She’s Coming Down…and Woah, Progress!

After hearing from our structural engineer that we can’t keep our existing roof, and that we need to make significant modifications to the existing floor joists and structure to meet current seismic code; after being put on hold indefinitely by the company scheduled to do the house lift, and after considering other related complications, Matt and I made the difficult choice to disassemble what remains and reuse it for other purposes.

Not how we had imagined or hoped things would go, but given where we are, we are confident this is the most practical choice to keep the project moving and manage our costs. Learning has been a big part of this process, and we likely would have taken a few different turns along the way knowing what we know now.

A number of considerations tipped the balance:

• The cost of the house lift and modifications to the existing structure is considerably more than building new. And that’s not accounting for all the weird little things that will crop up along the way when working with an existing building, like, say, the walls being crooked and not fitting on the new foundation and below grade walls. And there just isn’t much left to lift! We would be spending a lot of effort and cost to move around four walls and a floor.
• Disassembly allows us to keep moving. With no lift/move required, the excavation company can come in with their bigger/faster/more available excavation equipment and start right away.
• Disassembly allows us to use the beautiful old growth fir floor joists, planks, and framing for any number of visible features, like interior doors, cabinets, shading features, soffit, and other wood accents. Matt can also likely build his entire workshop using this material. If kept in place, the wood would have been 1) drastically modified by new structure and 2) covered in drywall.

In short, it was a move toward simplicity. Sometimes you have to make the most practical choice, emotions aside. And Matt and I are heartened by the fun possibilities in re-using the old wood in new ways. We intend to keep the same design, although we are considering the possibility of switching from the current hip roof on the ‘existing’ half to a gable roof, also for simplicity.

And…Progress!

Wow, it’s amazing how quickly things can happen when you remove a barrier! This thing might get built yet.

Here was our house just before we made the call:

Then we had our meeting with Interactive and they got right to work, spending two days removing the roof and walls carefully enough to keep and stack the good wood, leaving us with just the basement:

And by the end of the week, we were down to this:

Then Level Lift came in with their machines to remove the rest and prepare the ground for the new foundation:

I have to say, progress feels good.

And in the spirit of Konmari, we wish to thank our old house for its service and acknowledge its time on the block and in our lives. We are grateful to have landed here and to have lived in this house before its transformation into something new.