When I was getting ready to start the remodeling I went to the city hall to request a permit for all the items I would take care of, namely:

• the kitchen
• 2 bathrooms
• electrical service upgrade

I didn’t really pay attention, but the man over there gave me one single permit for everything. That was a mistake.

If I had to do it again, I would insist on getting 4 individual permits instead - even if it comes as an extra cost. Why? Because one year later, we still haven’t closed that single permit (and had to request an extension). After going through the kitchen, electrical and first bathroom, we moved in and started working on many other small items. And left the second bathroom for later.

It is annoying to have this single permit still in the air, making sure it doesn’t expire etc. In addition, one problem in one of the rooms is enough to put the whole permit on hold.

Bottom line: individual permits are better than a single jumbo one.

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All cities have different building regulations and I will not go into too many details here. Make sure you contact your local government and check on building regulations before you start any work.

I hate to put some limits to your creativity, but bathroom remodeling is subjects to some hard constraints.

At the beginning we had all these brilliant ideas for our bathrooms. We sketched multiple plans, moving fixtures around. For instance we really wanted to switch the shower and the bath tub - it seemed that having the tub in the master bathroom and the shower in the guest bathroom would make more sense (how likely are your guests to have a bath when visiting you?). Sure, it sounded good on paper…

Wake up! Bathroom fixtures are no regular furniture. They need water, just like plants - actually this is not such a big deal: re-routing copper pipes is within reach of a handy homeowner. But more importantly: they need to evacuate waste and used water. Through drains. Drains are these heavy, large pipes, going from the roof (each drain is ventilated) to the floor where they exit the house through the concrete slab.

Think about what would be involved in moving one of these drains: jack-hammering the concrete slab (and if you own a working radiant-heat system you should be very circonspect about the idea of hammering your slab!), but also potentially having to open the roof in a different location (and if you have a single-ply roofing system, opening a hole in the roof requires professional intervention to maintain your warranty). Oh, and last but not least: you would need to reroute these heavy pipes - I have no experience in this domain, wouldn’t even know where and how to start, but this sure wouldn’t be as easy as a copper soldering…

Bottom line: unless you have an unlimited budget you should really consider a bathroom remodeling that keeps the fixtures (sink, tub or shower and toilets) in their original location. Unleash your creativity in other areas: tiles, cabinets, windows or skylight etc. There is plenty that can be done to give a radically different look to your bathroom.

As far as we’re concerned, the tub and the shower will not leave the locations they had adopted back in 1964, when the house was built!

Major items listed in the section one:

• some termite damage, mostly in some roof eaves (note: thankfully very limited!)
• fungus damage, mostly inside, in cabinets, trims etc (note: good news, this wood is leaving the house soon!)
• “roof has outlived is useful life” - it was a tar and gravel roof, subsequently covered with foam
• non-working boiler - but copper radiant system holding the pressure, yeah!

So, 2 major items that will have to be taken care of ASAP: the roof and the boiler. Planning this is not quite as fun as thinking about a new bathroom… but the costs are well on-par! These are going to make quite a dent in the remodeling budget.

I guess I should have started blogging earlier. It looks like some of my visitors could have helped me out with design questions (Larry works at Ideo…)!

Pressure is on. Gotta work on my CSS and make this blog a little prettier!

As promised, here are the first photos, taken during the open house.

How do you like that gigantic Yuca and bed of ivy? Or those nice AC units sticking out through the walls?
Looking back at these pictures I truly wonder what went through our heads when we signed up for this house…

The Plan

Well, The Plan is pretty simple: remodel everything. And do as much as we can ourselves. I guess it’s called optimism - or maybe plain stupidity.

What will be in this blog?

This blog will capture all the phases of the remodeling: before, during, after. I’ll try to sprinkle a few hard-learned lessons here and there (who knows, it might prevent someone from making the same mistakes one day…), provide info on tools, suppliers and techniques.

How to read this blog?

Check out the right-hand side navigation bar - posts will be categorized so that you can go straight to what you’re interested in (ex: bathroom, or tools).
Or do it the “old-fashioned” way: by chronological order.

Notes

Make sure to check the disclaimers.

I’d be curious to hear from you if you find these pages to be of any interest. Leave a comment when you have a chance!

That’s it! We’ve finally closed on our house! It’s an Eichler, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. A very simple floorplan from what has sometimes been described as a meat-and-potatoes tract for Eichler. But it has this contemporary look we wanted and that is so hard to get in North California (that is, for the rest of us, mere mortals, who cannot afford to hire architects and start from scratch…)

This blog will capture our attempt at remodeling this house. 40 years of abuse don’t make for a pretty sight - pictures to come soon.