window was partially covered over by the addition and was removed, the bay window in the informal dining room became the entrance to the addition, and the back door was removed, since it opened into the 1 story portion of the addition.
So when I purchased the house it had 3 bedrooms, 3 living rooms, the upstairs “bonus room” in the addition, 2 baths, no dining room (since it was now a walkway into the addition) and the formal dining room had become a laundry room. It wasn’t very useful. The first project I tackled was moving the entrance to the master bedroom out of the informal dining room and around the corner into the addition. This left us with enough wall space in the dining room to put in a small table. However, at 2500sq feet, and with lots of public space divided into several living rooms, it really needed more bedrooms. Plus with our first child on the way, and a roommate occupying the two bedrooms on the opposite side of the house, it seemed like a good idea.
Earlier this month I blocked out a floorplan that divides the lower level of the addition into a bedroom, a hallway to the master bedroom and staircase, and a half bathroom. Since all of the walls were non-structural partitions I experimented and built the walls from steel studs. They cut easy, go up fast, and are straight and easy to sheetrock. In Austin steel studs are about 50% more expensive than wood framing. Also electrical work is a bit more of a hassle (gromments and special boxes) so I am not sure if I would use them again.
The door to the 1 story portion of the addition now opens into the bathroom, so it will need to be relocated. The only good spot for it is on the other wall, opening into the living room. I could just put in a door, and in fact after opening the wall we found the opening for the former exterior door. Still, this seems like a good time to address the other issue, with no windows the living room is dark, by removing the wall between the 1 story room, and the living room, I can add more windows to the 1 story addition and brighten the living room. In the process I can remove 1/3 of the fireplace rock, centering the fireplace (currently it sits off center in the rock wall).
So for the last two weeks I have drywalled one side of every wall. (I haven’t had framing and rough inspections yet, so I can’t close both walls but I didn’t want the sharp and somewhat fragile steel studs exposed. This last week I’ve been doing the electrical rework. That means adding a hall light, removing some outlets that were in the now bathroom, and moving several circuits that run thru the disappearing living room wall. Plus several switch moves to handle new door locations. Its about 7 minor issues, but since I am trying to minimize the amount of drywall work each of them is taking an evening or so to complete. Not as much fun as doing the bathroom fresh was.
I talked to a structural engineer this morning, the framing gets really weird where the addition and main house connect so I needed some advice on building a header. They never removed the old roof, just built a new roof atop it to connect to the addition. Plus the roof of the 1story addition is setup oddly. He said for the 8 foot span a doubled 2×8 Laminate Veneer Lumber (LVL) beam would be best and gave me a basic education on calculating structural loads. I might write another post about that. The LVL bean was $100 and had to be special ordered, a bit more than $32 for the two 16 foot 2×10 demensional lumber I was planning on using.
So, big project and the scope creep could be massive. Windows are the big one, the new bedroom needs a bigger, egress friendly window, and the connection between the living room and addition has little value unless I put large windows in there as well.