Family stayed put for renovation
The centrepiece of the room, the disco ball-shaped light fixture, was a big sign to Nedra Pickler that her kitchen was past its prime.
But it was hardly the only one. “The floor tiles were coming up, there was a hole in the ceiling from a leak that had been repaired, the dishwasher was broken and, probably the worst, there were sliding glass doors to nowhere” opening to a onestorey drop to the yard at the base of the sloped site, she said.
Similar evidence mounted about her shabby bathroom off the basement family room in her home.
It was indisputable, time for kitchen and bathroom makeovers.
In the 1970s, noted architect Chloethiel Woodard Smith designed a contemporary kitchen and adjacent pantry/ breakfast nook for the 1930s house and added a basement area.
To prepare the house for sale, the most recent owners had installed stainless-steel appliances.
Otherwise, no modernisations had been made in decades, and the house showed its age.
Since buying the fourbedroom, two-bathroom house in 2010, Nedra along with her sons, now 6 and 9, and her mother, Marcy Pickler, had made do with its shortcomings and deterioration.
Like most homeowners going through an extensive renovation, the Picklers had to decide between two difficult choices — endure the noise and inconvenience and remain in their home during construction or endure the expense of moving into a temporary rental. They opted to stay.
The four-month project from June to September included remodelling and expanding the 7.8sq m kitchen and refreshing the 2.4m by 2.7m bathroom. Construction also consisted of refinishing the first-floor wood floors and upgrading wiring.
The kitchen would be nonfunctional most of that time, the bathroom would be unusable for the last five weeks or so.
Cost for the entire project, about US$207,000.
When she first opted to move forward with the project, Nedra said just about all her friends advised her against staying in the house during the project.
To her surprise, it was her remodeller who convinced her it could work.
“Most of our clients tend to be fairly comfortable” staying in their homes,” said David Vogt, who designed the project along with Mary Englert of Case Design/Remodeling in Bethesda, Md.
It’s common for people to live in their homes during a remodel, even without a usable kitchen or bathroom.
For homeowners, the key is to understand what to expect and to be flexible.
For remodellers, the key is to keep the homeowners informed and as comfortable as possible throughout the project.
Senior project manager Kevin Morrissey said Case aims to keep living in a house during construction “as normal as possible on the other side of the dust wall” that seals the work area from the living area.
To control dust and isolate the kitchen construction zone and staging area, “we had a bubble in Nedra’s space”, Morrissey said.
Case enclosed the area with stud-framed plastic walls, placed a plastic top over the loft-style breakfast area and open stairway, and used heavy-duty floor covering.
A vinyl zipper door provided access, air scrubber equipment cleaned and recirculated the air and the company covered the first-floor furniture, too, as some dust is unavoidable.
Although the “bubble” separated the construction zone from the living area, sealing off part of the house and moving its furnishings into the remaining space compromises comfort in other ways.
“As you seal off space, you compress your house,” Morrissey said.
Remodellers usually squeeze a makeshift kitchen into a compressed space, typically including the old refrigerator and perhaps a countertop section and a couple of cabinets pulled out of the old kitchen.
Often the dining room houses the “kitchen”, sometimes it goes into an enclosed porch, where homeowners can supplement it by using the backyard grill.
For Nedra, they set up a basement kitchenette near the laundry sink, incorporating the old refrigerator.
Her microwave, toaster oven and coffee pot and a two-burner hot plate on loan from Case sat on a folding table.
“Picture a family room, now double the furniture and add a kitchen and dining table,” Marcy said.
Preparing to be kitchenless, the family “cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer”, said Nedra, eating what was there and “making smoothies out of everything”.
“It’s a little harder to eat healthy” when relying on takeaways and convenience food, said Nedra, “but you have to realise it is temporary.”
Most of the noisiest and messiest work — the demolition — was done the first week.
During construction, the nail gun compressor stayed outside to reduce noise in the house.
When the water needed to be turned off for a while or something noisy was scheduled, Whealon worked out the timing with Marcy and Nedra to reduce inconvenience.
During the basement bathroom upgrade, the family shared the second-floor bath.
Marcy said they had a rule, “A closed door equals a locked door.”
The Picklers reached a new state of displacement when the floors were being refinished.
Now the neighbours saw not only the porta-potty in the front yard but Nedra’s son practising piano on the front porch where the piano had been moved.
Next up is phase two of the home improvement, a threestorey addition with an extended basement and first-floor and second-floor master suite.
Case is ready, “The plumbing is in the floor for the future master bedroom and bath suite,” Morrissey said.
Looking back on the fourmonth kitchen and bath remodel, “I’m glad we did stay. It was a much better experience than I imagined,” Nedra said.
Still, “it’s like having a baby”, she said.
“You need a few years to forget the pain before doing it again.”
Momeni tells his clients the same thing, “Construction is like having kids — painful but with very good results.”