House remodel begins tomorrow

Ok, so yet another new category has been added. This time, it’s the house remodel. The part that starts tomorrow isn’t actually construction or anything yet – just the architect is going to begin drawing the structure of the existing house. It’s built on a core that dates from about 1927, which probably included a stable or something downstairs, and what’s now the living room, upstairs bathroom, and two bedrooms, plus probably part of the kitchen. Over the years, pieces have been added on – the master bedroom and dining room, as well as a kitchen extension, and the downstairs areas have been semi-built out as livable space. I say semi because there are some walls in odd places. To get from one side of the downstairs to the other, you have to walk through the boiler room. The bathroom is on the far side of the house from the downstairs bedroom. It’s very odd indeed.
So the basic project will be:

• Rationalize the downstairs area
• Move the front entrance from what was the front of the house in 1927 to what’s now the front of the house, which is more of the side of the house at the moment (but faces the driveway); probably move the carport as well to make the new front of the house more visible and elegant
• Raise ceilings, add skylights
• Increase the size of all the windows
• Upgrade plumbing, electric, etc
• New kitchen

Additionally, we might do some landscaping on the hillside above the house – introduce some terraced veggie beds, possibly a path up the hill to the fire road so one can go up there without having to battle the poison oak. There’s a gate at the top of the property, and it looks like there might be some vestiges of previous terracing under the poison oak, brambles and periwinkle, so part of this work might be done already and it might be mostly just a matter of ripping out some of the greenery. Then we might do something with the “hottub” deck too.
So anyway, the architect comes in the morning, to do a detailed drawing of the existing stuff, and to start sketching out ideas for what the new stuff might look like.
Should be fun, at least until the actual construction gets started!
The architect selection process was pretty straightforward, once we got off our butts and actually decided to get going on the project. We visited a handful of architects to browse their portofolios, and the range of skill level is quite substantial. Most, even of the more expensive architects, basically will just knock out a cookie-cutter duplicate house of whatever variety (tudor mansion, tuscan villa, french chateau, etc). All very Los Altos Hills-y. Not really our thing. But then one architect we found seemed to actually have a little more style, and seemed to try and actually do something interesting with the projects he works on. He came to our house to show us his portfolio, rather than have us come to him. Very good salemanship, plus we liked him better anyway. So we signed him up on friday last week, and he starts monday. There seem to be a couple ways architects do things in terms of contractual arrangements, etc. Stan is involved all the way through the project, doing the design and drawings, and then also helping to select a contractor, and to ensure the contractor actually builds according to the design. He works on the basis of 12% of the total project cost, which seems quite reasonable, but is another one of those odd contracts like real estate buyer’s agent contracts, where they get paid more, the more they convince you to spend – which seems like an alignment-of-interest problem. We’ll see how it goes. With buying the house, it turned out OK.
I’ll post updates on this topic from time to time, as well possibly as copies of sketches, drawings, and photos, as they become available. Actually, I didn’t check with the architect who owns the drawings he’ll be doing; the contract didn’t mention copyright of works produced, or licensing rights if he’s the one who retains copyright. Presumably it’s standard for the drawings to belong to the house, since it’d be nice for us to be able to pass them on to any buyer if we ever sell the place. Or nice for us to have them in case we do additional remodels in the future. But then you never know.