On to the remodel...
When we started the thought process we thought we'd add a garage with a living loft and bathroom / kitchenette on the ground level in front of the garage. We had seen a building structure we liked in a copy of Dwell and really liked the architects work - it had a mid century modern feel but in a more updated manner. We did not think twice about it as we thought there would be no way we'd be able to use them as they were growing and busy with some urban projects based out of Milwaukee so we approached a few local firms, and a friend of a family member. Each of the discussions left us looking back to the firm we saw in Dwell. So I mocked up some original pictures, and some current pictures and shared the story of what and why we wanted to do the project. I got a call the same day from them saying they'd be honored to work on the project. Again not thinking we'd be able to go with them due to pricing/availiblity we had our initial meeting and low and behold they were in between commercial projects and a large residential project had been stalled...and their fees were lower than the other three firms we talked to - SOLD. The two principles came on site, walked the property, fussed over my mom, took a million pictures and came back with two design options. In between this we found out that the detached garage with living quarters was nixed due to county code restrictions against having multiple living dwellings on a single parcel of land...Adding a bedroom without removing an existing bedroom also would have required an updated septic which would have put the phase 1 project out of our budget...
So the pictures below are what we ended up going with. Inserting a box under the original box, inserting an internal stairway that would help mom when she wanted to go out in the front by the lake and not have to walk down external steep stairs...opened up additional window space to the lake with some windows that would open, as none of them opened prior so the great breezes off the lake could not be taken advantage of for natural cooling versus A/C. As an aside the entire house is electric - no gas; so a future project will be how we can take advantage of the flat roof with solar and maybe wind generation, certainly open to your all's feedback and experience here - looking for an actual payback versus just being good to the environment. ComEd costs between $650-$850 in the winter months...ouch.
You can see in the first picture on the left - an aerial shot that has "The Pit" filled in. When I went for a building permit the first obstacle was the county rep asked what the dirt patch was..then pulled out a five year earlier GPS aerial shot and it showed the concrete depression clear as day during fall where there was no leaves on the trees....WHAT IS THAT? After explaining the first time politely..the gentleman advised he'd have to 'research' this farther. I got a little hot and told him we were under time pressure to get the project started as it was late fall and we wanted to get closed in by the first freeze. He advised he did not care about our desire and he would take the time necessary. At this point I advised him to talk to his health department counterpart as we had been slapped by the county to remove all metal and landscape waste from the pit prior to filling it in - by then we were getting tri-axle loads full of culvert cleaning by our Township who took filling our pit as a little pet project (I had worked on the road crew during college and knew most of the guys there). You can see the mess we cleaned up at
2009-2010. We were a little miffed as a neighbor reported this just prior to our dumpster arriving rather than coming to talk to us to see what was going on - to each their own I guess. In any regard a week later the County let us know that we were "ok" to proceed with the permit process, thank you very much. In the interim I had a plat and topo survey ordered and the gentleman that came out advised we needed to make sure our large office that was used as a guest bedroom would be classified as a bedroom for the sake of the permit, and since it would be downsized to a smaller office this would offset the additional bedroom downstairs and alleviate the requirement to expand the septic system, excellent advise... Then the second run in with the County, they advised we needed to provide proof we were not in a flood plain due to the fact we were on lake front property. I half jokingly said, how am I Joe Citizen supposed to do that, certainly the County knows the flood plain. No comment they go and pull the insurance / flood plain book 12" thick all dog eared and say - sorry - there is no study on record, you'll need to prove you aren't in the flood plain. No agitated, I ask - really how am I to do that, to which I get a shrug and they say you could do a Google search. I asked them how did the neighbor three doors down do a tear down and rebuild and they advise was it build more that 7 years ago, and I say yeah like 10-11. Well that is why sir, the previous planning director only followed the aerial flood line off the GPS system, our new director goes by the letter of the code you need some xyz LATA USGS reference study... Now pissed I call my surveyor who says common sense should prevail there is a spill over pond that would flood farmland before hitting the level of your house. Tell them you are building in the same footprint of the existing house - that should do it, otherwise since no study exists, we could do it but it could run between 10-15k but then it would exist for you and everyone around the lake. Now I'm all about help thy neighbor but hadn't budgeted a disposable 10-15k. After a week of different tactics, my surveyor finally got a subdivisions survey behind us that was put in and had a 100 year flood level indicator on it which was 9 ft below where we were building. Initially the same rep did not want to take it as it wasn't an official USGS report - but bringing my county rep and the survey co owner and talking to the director pushed it over the edge and we got the permit... Not to insert politics too heavily, this exercise certainly underscored my belief that there is too much big government, which certainly slowed us down from injecting money into the local economy. I'm all about following the rules, but this was extreme.
3 weeks were burnt at this point. Once we got past this issue we started moving rather quickly...
Thanks for posting this remodel. Very cool to see it through the years.
