Unconvetional Chandelier

In the past I've designed a home and turned my wife loose on the interior design because she is good at it. This time I got a little more involved. Since we had somewhat of an industrial design going, i've had an idea in the back of my head for months. I hate shopping so i never do this type of thing; but one day i was checking out some different things on ebay and came across so old street light lenses for $15 and a walk/don't walk sign for $15. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but i just had to have them for that price. I bought them and stored them in my office for a while. I recently installed them both into the home and these are the results.

To build the chandelier I spent about $80 on various black pipe fittings in 1" and 3/4" diameter. I then purchased some inexpensive black pendants without shades so the cost was pretty minimal. I took the street light lenses to a glass company and had them drill out some holes in the center of the lenses because they had to be done with special tools. I assembled the parts as I ran the wiring, then mounted it to a beam over the dining room. For a little extra style I purchased some stylish filament type bulbs. We also tried large 5" diameter bulbs that also looked pretty cool, but we preferred the shape of this vintage style bulb. Another bonus, because of the fitting I used where the light mounts, we can rotate the chandelier according to wherever the dining table is positioned.

The walk/ don't walk sign I turned into a do not disturb light by my office door. With a little forethought, we wired the office with a switch to control the sign from my desk. When i'm on a call and don't want to be disturbed, I switch the light to don't walk and my family knows to give me a minute. Really it's more of a silly gimmic than anything, but it's a fun little feature and we have the only street lights and walk don't walk signs within 50 miles.

Before and After

These before and after pics have been a long time coming and I have a lot of filling in to do between the framing stage and these pics. We got so busy working on this remodel project I never got around to blogging about the progress.

First on the list of pics is the exterior. When I started this project, my goal was to design it in such a way that no one would know that it was a remodel. Its always been a peeve of mine when someone ads on to their house without any forethought as to incorporating the addition into the existing design of the home. For us, it was a complete change of architectural style. The way the old home sat in comparison to the lay of the land made this addition very challenging. The winters are long and cold in the mountains, so having a garage was also a requirement. It was challenging to incorporate an attached garage with the addition, working around the lay of the land and the existing home. I've never had a design project this challenging, but it's been fun to see something different than I have designed in the past come together.

The old 'cube of butter with a roof' as I referred to it:

And the new design:

The old Fireplace:

And the new Fireplace:

The old front door:

And what is in it's place now:

And the relocated Entry:

Old Kitchen:

New, relocated Kitchen:

Reclaimed Timbers

I picked the absolute worst day to go and get reclaimed timbers for our home. We bought them from a place called Trestlewood in Blackfoot, ID. I planned to head up last week before we had any snow at all, but their salesman in SLC told me I had to have an appointment. So, i scheduled one as soon as I could get one, which was the Monday before Thanksgiving. He insisted I get an appointment so that they could find the timbers in sizes I needed, then all i would have to do is choose the ones I wanted from what they had. Monday morning I headed out and the weather was horrible. I called their office to let them know I was running a bit late due to heavy snows and they said, 'no problem, that will give us more time to get ready for you.' I finally showed up 45 minutes late in Blackfoot only to find they had no idea I was coming. Apparently there was a communication problem between their Blackfoot and SLC office. I ended up spending 5 hours at their place sifting through stacks of timbers buried in snow with Pedro and another guy that barely spoke English. They were super freindly and helpful, but it was hard for them to understand what type of post I was looking for. Finally I found Bob in his office who helped me locate what we were after. Once I spoke with him we had everything located and loaded within an hour.

Finally I thought I was home free. Neil was waiting on these timbers for a couple of load bearing walls he was building that day, and I was late. I left Blackfoot at around 2 and should have been in Wyoming in 2 hrs. Due to complete whiteout conditions it took me another 5 1/2 hours to get there. Once I arrived I found I had gotten a flat somewhere along the way. I had a double axle trailer, and since i was driving around 20 MPH and couldn't even see the trailer behind me because the blizzard was so thick, i never noticed. $125 later I had a new tire, but we still had to unload the timbers. It took another 3 1/2 hours to get my truck up the hill and into our place and unload them. The snow was so deep i got stuck twice trying to get in. This pic below was the clearest conditions I had all day.


All in all it was an adventurous day, but the timbers should look pretty cool in the house when it's complete. They are old barn or warehouse timbers that are partially painted with old brackets, bolt holes and whatnot on them. They don't look super awesome in these pics since they are wet and partially covered in snow and dirty road spray.

Started Framing

Getting to the point we could start framing took much longer than we thought as we had a few hurdles along the way. Our framer Neil finished up another job later than he planned and our foundation guy took longer than he planned so we got a late start and unfortunately for us, winter came extra early this year, and with a vengance. I think we have over 24" of snow already. We just blew about 18" off of the main floor with the snowblower over Thanksgiving weekend, and got stuck 3 times trying to get in to do so. I need to get my tractor back up there so we can use it to clean up the snow. I hoped to get it framed up and a roof on at least before we got too much snow. The last few years we haven't gotten hit hard with snow until Dec. So far though, Neil and his guys have done an excellent job. It's nice to have a framer that wants it to turn out how it should instead of just wanting to get off the job asap.

This is our new basement. Upstairs will have similar window layout directly above with a large deck.

Foundation In

We recently had our foundation poured with much beefier footings that we're used to. The snow loads up here are much more than Northern Utah, so we had to accomodate.

While the hole was open, my dad and I installed some foundation drains to help get any moisture away from the foundation walls and out to the back of the home. I put in verticals at every corner I thought I might have a downspout. This drain turned out to be helpful since the excavator cut the water main without me knowing so when i turned the water on for a few minutes it filled the hole, the drain helped get it out.

Before / Soon to be After

Our house now.

And our proposed after - With more trees around the home of course, i didn't have time to draw them all in on this rendering.

Hole

We have a hole. And a lot of dirt to put somewhere. Surprisingly, no rocks in the soil at all.

New Direction

It's been a while since I've made a blog entry. Back in May I had taken my wife with me to Wyoming when i cased out those windows in the previous post. We had been discussing a permanent move to Wyoming over the years, but the timing was not right as our daughter was receiving cancer treatments at the time. Well it's been 2 yeras since her transplant and she is doing wonderful and life has slowed back down to some kind of normalcy. I guess we're not used to that and want to complicate things, so after looking around at our options we decided where we really wanted to be was on this property we already owned. So, a small remodel just turned into a much bigger one as we'll need more space for us, 5 kids, a studio for my artist wife and a private office that I can work out of. The existing home was just not quite large enough since it had no basement. So our 70's style cube of butter with a roof will become something about twice as big and a little more interesting.

Here are a few pictures of the newly cleared area where we will be building the addition and garage. I had some anxiety about clearing any trees as that's what i love about this property. But my wife kept reminding me we have about 500 more so we will survive. We're adding a new kitchen and family room area on the front of the existing home, an upstairs with some bedrooms for the kids and of course a big garage because we have some long winters and I'll need some space to park a tractor i'll be using to clear out our 1/4 mile drive.

Drywall is all done, started casing out windows today.

Yes, my house is still yellow.

I can't wait to paint the place, but the inside is priority so I can spend the night while i work on the outside.

We're now getting drywall installed in the additions and a whole bunch of patching is taking place everywhere else to clean up all the holes we made to update electrical and plumbing. We're getting closer.

Found a cool website for door kits, if anyone is looking for a new door idea for your place.

Check out Crestview Doors

New Windows, Finally.

It's been along time coming. We finally got all of the new windows installed going from 1 smaller window in most of these rooms shown, to large view windows. The new windows have made a huge difference already, letting in lots of natural light and the views are great. We're excited to get them cased inside and out.

Tree Falling on House

Just arrived this morning to find that an Aspen tree had broken off at the roots and crashed down onto the house, then bounced and hit again further up. Luckily there doesn't appear to be any major damage. We will have to have part of the soffit and fascia redone and several sections of the metal roof have been dented and damaged. Minor setback I guess, but a setback nonetheless.

Insulation

An finally some insulation. We blew in over the minimal amount that was already in the attic, in the addition walls, addition attic and into the crawlspace walls. They forgot to insulate the rim, but will be back for that. I'm picking up my two missing windows today and hopefully will be able to make it up soon to install them and we can turn on the heat.

Electrical Work Done

Electrician came up this week and knocked out all the electrical add ons and re-routing. Furnace is now working and keeping things warm which is very nice. Tomorrow the insulation company should make it up and fill up the attic and new addition walls, as well as the crawl space and foundation. Should be a big improvement over the very little insulation that is in the home now. Pics to come, soon as I make it up there again. Might be a few weeks with a baby due any day and Christmas next week.

Early December Progress

We installed windows on the addition this weekend. Well, most of them. We ordered 1 too few and one of them that we did get is the wrong size. So we're going to have to wait on two more windows to be built before we can finish up. Here are some pictures of the recent improvements.

Here are the new water heaters just installed. I had planned to do inline tankless water heaters, but the plumber suggested electric because they are the least maintenance and less expensive. Since I won't be living in this home full time he thought we'd be a lot happier with the low maintenance of these. I hope he is right.

Hall bath tub. My wife didn't want a 6' long tub, so we opted for this deeper 5 and we'll build a bench at the end. Hope it turns out. Had to put a window in there so you can look into the trees while you have a shower. I wish i had a before and after pic of this bathroom. It was very small. You can see the holes in the floor where the old toilet and shower plumbing was. The vanity was where the clothes hanger is there. Just really tight. This new bathroom will feel very roomy in comparison.

My bro trying out the master bath. I'm wishing those windows were about 6" lower, but no going back now. It will be nice, the shower on the other side of the room will have similar views.

And finally the new master bath addition. We're getting there, but we still have a long way to go.

November Update

This is why it is nice to have one sub out before another comes in. The framer had not finished the chimney completely so the heating guy left parts for how high he thought the chimney would be. He's a little short and snow is on the way so i had to temporarily cover the top to keep it dry until I can get the heating guy back.

Only the framer and I can really appreciate this photo. I had a few broken trusses caused by really heavy snow load and poorly assembled trusses. Phil jacked up the bottom chords of the trusses on the inside and fixed them according to an engineer friends specifications. The ridge sag is now gone, and the ceiling sag inside is gone as well. What a relief.

New East side addtions sans windows. I'm still waiting on the windows to be finished, but the addition is all ready for them.



I was pleased with how concerned Phil was about keeping my existing trees. They are one of the reasons I love this property. This aspen is within a foot of the new addition, but was not disturbed.
Photo of the East side addition soffit and fascia - built ot match the existing structure.

And finally the west side addition. Soon we'll have a large 5'x5' window next to that chimney and more on the other side to take advantage of the view. Shown in the photo below.