My Jigsaw Puzzle of a Project

L-R: Existing front entry, Excavated slab, New slab, Framing begins

So, here we go!  In the spirit of quick and spontaneous beginnings, I bring you the story of a little home near Twin Peaks in San Francisco.  When I say little, I mean barely over 900 square feet, and when I say home, I mean an abode that supports a family of four…and a dog.  They love their house.  They want to stay.  The six year-old is growing everyday and the teenager needs his own space.  

It goes without saying that a family living in cozy quarters might know a thing or two about space efficiency and making every square foot count.  They decided to take this approach downstairs to their garage.  Their current entry delivers them directly upstairs, with little room to even turn around. What if they could build out some rooms at the garage level, minimize the parking area and add another 50% of space to their home?    

There are several benefits to taking over garage space for an addition.  In this case, it flows perfectly with their layout because they already have an interior stair.  They have the option of doing a small affordable project right away and putting off a future project that would really open the rear wall to the garden. This approach avoids building a new foundation for an exterior addition, as well as the increasingly expensive and time-consuming process of getting a project through the San Francisco Planning Department.  The building permit for an addition that occurs within the existing home envelope is issued over the counter.  I was able to design the addition and pull a permit within three weeks of our initial meeting.

Rule number one with remodeling: There are always glitches.  Expect them, plan for them (to whatever extent possible.)  In this case, the first major glitch was a waffley garage slab.  We had planned to install a hardwood floor over it, on sleepers to compensate for the undulating concrete slab, but the resulting ceiling height of the new rooms would be less than the legal and comfortable height limit.  The decision was to remove the existing concrete slab and pour a new, lower and level slab that could work as the finished floor.  Ideally, radiant heat would be installed into this new slab, but these clients were already looking forward to a new 95% efficiency forced air furnace. 

Next glitch:  WATER. Lots and lots of water, draining from the top of Twin Peaks below their slab and out to the street.  A simple drainage system needed to be installed along the rear of the building while the slab was torn up.  This was all for the best, considering the poor quality of the existing sewage pipes below the slab.   They were swapped out and a future crisis avoided. 

The new addition includes two small bedrooms, an incredibly efficient full bath and a laundry closet.  Stay tuned to learn how we made it all work!