#renovatingwithintegrity

Well, technically, Russian speaking Vladimir and Valarie are from Belarus, a former republic in the USSR which is now independent. Vladimir and Valerie are recent immigrants from Minsk which is the capital of Belarus. Their skill is only matched by their desire to do work correctly.

I have heard of problems with water infiltration into stone but these guys were very diligent to do all the flashing correctly. They were clean and their joints are admittedly much neater than the ones I did on our fireplace and the interior arch this winter. 

If people ask me the difference, I will have to have an excuse, I mean reason, why my joints are not as neat…can anyone help me out with a plausible reason?

I am very proud to have immigrants work on our house since they are legal, insured and pay taxes. They work for Ystone, a company owned by another Belarusian immigrant, Yury Horbach. The stone is Dutch Quality brand, supplied by P. F. Cook in Cranberry.

When we use cultured stone, it is a challenge to make it look like natural stone. One of the ways we do this is to use natural sandstone for the mantels, caps and pier caps. Another way to make the stone look natural is to apply applications on the house that make sense, and to use mass when natural stone would have had mass.

We were very careful to make the front porch arches very thick, as they would be if constructed of natural stone. On a personal note, one late addition to the plans was the little arch on the side of the porch. This arch was created for my oldest grandchild, Nadia, to sit in when she visits and waits for me to arrive home. My other grandchildren, well, I will make some curved steps to the porch for them. We will pour the steps and have pictures of them soon (although not soon enough for Deby!)

Back to Vladimir and Valerie, as a student of history, I had to ask them if they had relatives with remembrances of WWII. Given the horrific casualty rates of the Russian people in that war, they did not have a lot of relatives who had experiences that they could relay to them. But Vladimir did note that one of his aunts lived in Kursk, a few hundred miles to the south east of Minsk. Kursk was the site of the largest tank battle in the history of the world in the summer of 1943. The Germans were trying to regain the offensive that they had lost the previous winter in Stalingrad. Vladimir related that she said the skies were filled with planes from both sides and the tank battles were enormous and thunderous. It was a brutal defeat for the Germans and they never launched a major offensive attack again until The Battle of the Bulge, which is when my father went to the front in late 1944.

Thanks for following, more to come! 

While not being an extreme “greenie,” I do believe that we are to be stewards of the earth. The best way we can be good stewards is to build energy efficient homes. 

Every one of the homes I have built has exceeded energy codes at the time it was built. We became official Energy Star early on in the process and we are always careful to preserve trees when we can and try very hard never to waste topsoil. I figure that if it takes God so long to produce topsoil why should we waste it? 

Another aspect of being environmentally friendly is to recycle when we can. During the process of the renovation we made three trips to the metal recycling center. 

We also re-used some lumber from the original home so we could really see that we are living, not in a new home, but in a home that has been renovated. We therefore “harvested” hardwood and trim and made sure we used it when we could. Some of the trim in the lower level game room and does not match the rest of the home. I want it that way. This home has been a great home for some very fine people over the years and we want to celebrate that.

One other note on recycling wood. Old wood, particularly trim that we harvest from homes we renovate from the turn of the century (that means at the beginning of the 20th century for all you Millennials who think that the Beatles are part of ancient history), is much better than wood trim we get today. The “old growth” wood is much more dense and much more stable. Jon Houston, our field expert, and a much more knowledgeable person with respect to wood, has pointed out to me how many more growth rings are in a piece of old growth wood compared to new. Wood flooring is the same, although oak is still oak.

Picking the lights was Deby's thang!!! And boy did she pick some very nice pendant lights from Cardello Lighting. Although a bit pricy, Deby assures me that these lights will make the entire home “pop” when we walk in and will make a bit of an eclectic statement. 

Knowing that Deby wanted a specific look with the granite tops, we chose a builder’s grade cabinet, but a very well built one from Wellborn Cabinets from one of our local designers, Larry Lucci. I told her we had to keep that selection in budget if she wanted her granite choice!

   Her counter top selection, which I do love, is white with black veining and just enough tan tones to tie into the Tuscan Cottage feel and to blend with the fireplace stone.

   I suggested to Deby that although the house certainly has a relaxed feeling, it can look like she had the kitchen installed by a designer from Florence, who brought a more sophisticated urban look to the kitchen with granite counter tops in a Carrera marble mode.  

Stay tuned,

Often new homes are built with one architectural design on the exterior but a different, sometimes more contemporary one on the interior. For instance, we have built some very nice Craftsman Homes with clean, simple and rustic exteriors but the clients have selected more elaborate painted colonial interiors. Deby and I chose to be consistent.

We both work hard long hours, me as a builder and her as a realtor for Berkshire Hathaway. So whether it is a cold Friday evening sitting at our open kitchen bar with the fireplace on or a Sunday afternoon on our shady rear porch, we want to enjoy a relaxing time with each other in a Tuscan manner. Our ideal - relaxing with a bottle of wine, some cheese and olives, and if I am lucky, some anchovies on Bruschetta. (No, Deby will not eat them, but since bruschetta is something I can make well, I will put anchovies on my half).

We want the Tuscany theme to pervade the entire home, inside and out. 

One aspect of Tuscan homes that worked well for us are the exposed wood beams that many of these homes traditionally have. As discussed in a previous blog, the only way this 1950’s home would work for us was if we removed the middle bearing wall to make the home open.

The necessary post and beam would work well, but when we looked at buying a simulated beam, the cost was very high. So chose to do what we have done for some clients in the past, we took regular framing lumber and ripped the edges on a 45 degree angle to make it look like an old solid wood beam

. 

The fun part is that this wood needs antiqued, and we were able to get some rough wood to start (our lumber supplier, H.P. Starr, is not used to hearing me ask for rough lumber). We then hammered it and I got a broken concrete block and dragged it across the wood. Deby wanted in on the fun and she grabbed another block.

Now I am a normal guy and do not like my lady’s hands all roughed up, but she was having too much fun so I let her continue her antiquing process. This was our Friday evening “date," and the fun we had will be fondly remembered.

  I can’t wait until we get the beams stained and “finished."

As discussed in an earlier blog, based on compromise, preference and the pitch of the current roof, we came onto the theme of a Tuscan Cottage. 

The Tuscan Cottage look, which is obviously a European genre, but works so well with low pitched roofs, both gable and hipped. But to really pull off Tuscany I felt we needed the look of a red clay tile roof.

 Let me just tell you, the cost of a real tile roof is prohibitive! So I searched high and low and found GAF brand Monaco shingles. Though also a significant upgraded that we wrestled with, we decided (well, I guess I should really say that I decided) this selection would be worth the upgrade.

Deby agreed, and as is mandatory if you are going to stay married for 37 years, my roofing decision came with some tradeoffs as she has certainly chosen interior upgrades that I did not think were worth the cost.

Somehow after all that discussion about the roof upgrade, Deby forgot what the shingle selection was because when she pulled up to the house the day the shingles were being installed, she called me in a panic.

“They are all curled up!” she exclaimed. I assured her they were not. “No!”, she said, “They are!” I explained that they are supposed to look that way to simulate clay barrel tiles that are typical for Tuscan homes.

Once completed, we BOTH believe that these shingles were a good choice; they look real! Like most upgraded materials, these shingles are more difficult to lay. We are fortunate that Ryan Zilwegger’s guys took the time to lay the pattern correctly. 

More to come,

Even though we have been in this business all our lives, and we have “opened up”other older homes for clients, we were not sure how our home would look opened up. But we knew we wanted a flowing floor plan where we could host large gatherings at which our friends and family would easily interact. We're all about opening our hearts and home! To make this possible, we removed the walls between the Family Room and Kitchen, 

the Kitchen and the Dining Room, 

and the Dining Room and the Family Room.

We will have one main beam down the center of the home with a post in the middle, bearing on the old fireplace foundation in the Basement. 

We also made the small double window in the dining room a larger triple window to create a lengthier feel in the house.

This particular home had another problem. The front door entered at the far end of the Family Room, making guests walk through the furniture of the Family Room to get to the rest of the home. So we moved the door and windows around on the front wall to make this happen. 

Now we will enter the front door into a Foyer, then walk the rear of the Family Room, which is a much shorter and more efficient traffic flow. 

We knew the home was not going to be big, and with only two bedrooms on the main floor, we expect lots of little visitors sleeping downstairs. Since those visitors will be our grandchildren, we wanted to ensure an anti-scary basement vibe! 

Our original idea was to have a Bilco door installed as the "legal egress" - a  way out of the basement in case of a fire. But we were concerned that younger children may not be able to easily get out in case of a fire so we built in a full door with concrete steps. 

Since that is on the far end of the basement, and the kids will sleep in the other end of the basement, we also added a legal egress sliding window that will have a ladder. 

While it does not seem so evident yet, when we are done, this window and door will add a lot of light as well - our anti-scary basement antidote.

Speaking of doors, the front porch is framed and I am excited to see it after the stone is applied and the front door installed. We debated the front door as to whether to spend the money to upgrade it to have glass. We decided that this was a good place to spend some money to set the Tuscan feel. I can't wait to see the front door!!!! 

We love it!! That is what Deby and I said as we walked around our home this past Sunday before we had our first back yard fire.

Here's the thing. This home was a very simple home and as discussed in a previous blog, could have easily turned out looking like a giant double wide.  The master suite addition on the left side of the home and the garage addition on the right side of the home required us to spend a lot of time and let's be honest, a fair amount of money, adding architectural details. But details and decor are only surface deep if they're not also functional. 

While Deby and I do not say that this is the best home ever conceived, we are very happy and believe it will fulfill our desires for a compact, efficient, one level home that will serve us well into our retirement years. We can't wait to move in.

As appearance combined with functionality is a huge passion of mine, Deby and I walked room to room this past week and made sure everything was the best it could be for how we want to live. As we are finalizing all the demolition, framing and mechanical work, we mentally placed furniture, looked at the different views of the interior of the home from different perspectives and just walked like we will be walking in our home when it is done. More than once we would say something to the effect of this room is not exceptionally big but it really lives well.

(READ THE REST AT YOUR OWN RISK!)

This experience reminded me of something that I have often wondered in my 30 years in the homebuilding industry; Why do Americans buy most products based on function and style but they buy their homes based on square footage?

I never heard a Boomer say, Forget the BMW with all the features, I want the big white Chevy box van because it has more square feet!

Likewise, I never heard a Yuppie walk into a TV store and say, Don't show me those flat screens, I want the real deep ones that fit into a massive oak cabinet.

 Finally, I have never heard a Millennial (side note: I'm still slightly unclear about what Millennial even MEANS - does anyone really know?!) ask for a big wall hanging phone with the oversized handle instead of a new slim down iPhone.

So why the fascination with big barrack style homes with brick and windows on the front only and vinyl siding without windows on the side?

Only when buying a home do they ask to take as much quality out of a home as they possibly can, to barely meet code in order to make it as big as it can be.

In 100 years will our great grandchildren walk through our newly built neighborhoods like we walk through Sewickley, Shadyside and the parts of Allegheny City (the North Side) and marvel at the architectural beauty of the homes?

Likely not. And that's a shame.

End rant.

Tune in to your regularly scheduled sweet renovation update blog next week. I just couldn't help myself.