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DuBose Remodel
Every house as it ages gets to a point where it needs to be repaired and updated. For Raymond and Carolyn "Pinkey" DuBose, the home they bought on the outskirts of Chapel Hill in 1981 had reached that point. This is the only place they have lived in their 29 years of marriage. They had raised two children, they loved the location, and they wanted to stay in the house but there were some things that needed attention. They had a number of issues with the window glass, the sliding doors, the deck and a number of general maintenance issues. This eventually led them to make a "wish list" for their home that they prioritized. After talking and pricing out a number of the items they settled on a "let's get going list."
We started on their garage/bonus room that I built for them in 1986. It is a large building, 24 feet by 36 feet, 864 SF per floor. The upstairs was basically as I left it, a really nice space but unfinished except for the trim and walls. Ray and Pinkey had only one change for the space and that was to add a wall of closet space in the main area for storage. Other than that we repainted and stained and put down a prefinished wood veneer floor in the main room and Pinkey's craft room, the full bathroom got a vinyl floor. We also added some wall fixtures and a ceiling fan.
The cathedral ceiling with its bolted cross ties has held up well through the years, there were no signs of settling or any sheetrock cracks to be found. The Douglas fir rolling drawers and Formica worktable we built for Pinkey's craft room were freshened up with a coat of stain and clear satin polyurethane. It was nice to see the stairs again; it was my first set of "dancing winders" as they are called in my most used book through the years, THE STEEL SQUARE by H.H. Siegele. I still use the same technique for all winders: draw them to full scale on a sheet of plywood and rip 2 x 8's to the riser height and build overlapping boxes covered with 3/4 plywood for each stair, pretty quick and very strong.
We started on the outside of the garage/bonus room next, replacing a few rotting boards and painting. Next we moved to the outside of the main house replacing boards and painting. The original house had a few problems that definitely were ready to be addressed. Most of the window glass had developed seal breaks and were cloudy so we replaced the glass and resealed everything for an improvement in thermal performance and a big improvement in visibility and interior daylighting. The three sets of sliding doors were in bad shape, hard to open and close and they had lost a lot of air tightness. In the living and dining room we installed vinyl sliders with adjustable shades inside the window glass, a nice feature that allows you to effortlessly control the amount of light you want to come in and pretty much does away with a need for interior curtains that swallow up light and space. The kitchen slider was replaced with outswing French doors that open fully to the new screen porch. At some point we decided to rebuild the front entry stairs and rails for better accessibility and an updated look.
Turning to the inside of the house we began by installing new carpet and painting the bedrooms. We put down new vinyl in the kitchen and repainted, the existing tile in the entry was replaced with new tile laid on a diagonal. The living room/dining room with its cathedral ceils and exposed ridge beam is a nice space but the existing fireplace insert was poorly placed; there was a lot of wasted space behind it and it was cutting off sight lines and light. The fireplace insert was part of the original house and its age was a factor along with its lack of energy efficiency. Ray's dream was to have a stone energy efficient fireplace so we began drawing up some plans to address his dream and the design problems of the original unit. It was pretty obvious that the answer to the design issue was to angle the wall and push the insert back and reclaim the lost space. Everything fell into place when Ray and Pinkey went to Fireplace Editions in Carrboro and picked out their high efficiency fireplace, a Delta by RSF Energy of Canada. This fireplace with advanced clean burn technology has been certified to meet the EPA Phase Two standards at 3.8 grams per hour. With a capacity to warm 2000 to 3000 square feet, the Delta is one of the most heat efficient and clean burning models on the market. Ray chose the remote hot air vent option to disperse heat and make the fireplace a more efficient heater when the blower is not in use. During mild weather Ray and Pinkey may elect to open the door for a fire that will not over heat their space, yet take the chill out of the air.
Once we had the specifications we angled the wall 60 degrees turning the front of the fireplace to the living room and pushing it back as far as we could. The finished product has really opened up the space and the shape of the firebox with its angled glass sides, which allows for viewing from both rooms now. The stonework is natural veneer stone and the 45-degree stone corners were special order but well worth the money and the wait considering the look attained. The texture and shape of the rock really set off the space.
The mantel is a piece of cherry wood from a tree that was hit by lightning and had a number of splits/cracks. It belonged to Pinkey's favorite uncle who had given her her nickname and she wanted to save it. My solution was to inlay cherry butterflies to keep the cracks from spreading apart any further. There are 8 butterflies, all cut and inlaid by hand. As I had finished the mantel and installed it in the original fireplace, I had to miter this piece to fit into the shape of the new fireplace and Pinkey has kept the off cuts for display.
The exterior deck was way past its prime and a good excuse to rebuild completely. The biggest problem with the old deck was the handrail system employed was blocking their view of the garden area when they sat down. Pinkey's dream was to have a screened in porch to get away from the bugs and be large enough to entertain and function as an extra room that was open to the kitchen. The finished screen porch is 13 feet by 18 feet. We needed to do what we could with the screen porch to maximize the light entering the kitchen so we put the headers and collar ties up as high as possible, opened up the south-facing gable as much as possible with minimal framing and fixed glass above to increase natural lighting inside and still reduce the amount of rain that might blow in with the open gable.
Eliminating the handrail system and meeting the code requirements required us to build a two level deck with a walkway to keep the top of the deck no more than 30 inches from grade or adjoining deck in the garden area. We dropped the deck two inches at the house, an improvement in terms of waterproofing. The lower angled deck is down two risers or 15 inches and the walkway is down another 7.5 inches. So the top of the main deck in the garden viewing area is now 22.5 inches above the walkway, well within code for having no handrails. The lower deck is about 12 inches above grade on the uphill side and is large enough, 158 sf, for chairs and is a nice place to sit and enjoy the garden and fishpond with its rock waterfall.
The framing for the different levels was an interesting time. We had 25 piers with 6 x 6 posts that we attached to the piers with 1/2 rebar dowels and all the 6 x 6's were notched to receive the band beams. We set the batter boards at the bottom of the joists for both levels, pulled our string lines, verified our numbers then used a plumb bob to locate the 6 x 6's on the concrete piers. Once we doweled the 6 x 6's to the concrete we used the strings to mark the beam notches. The notches were cut with a power saw and a reciprocating saw and cleaned up with a chisel. My foreman, Clarkston Edgerston, did the entire cutting and notching with help from our apprentice, Howard Eubanks. Cheers!!
On a final note of interest, my first job for them was a bed I actually built for Ray in 1978 while they where dating but before they got married. He wanted something a little more functional, more attractive and better constructed than what was available on the market. They wanted to have an inclined back for reading and a lot of storage and open shelves. The inclined backrest is also a hinged door providing storage behind and the whole bed is raised with recessed drawers below. The main part of the bed is 8/4 mahogany that is finger jointed with a 3/4 birch dowel through the finger joints that can be removed if need be. The cabinet and nightstand were also built at that time. A lot of this work was done by hand with chisels, handsaws and planes. Everything seems to be holding up well after 30 years.
"The one thing we wanted in the job was quality and having worked with Steven previously and seen his work for others,
we knew he would take care of that. We were amazed at his meticulous attention to detail to make sure each and every final product
reflected his highest standard of quality. Even his subs respected him for requiring that they take no shortcuts where the final
quality would be sacrificed. One shared with us that you don't see that kind of quality in this trade much anymore. All that and
at a reasonable cost! He communicated with us frequently about the scope and updated final cost estimates regularly to meet our
needs. As this was a renovation/repair project on a 30-year-old house, there were many unknowns that affected cost. He worked hard
to control the cost of the project while maintaining his high standard of quality throughout."
Ray & Pinkey DuBose
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| Click above to see the DuBose Remodel slideshow. |
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