Finding and Choosing a Contractor (Fall 2017)

This remodel was more than the hubby and I could do ourselves because of the structural issues and thus began my search for a contractor.

I had recently been immersed into the world of aging parents needing to be uprooted from their home of 56 years to an assisted living facility and all that entails. For once, I was not at the leading edge of something because my parents successfully lived in their home until all of us kids became senior citizens ourselves. Most of our friends had already dealt with these issues, the world at large had discovered the need for places where elderly people could live comfortably and relatively independently, and a new niche in construction had arisen so senior citizens could Age in Place.

With this knowledge, I evaluated our home and was happy to note that Aging in Place construction/remodeling is very similar (or even a subset) of Universal Design. That means our home already has many positive Aging in Place aspects because Sustainable Building using Universal Design had been a driving force in the selection of the house and continues to be part of the entire Greenovation.

I also compared the costs of remodeling to Age in Place with the price of assisted living facilities and deduced that it is cost-effective to make the changes necessary to stay in my home for as long as possible.

Armed with this information, I started doing internet searches for contractors who focus on Aging in Place and found that there are few in the Kansas City area who use that phrase. One happens to be a local business in Blue Springs, which is relatively close to my location. **UPDATE (Jan 2021) : That company has since gone out of business.**

I contacted them and had a lovely conversation with the woman who is their Financial Concierge. She and I later had a phone meeting in which we discussed what kind of grants and other financial help is available for Aging in Place upgrades in the home. She spurred me into action regarding financing (something I always dread because we generally make enough money to live on [and therefore too much to qualify for assistance] while not enough to pay for major improvements) and after some frustrating encounters with my mortgage company, etc. I learned from my hubby that we would be able to borrow enough from our 401k to make at least a few of the major improvements (and eliminate our debt beyond our house payment… which was necessary so we would be able to pay back the 401k). This may be too much information to be sharing, but I think it is important to say it because there must be other people who are in a similar situation and you need to know that it IS possible to work these things to your benefit within legal means. Luckily for us, we borrowed before the latest stock market “check” and so sold high and are paying ourselves back with interest… meaning we did not fare as badly as we would have if we had not borrowed against our retirement funds when we did. We will be scrimping for the next 5 years (the length of the loan) and at the end of that time we will also have a nice amount of equity in the mortgage since we did not refinance it to get the money for the improvements. AND we will have enhanced the value of the house besides.

I was so impressed with the Financial Concierge that I asked her to have someone come out to evaluate what they think we need to Age in Place and provide a quote. Their representative came out and confirmed things I already knew about the house… which is good because they know at least as much about it as I do. We discussed my goals and he gave me some off the top of his head dollar amounts for the various things I’d like to have done by them. Those construction jobs being: replace the north porch, put in a ramp on the south porch and remodel the master bathroom.

We made an appointment for him to bring out his Structural Engineer so they would be able to pin down the costs more precisely. The engineer was very helpful and answered many of my questions about the north porch. It turned out the engineer would also be the construction foreman (it would be his crew doing the work). After getting the quotes for the three (3) projects, the hubby and I decided to hire this company to replace the north porch and decide later on the other projects once we had a chance to see how things went on the first project.

At this point, construction is construction is construction. There is a crew, there is a foreman, there is a mess, and ultimately there is a finished product. On this job, the hubby and I elected to do as much of the deconstruction as we could ourselves in addition to disposing of the waste materials ourselves to save some money (less man-hours by the crew and no dumpster cost). This is something you have to have a mutual agreement about with the contractor up front before work starts. I also asked for blueprints up front so there would be no confusion about the construction and the results. (Unfortunately, these were never created on this job and, as you may surmise, it caused problems.)

I didn't take many photos during deconstruction and you'll notice that it is truly deconstruction as opposed to demolition.

We don't mind the work it takes to avoid sending materials to a dump.

These photos show the hubby prying up the flooring.

What you don't see is pictures of both of us prying out the nails, staples, screws, etc.

The tools we used for deconstruction were:

• Electric Saw
• Pry bars (3 different kinds/sizes to deal with the variety of metal attachments)
• Claw hammer
• Heavy duty pliers with wire cutter
• Bucket to hold metal pieces
• Wheelbarrow
• Burn barrels

You may be asking about burning the wood...

Generally, burning releases toxins into the air and the issues related to that as compared to dumping the toxins in a landfill pretty much make them equal. However, HOW you burn makes a big difference.

We used 2 burn barrels with small holes drilled around the bottoms so there is a nice chimney effect pulling air in around the bottom helping to achieve a complete burn (leaving minimal residue).

The barrels help to keep the fire hot so that there is mostly flame and minimal smoke. Reducing the smoke reduces the particulates going into the air.

Because we did not know what kind of finishing products were used on the flooring, it was important to tend the fire from a distance as much as possible. You don't want to breathe in volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some close up interaction is inevitable... using a mask is recommended.

You'll notice that there is burnt grass around one of the barrels. That is because it is our older barrel (rarely used) that has rusted a great deal from years outside sitting on the ground.

Once the grass around it was burnt, there was very little chance of a grass fire starting from the embers at the bottom that might slip outside of the barrel.

Next the construction crew moved to supporting the roof before removing the rest of the posts that will go with the railing.

There ended up being five (5) support beams until the new piers and posts were in place.

Usually, electricity is brought with the crew via a generator. We let them plug into our electricity.

I was NOT happy that the dirt removed was just left around the construction area.

I am used to people putting a tarp or piece of plywood next to where they are digging to collect that beautiful dirt and then move it out of the way. That also makes it easily available to put it where you want it after construction is complete.

We also allowed the crew to use our hose and field hydrant to access the water needed to mix the concrete.

The technique used was very interesting. Basically they dumped a bag of Quickrete into the hole, poured in part of the bucket of water, let it percolate down through the powder and did that again and again until the correct amount of concrete was created in the hole.

You can see the bracket for the bottom of the post best in this picture.

The supports are moved, the new posts are in place. I was surprised to see the crew had angled the posts closest to us so the face was in line with the angle of the roof. I had assumed they would be parallel to the front of the house.

Couldn't really do anything about it at that point... hoped it would not cause any problems.

It did end up being a problem when it came to putting in handrails for the stairs at those locations. (Just one of the problems the crew created for themselves because there were no blueprints with instructions for them to follow.)

Note that the floor joists now extend from the house to the north edge. This is to accomodate the flooring running parallel to the front of the house.

These next series of phots document the mouse holes we discovered which were the entry points into the house.

We had been getting mice in the basement and couldn't find the entrance(s) until the remodel.

This first one is under the window to the right (west) of the front door. It appears to be in the concrete and may have been a water access point that was moved during a previous renovation... and not blocked up.

You can see the blown-in cellulose insulation that we put into the floor in this location several years ago. No doubt some of it was blown through the hole at the time of installation... and some was dug out by mice (although that should have killed them because it is treated with borax).

The same location, but from the north side of the wall -- the second entrance to the same hole.

Again, filled with steel wool.

This hole we knew about. We had filled it with steel wool and then put expansion foam into the area. We asked the construction crew to NOT remove it... but they did. So we had to deal with it a second time.

A reminder of what the porch looked like before (freshly painted).

It wasn't that it was all that bad... it just felt restricting and closed off to me.

The new porch is open and inviting, in my opinion. I (and our guests) don't have to go down the stairs at the walkway, instead the wrap around stairs allow access for any point in the north yard. And there are still handrails for anyone who feels they need them.

As you can see from the photo, the resulting porch is what I wanted. To his credit, the construction foreman DID make sure that everything was to my satisfaction in the end… as well it should be since we were paying for it.

Originally, there were to be handrails down the steps from the front two (2) posts, but because of the way the posts were angled and the way the crew created the wrap around stairs, it was not possible.

One thing I asked for from the start was for the resulting stairs to land where the brick walkway starts. It did not and so we agreed to solve the problem ourselves by putting paving stones along the edge of the walk to cover the four (4) inch gap.

FYI -- Construction crews don't normally see any difference between salvage and waste. So everything they pulled off, cut off or messed up went into one, big pile.

I separated that pile into:

• Trash (paper wrappers, lunch debris, etc.)
• Wood that needed to be de-nailed
• Wood that had to be disposed of
• Wood that could be used somewhere on the farm

You shouldn't burn pressure treated lumber... but we ended up with 2 burn barrels worth of it and using a hot fire like before, it was burned.

Construction crews also do not seem to care about efficient use of wood. Plus, there were many angles because of the wrap around nature of the stairs (and the manner in which they constructed them... on the fly because of no blueprints).

The result was LOTS and LOTS of triangular shaped pieces of wood. Being a creative person, I salvaged these to make artsy fartsy stuff with. Photos to come when the projects are done.

Here is where you see the old concrete deck blocks that will be used elsewhere on the farm and more of those odd shapes that I can use creatively.

Also, one of the wide boards had a BEAUTIFUL flaw that caused it to separate into 3 separate pieces. Another opportunity to creae something artsy. (It is lying flat by the concrete foundation of the house at the back of the photo.)

This is how I am storing the small pieces until I can use them... those are the barrels I bought for storing chicken seed in. There are long, wide boards behind them and to the right on the piece of concrete.

Once those barrels are empty, I will be grading and laying gravel in that location and turning those barrels into rain barrels for watering the raised bed gardens.

I primed the trim boards before we put them in place.

We are looking at the door, and the trim on the right side needed double the depth.

Luckily, that is where we added an electrical outlet, so the wedge looks like it was put there intentionally to "hide" the box.

If you see a difference in the depth of the board at the top edge of the wall from one side to the other... your eyes are not deceiving you. The white really accentuates it.

The trim boards against the wall are 1/2" deep by 4" wide.

This is the east side of the door and was probably the least problematic as far as the trim was concerned.

You may notice the gaps along the beadboard and the trim. Once again, the white really accentuates it.

This is the west side of the door and it was the biggest challenge.

There was a large gap at the corner furthest from the door.

Once again we had to create a wedge to fill the gap. It's not as obvious in this photo as I thought it would be.

I had planned to caulk all the gaps, but we were able to keep them so narrow that the paint filled them nicely.

Now we move to the outer edges of the ceiling.

I used "hobby boards" that are 1/4" thick by 4" wide and primed them as well.

They are used along the fascia boards (so there is still overhang and water won't track back to the ceiling) and over the seam that goes from post to post.

This is the east side of the porch.

We also added a "cap" to each post and we took great pains to keep the bottom edge of the blocking around each post level which meant finding the angle of the top on every side so it had virtually no gap at the ceiling. The wood used for the post trim was left over from the porch replacement.

Once again 1/4" by 4" hobby boards cover the seams and trim against the fascia boards.

This is the center (opposite the door) and getting the trim boards parallel to each other, covering the seam and using the correct angle for the mitre cuts was QUITE a challenge.

I hesitate to mention it, but we also had to deal with the joints of the plywood because what was behind it wasn't always the same depth. That meant we used my oscillating tool to shave off bits of the plywood so the trim board would sit nicely against it without bowing or splitting. While making sure anything we removed was covered by the trim.

Once again 1/4" by 4" hobby boards cover the seams and trim against the fascia boards.

This is the west side of the porch and the last portion that we did (evidenced by the ladder still in place, LOL).

By this time we were SO in sync with each other. Not the kind of marriage therapy I would have signed up for, but it actually helped us.

At left is the porch immediately after it was replaced to show you the color of the deck/steps orginally.

I waited two (2) days after pressure washing it before sealing the wood to be sure it was completely dry.

I used Valspar Pre-tinted Cedar Naturaltone Semi-Transparent Exterior Stain and Sealer (this is a One-Coat product). I bought it at Lowe's.

This photo is the finished product.

It took 2 gallons (well, not quite all of the 2 gallons)... one gallon on the steps and 7/8 of a gallon on the deck.

Yes, I probably applied it too heavy, the color is a bit darker than I was expecting, but I would rather it be darker and really waterproofed. I also may not have stirred it as well as I should have.

The website says it provides algae, mold and mildew resistance, is rain ready in four (4) hours, UV defense against fading, easy cleanup with soap and water, one coat, 4-year guarantee on decks and 6-year guarantee on fences and siding, and furniture ready in 24 hours.