Tag Archives: adding a second story

Past and Present

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I’ve been spending ridiculous amounts of time on Instagram.

Please check it. I like the immediacy of it. My goal this year (in addition to the continuing work on my house) is to update my various forms of social media more often. I want to integrate everything and make all of the different forms work together and share common information. Each type of social media has its own benefits and I’m going to try and learn how to use them to create the best experience.

I managed to insert a YouTube video from my channel at the bottom of this page:

Taking a break…

I have plenty of work to do but I have not been doing it.

the end view that faces the ocean

The exterior of my house looks done. Meanwhile the interior needs tile work and finish carpentry that I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes you have to live a bit. I know that I’ll get it done and also that it is never really done. I’ve been scheming and designing and building since I moved into this tiny house in 2000. Now it’s 2020 and I feel pretty good about what I’ve accomplished

Living Life

I’m still amazed at how much room I have.

I have an actual bedroom. Over the years I’ve gone from a 250 sq ft cottage to a 700 sq ft house. It’s been an interesting journey and I have no regrets. Throughout this process the only thing that’s constant is change. I’ve become very comfortable with chaos and the unknown. Perhaps I’m too comfortable and perhaps on the inside my life looks out of control. It’s a good metaphor for my life in general – on the outside I look kind of like I’ve got my shit together but on the inside I’m a messy work in progress.

Fighting normality

I think we all have to reject “normal”

One of the things I follow a lot on instagram is the “tiny house movement.” Although, I think “movement” is an overstatement. People are not protesting in the streets for tiny houses but some laws are changing regarding in-law units and housing density and even what the minimal legal size of a house is. For instance, my house is considered “sub-standard.” The fact that law regulates what size your house can be is ridiculous. I’m happy for all of us that both laws and thinking are changing. We need to think outside the box. We need to fight the norms. We need to imagine new ways of building and of living

The idea of house and home has become too standardized. It’s standard to the point where people believe their house isn’t enough unless it matches some societal norm or some idealistic picture in a magazine. Of course there are construction standards and furniture standards that help to make sure things work but there can be huge variation within those guidelines. If you’re working with a contractor don’t blindly accept their word.

That’s my neighbor on the left. They hate me and they hate that the city let me build my second story addition. They live in a development across the street and their house is still taller than mine

It’s your house so own it

I’m treating my house as an experiment.

I know my house doesn’t look that radical. It’s just a product of all the parameters that the lot and the codes allowed. There were a lot of ways to fit within those parameters. This is just what I chose to do but it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t based on a lot of preconceptions about home.

I’m rejecting the norms and preconceptions. I’m rejecting the status quo and the magazine ideals. For me, this is an experiment. It’s deeply personal. It’s intimately connected to who I am and what I do and how I want to spend my time.

One of the reasons that I’ve been taking a break is that I want to enjoy the process. I’m actually not fixated on the end product. I want to enjoy my life even while changing it and building it. I’m not static and I don’t demand that of my house either. I’m having fun over-thinking and designing myself into a corner.

I’m sure some people see my lack of progress as a weakness or an inability to get a job done but maybe I’m not waiting for anything to be finished. I’m enjoying life right now. My life has chaos and messiness and unknowns and I’m enjoying all of it.

No really, I’m enjoying it…

It’s not all fun and games but I’m always pushing the limits of my knowledge and my patience.

When the going gets tough…

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the tough start potting

dividing equasetum

Obviously I still have a lot of work to do. I just got the stair treads in and I still have a lot of electrical and plumbing to do but one of the benefits of working on your house yourself is you get to choose the priorities.

 

I ‘ve been thinking that the terrace needed a little love so I was wondering about what kind of plants to put there. I wanted something tall and skinny so that it wouldn’t take up much room and would manage to grab as much sunlight as possible.

 

I bought one tall pot without knowing what was going to go in it. I’ve learned that if you see a pot that you like, buy it. I don’t often find a nice pot at a reasonable price so, when I do, I buy it. I even went back and got another one because that one pot looked kind of lonely on my terrace. Just today I figured out what to put in those pots.

I love bamboo

bamboo from bamboogarden.com

I’ve always loved bamboo and I thought about it when I thought “tall and skinny” but there are more types of bamboo than you could possibly imagine.

 

You’re right, that image at the top of the page is not bamboo and I wasn’t sure if I could grow bamboo in a pot or not. The image to the left here is a special variety of bamboo that I found at bamboogarden.com near Portland, Oregon. On their website I found that there are smaller varieties of bamboo and that some of them will do well in a pot.

 

They told me that bamboo needs a wider pot rather than a deep one so those pots that I already bought were not necessarily the best. The variety of bamboo that I chose wasn’t the cheapest either so I had better take good care of it. I went and bought another pot…..

My bamboo should arrive soon

waiting for bamboo

So here is my terrace with 2 tall pots of equasedum from Home Depot and a new pot waiting for my “special” bamboo from Oregon.

I spent way more time and money than I had any intention of doing but this gives me a lot more satisfaction than crawling around underneath my house adding new conduit and pulling wires.

Installation of Stair Treads

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stair tread alignment jig

This is a jig that I made to align the stair treads during the assembly process. The steel frame intentionally has a lot of room for adjustment to allow for irregularities in the floor and the walls and any variation in all the parts involved. These treads are screwed into the steel plate from below. See the steel plates here and to see the steel frame going in go here.

 

Stairs fill the stairwell

the stairwell

The entrance looked large without the stairs. Now its filled up.  I didn’t skimp on the scale of the stairs. I didn’t want to compromise on the ease of getting up and down. These stairs will get a lot of use.

Something like a spiral staircase just wouldn’t be useful for frequent trips up and down. A “fireman’s pole” might be helpful for trips down though.

 

There is still plenty of work involved in attaching the hand rail posts and fabricating a new hand rail for the stairs but, for now, I rather like it just like this.

Life in the Crawl Space

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Its Been a Long Haul…

me after a day in the crawl space

but after many days in the crawl space, I have most of the heating ducts in place. I’m not sure what the inspector wants to see so I haven’t taped the ducts or wrapped them with insulation yet.

I’m happy with the heat distribution. I can feel a good force of air at all of the heat registers. Now if I just had some insulation on my second story I would probably have a nice warm house. Its been pretty cold for this area and I definitely don’t want to waste too much energy trying to keep the house warm. I do warm it up for short periods of time though.

You may remember the plan here.

The design changed a bit due to engineering, realities of the space and fittings available.

 

There is a reason they call it a “crawl space”

I bring the crawl space inside with me

I’m not a big fan of going into my crawl space for all the electrical and duct work that I’ve been doing. I usually end up bringing some of the crawl space back inside with me. I know people must do this kind of thing for a living but I can’t wait until its all over. I still have to run new plumbing for my second story bathroom which means I will be going back.

For now I’m resting on my laurels a bit and enjoying some forced air heat on these chilly mornings.

 

 

 

The Fun Part

You know that I am much more interested in the superficial pursuit of interesting design. I’ve spent many hours on the internet looking at all the options for heating registers. The final frosting on the top of a more practical infrastructure. It is kind of amazing how many websites there are out there that specialize in heating registers.

 

Just a Couple

Here are just two examples of what I have been looking at. These two are specifically for floor applications. Obviously if it sits on the floor it needs to be sturdy enough t0 step on. Its not very easy to judge the quality or durability through a website. Price is not always a good indicator. These are both metal.

I look at the shipping weight too and that can help to determine how sturdy it might be. One that I found online is actually at a local store so I’ll take a look at it in real life.

Drop me an email or comment here if you want any additional information such as  the links for any of the websites that I’ve been looking at recently.

Status Report, September 2012

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Where things are :

In the past people have asked me to clarify the locations of things so I hope that this illustration helps to show where things are on the second floor. This is also an opportunity to give a status update.

Layout of the new upstairs

  • The deck and the terrace are both going to have tile on them. The deck area tile is done but the railing around the deck needs to be finished. I posted a process picture of the tile deck on facebook  here.  The basic railing design I posted earlier on this blog here.  I am still tweaking the design a bit so it is slightly different than the illustration. There are different designs for varying transparency in different places. At the end of the deck  2 of the railing sections will be glass.
  • The arbor I made already and is ready for install when I am sure that it won’t get in the way of any other installation.
  • The stairs are in process. The metal frame is in place but I still need to level everything and make the final connections to the building. There will be plenty of work to do here. The engineer specified a beam under the floor where the stairs hit the lower level. The treds are wood and need to be cut and attached, then metal verticals are attached to each tred and those are topped with a solid wood handrail.
  • The bathroom and closet walls in the new bedroom have not been built yet. The entire bathroom has not been started yet. I want to wait until I get the new bathtub before I commit to exact placement of the bathroom wall.

I hope this helps to show where things are in relation to each other.

Details….details….

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I’m working on a lot of different things at the same time. I’m figuring out how to do many of the things that I was unsure of; but then, it seems I often have to move on to something else due to the order that things need to get done. For instance, I figured out the railings for my decks but now I have to wait until I finish the tile. The railing was going to be in the way. I couldn’t run the large duct under the floor until I had the structural beam in place for the new stairway. Still working on that but the stairs are roughly in position.

Let there be heat

verb2 ducting

This is commitment !

I actually committed to the placement of the ducts. I’ve put large holes in the wall and the floor. All of the final ducting is not in yet but I am testing the furnace for heating and it is amazing what a difference a bit of heat makes to the comfort inside the house.  I’d say that “heat” makes a home more than anything else that I have experienced so far. This hole takes the duct underneath my house to be directed to separate spaces.

 

 

Big holes for big ducts

 

This hole goes from my garage into the living space and I had to consult with the engineer to see how big of a hole would be allowed to pierce through the structural shear wall. I had to reframe some of the wall around the hole. The 4×4 stair support is also right next to the opening. I don’t know if all houses are like this but a lot of stuff has to be coordinated together in a tight space.

See the heating layout concept here.

Railings for the decks

Railings are just getting started

I’m really excited for the new exterior spaces that I have created. I have designed the railing panels so that there are places where the sun can come through and there are also places that provide complete privacy. I hope to spend a lot of time on the deck shown in this picture. The other deck (or terrace) is on the left here. The terrace is mostly a place for plants and a bit of outdoor space right outside of my new bedroom.

Railing design

working out the details

I started watching the sun set over my new deck over the last several months. During certain months the sun will be coming right onto my deck and into my new living room. I wanted to take advantage of that. I didn’t, however, want to see or be seen by my neighbors. I developed an angle that I hope will allow for me to look out toward the ocean but will block my view to the neighbor’s house. Different sections of the railing will have different designs. Some designed for letting light through and others to block visibility as much as possible. I learned a lot from the first fence that I built for the ground level. I learned to base everything on stock lumber that I can easily get nearby. Look at fence design on verb2. The railing should relate to the fence below but the requirements are a little different.  Here is a rendering of the railing concept :

A rendering of my concept

A big step for mankind

Stair metal fabrication just arrived

I designed the new staircase to be similar to those old exterior stairs you see on ’70s and ’60s style apartment buildings. The exterior ones have concrete steps. I am going to use a wood construction material for the steps but I borrowed the idea of a single big steel center support.

I worked with a local steel fabricator that helped me to refine the details of construction. I like working with people that are able to have a conversation about process and design. He was very good at making suggestions and also still listening to my crazy ideas.

A little help…

It helps to have strong friends

The finished steel structure was pretty heavy. My friend told me that I had to post a picture of other people helping me because I give the impression that I do everything by myself. There was definitely no way that I could never get this structure in place by myself and it helps that my friends are tall and strong.