Snapshots and Stories of an Addition...

Art Mulder

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3,383
Location
London, Ontario
Let me set the stage...

We have four young(ish) kids, 3 boys and 1 girl, and we live in a 3 bedroom house. So far we've managed, but we were realizing that something was going to have to give as the kids aged. We wrestled with several options over last winter, and eventually we ruled out moving, and we also ruled out building a bedroom in the basement.

And so, I turned to sketchup and started working on ideas, running them past my wife (and others) and at the same time checking into and securing a builder.

Here are a few before shots of our place:
snapshot-SE-sm.JPGsnapshot-SW-sm.JPG

As you can see it has a great big honking roof on it, and an attached garage also on the front. The plan we settled on was to rip off the top of the garage, and build a bedroom up there. The second floor hall landing would be extended to the front of the house, so it would not affect the current bedrooms.

Here is the sketch of what we were (more or less) looking for:
plan-from-se.jpg plan-from-sw.jpg


A couple of things that I think are worth noting. We did NOT want the addition to be flush with the front of the garage, rather we set it back 3ft.
We also designed it with 6'6" side walls, so that it would have a partially vaulted space. In effect the addition should look like a (large) dormer.

Yes, we gave up some floorspace in the new room, but the goal was to have something that looked like it belonged, rather than having it look like a huge imposing thing. I think if it lined up with the front of the garage, you would see this large 2-story wall at the front of the house, and visually it would be almost overwhelming. As well, we have both read through the classic architecture/design book "A Pattern Language" and tried to apply some of it's wisdom in this design.

Once the kids move out, the plan is for this to become my wife's study/craft room, which was another impetus to make sure it was designed well. In particular, we invited light on all three exterior walls. There are 3 large windows on the front/south face, There are two 24x48 skylights on the left/west side of the roof, and we also managed to tuck in a window on the east side, up against the house. This brings in tons of light, and also will help with cross-breezes.

The arrangement with our builder was that I would deal with the city, to get variances and permits, I would also do the trimming, the flooring, and the painting. The rest (demolition + construction) was contracted out.

They just finished up their part, and this is where we stand today:
IMG_6054.jpg IMG_6055.jpg

We're quite pleased so far, but still have a fair bit of work to do to get to the final product!

I plan to write a bit and post a bit about some of my own part of the process.
 
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Would have liked to seen the pics along the journey, but probably would have gotten fat eating all that popcorn. Looks like the house has always been that way...looks good. :thumb:
 
Variances and Permits:

I learned a bit about zoning and all that while going through this project. I particular, I learned that in our zone, a 1-story structure was allowed to be 2ft closer to the property line than a 2-story structure.

This explains why our garage was built such that it is offset 2ft closer to the side yard than the rest of the house.

Our first decision, therefore, was to either build the 2nd floor addition 2ft in from the side wall or to get a variance. There really was no choice to be made. Setting it in 2ft on one side would look weird, and if I set it in 2ft on both sides, then we would run into trouble with the door into the main house, since that is where the hall is located. Not to mention the convoluted framing that we'd have to do to set things in 2ft from the bearing wall.

The variance process was... slow. It takes 3 weeks from application to get a hearing in front of the committee. But other than that it was okay. The folks at the planning office were fine, gave me some pointers and reassured me that minor variances like this were really no big deal.

So a month later I had a variance in hand, and now could get a permit, right? :doh: :doh: :doh:

Four, count-em, FOUR visits to the city hall building dept later I finally had a permit. :bang: I will just gloss over this painful memory and give this bit of advice: Get an engineer. Really, once I gave in and went to the engineer things where just so much smoother. It really wasn't even that expensive.

The main point of contention was those 6'6" walls:
concept11-front-cutaway.jpg

Because we wanted 6'6" walls, there were NOT ceiling joists going side to side tying the walls together. Rather, the collar ties were going to be a couple feet up the rafters. That, in a nutshell, was the problem. So we had to get a ridge beam engineered, and then another beam engineered to support the ridge beam above the center window, and this affects the beam across the front of the garage, and on and on.

Seriously, next time, just go find an engineer first. It cost us about 3 weeks doing it my way. :eek:
 
Sorry you had to go through that Art, but good stuff to know...:thumb:

I had a similar experience with my old house. Planned an addition, had it all drawn up, submitted it to the permits department, rejected. Same plans and paperwork submitted by a friend that was a builder, approved. :dunno:

We ended up selling that house as it was and not doing the addition, so not sure what we would have ran into going forward.
 
Looks real nice. It really fits in with the architecture of the house without looking like an add on. Nice job.
Having a bedroom over a garage has always made me a bit nervous about Co2 though.
 
Would have liked to seen the pics along the journey,

Pics along the journey #1

I'm not a builder, but my dad was a finishing carpenter, and I've been on a few building sites in my youth and picked up a bit here and there. So I thought I knew a few things. :rolleyes:

Ha.

I was surprised right from the get go. I expected them to totally demolish the roof of the garage, rip it right off, and then start fresh.

Nope.
They started inside the garage ripping down all the ceiling drywall, and some of the walls (where the beam needed support).
IMG_4730.jpg IMG_4733.jpg

Then they cut the bottom chord of the trusses, made a gap, and fitted in the big honking LVL beam that was going to support the front of the addition.
IMG_4738.jpg

And after that they got up there and started placing all the 2x10's for the floor joists. The roof was still totally closed! :huh:
IMG_4740.jpg

Only then, did they start peeling back the shingles and cutting into the roof.
roof-open.jpg

It made total sense one the builder explained it to me. He wanted to preserve the existing roof as much as possible. This also preserved the existing side walls. No need to go to the expense or work (or waste!) of tearing them down only to have to build them back up again.

After that things just ticked along with the framing and so on.
IMG_4775.jpg IMG_4787.jpg
 
... always made me a bit nervous about Co2 though.

Bob,

There are two reasons why I wasn't really worried...

a) there was nowhere else to build it, and people have been building over garages for ages. My builder reports that bonus rooms over garages are pretty much standard in new construction these days. Lots are so skinny here, that they have to cram it all in.

b) this is the other reason:
IMG_5617.jpg IMG_5619.jpg
IMG_5620.jpg IMG_5622.jpg

We did spray foam insulation all around: top, sides, and bottom. I doubt that anything is getting through that, along with the drywall, taping, and the rest of the construction practises.

(I never run the car in the garage anyways. It's always turned off within seconds of parking, and never run for more than 20 sec before pulling out.)
 
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Art that looks like a Mike Holmes job.:thumb::thumb:

Darren said it, looks like its been there all the time.

Way to go on the spray foam. Thats my issue in my production builders home. Sons room is over the double garage. Nice big room but the floor is not as well insulated as i would like it.


Bob from what i seen in Canada the inspectors are real finicky about the sealing of the garage. You even have to caulk around receptacle covers. Its the one thing they check for real well. They might forget to check the plumbing like on mine, but they made sure the covers and everything else was tight.

Welcome to my Club art .....dealing with the town.:rofl:

In our town now they wont allow building drawings to be submitted by a layman. You need the engineers stamp so they take over liability for structual design and snow loading etc. Even had to get one for my shop.

I really like the set back from the edge of the roof Art you dun good.:thumb:
Someone in the family is going to be snug this winter and be as happy as a lark with a room that overlooks the road.:) Looks like you got yourself a real good builder there Art.
 
Way to go on the spray foam. Thats my issue in my production builders home. Sons room is over the double garage. Nice big room but the floor is not as well insulated as i would like it.
...
Welcome to my Club art .....dealing with the town.:rofl:

In our town now they wont allow building drawings to be submitted by a layman. You need the engineers stamp so they take over liability for structual design and snow loading etc. Even had to get one for my shop.

I really like the set back from the edge of the roof Art you dun good.:thumb:
Someone in the family is going to be snug this winter and be as happy as a lark with a room that overlooks the road.:) Looks like you got yourself a real good builder there Art.

So far the room is totally toasty, not that is has gotten cold yet, but the windows really warm it up.

As for the engineers stamp... Wow, I'm surprised that they would go so far as to refuse homeowners to do their own plans. I googled around and found many cities in Canada that offer sample plans on their website for you to work with and emulate.

And yes, I couldn't be happier with the builder. I've known him for over 10 years but this is the first time I've ever hired him. It was an incredibly peaceful feeling to so thoroughly trust him and his partner. I love it when they are even pickier than I am on details.

How many ft2 did you add?

The room is about 16x17, so about 275 sqft added, not counting the hallway (another 21 sqft)
 
Let's look at the upstairs hallway...

We have a two story vaulted entry way. All the upstairs room open off of a mezzanine that wraps around the entry. (sounds impressive, but remember this is a regular 1800sqft suburban house from 1984!)

It used to look like this:
upper-hall-before1.jpg

And as you climbed the stairs and looked back toward the front of the house you saw this:
upper-hall-before2.jpg

The garage is on the front of the house, and we don't want to wreck a current bedroom by pulling a hall through it. (The existing bedroom there is 11x11, carve out a 4ft hallway and that's wrecked in my view!) So the plan was to pull the hallway forward to the front of the house and open a door into the new room, like this:
upper-hall-new1.jpg

This caused a few fits with planning, but thanks to the engineer and a great framer we got that squared away also.
upper-hall-rough.jpg framing-under-1.jpg framing-under-2.jpg

On to the railing...
 
Upstairs Hallway: That railing...

I had no desire to rip out and redo the entire railing. Can you blame me? But the house dates form 1984, and the big-box home stores do NOT carry our style of spindles anymore. Fortunately, there is a trim company here in town that carries all kinds of trim and we found a very good match for the spindles + railing, and a near perfect match for the newel post. Staining was another matter, but with some conditioner and experimentation I got a good match on colour as well. The section of rail we removed provided the half-post for the end of the run.

The new hall is a touch over 7' long, so that is what we needed to fill in. Through digging through the Ontario building code I found that you can go as far as 10ft between posts. That seems long to me, but oh well. However the more I thought about things the more uncomfortable I was with running the new railing right up to the existing post. My kids are going to be zooming up and down that hallway all the time, and I wanted it solid!

The design I came up with to incorporate a new newel post was to place it fairly close to the current post, so it can provide strength for both runs of railing. As well, I thought it would visually look better to have it there, rather than have it halfway the new section, which would make the old section look weird. This is what I played with sketchup...
plan1.jpg plan2.jpg

Another thought that troubled me during this exercise was concerning the strength of the existing corner post. I wondered how much of the strength was provided by the fact it was tied into the side wall. This turned out to be true, as once the ceiling was opened up a bit, we saw that the current post did NOT extend down into the floor framing much, if at all:
framing-under-1.jpg

And here we have a rough hallway, waiting for a railing:
upper-hall-rough.jpg
 
Railing, continued...

I first worked on setting the new post in place. This took some careful measuring for height and also distance from the wall, and then some work on the TS to notch out the base to fit around the floor beam. As well a bit of math was needed to determine the spacing between the two posts. I wanted two spindles, so you need to figure the spindle dimensions plus the desired gap, and there you go. (DO make sure your gap confirms to code! Around here code for a railing is that at it's widest the gap can be no more than 100mm. Note that is at the WIDEST, not just between the square bits of the spindles!)

added-post1.jpg added-post2.jpg added-post-3.jpg

Getting it all positioned, plumbed, and true, took a fair bit of fiddling for a first effort. (easily 2-3 hours) I dismounted the post twice to play with shims and spacing before I was satisfied, and then I bolted it into place, as well as used 3" #10 screws into the framing.
added-post-closeup.jpg

It's not going anywhere!

All that practise and fiddling paid dividends a few days later when I got around to setting the rest of the railing and spindles into place. All that practise on that short stretch meant that it took less than an hour to install 14 spindles and the top+bottom trim pieces. We still need to get some matching trim to run along the bottom, but it looks good, blends in well, and is solid.
new-rail-1.jpg new-rail-2.jpg
 
Foundation Bolts - Builder Screwups...

One minor anecdote from the journey.

As I mentioned before, they had to open up part of the garage walls, in order to fit in the posts to support the LVL beam at the front of the new room.
IMG_4733.jpg

In doing so, we discovered that the builder had neglected to put bolts on a few of the foundations bolts.
IMG_5599.jpg

This isn't exactly an earthquake location, and the house hasn't moved in 25 years, but still! Fortunately that was a quick fix with some bolts and washers from the spare-parts bucket.
IMG_5600.jpg
 
Video, Voice + Data

As we were planning to spray-foam the entire place, I knew that we had to get all the wiring done right the first time, as there was going to be no changing it once it was foamed into the walls!

As such, even though we have no plans at all to put a phone, TV, or computer in this space, I did make sure to plan for the future. So I pulled a Cat-5e cable and a video cable to one corner, where it can sit for future needs.

IMG_5596.jpg IMG_5595.jpg
 
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