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Posted almost 9 years ago

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting.

The demo of the house is pretty much done and I am now waiting on the architect. After talking to the permitting office a second time, I need an architectural drawing of the house to get a building permit to rebuild load bearing walls. Since I have to do this anyways, I decided to redo the house a bit. I am going from a 2 bed 1 bath house to a 3 bed 1 bath house. I have the preliminary drawings and am waiting on the demo plan, lighting plan, interior elevations, and electrical plan. Everything should be to me this weekend and then I will start pulling permits to reframe the house. There's a lot of termite damage and water damage so some of the walls will need to be rebuilt. The finished product will be a more open plan. I had comps pulled in the area and the additional bedroom will increase the ARV about 20K. 

The present layout of the house

Normal 1461336839 Lambuth Before

The new layout

Normal 1461336859 Lambuth After

The drawings will end up costing me about 2500, but aside from the added value of the new home layout, I made another contact that is invaluable. The architect is Clint Smith. He has done some of the designs on the show Fixer Upper, including the silo project. I Googled him and he verified what he told me. He had just had his house updated and had a list of contractors that did great work and was inexpensive. He has given me access to them so I'm hoping my costs for my renovation will still come in around the 35K that I had originally estimated. His fee will more than pay for itself in what I have gained through meeting and using him. 


Comments (1)

  1. Simon,

    Congrats on moving forward with your rehab. I couldn't help but noitice some things that, as a designer, I had to comment on.

    They are as follows:

    1. hallway in the middle of the house feels excessive. Minimum 3feet required, 3-6 is sufficient.

    2. I'm having a little difficulty understanding the scale of your drawing. I typically design all doors to be 2-6. Doors from bath to master bed look out of scale. Walk in closet looks way off. A good rule of thumb is 2feet to hang, and 3feet clear space. That means your closet should be min 7 feet wide, by 5 feet deep. I might rethink barn doors into master. They are terrible at keeping noise out as well as in.

    3. Make sure you have enough room for your washer/dryer. The vent in the rear could be as wide as 5".

    4. Covered entrance?

    5. Is shower really only 2' wide?

    6. A galley kitchen will give you more cabinetry and direct access to back yard.

    Good luck!

    Jaime