ODD home design and possible modifications
 

< EDIT >
FYI, it's not going to happen. More detail in a post at the bottom of the thread.
< /EDIT >

I've had a few threads. We are thinking about moving out of our apt and back into a home. We are not afraid of work, and have therefore looked at homes that need it.

We've found a home that's got potential (>1/2 acre in a great neighborhood, HUGE master and en suite, homes 3-4 doors down that are between $400k and $1.2mil), but has a design that for lack of a better word is whacky.

I'm wondering what you folks think about some of our ideas for possible modifications to improve things.

The first thing, the formal dining room is kind of small and isolated from the rest of the home. There's a large chunk out of the downstairs that was left as a patio. Extending the exterior walls out to where the patio is would create more interior space and help the dining room. I don't think it would be that technically difficult to build new exterior walls and then demo the existing walls. Do any of you folks with more experience see any major hurdles? And any ideas what to do about the fact that we probably couldn't match the brick for those new walls?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1578787569.jpg

The stairs are VERY cramped, especially at the stair landing. I think if the modification above were completed, we could then alter the stairs to be L shaped vs a U-turn and therefore improve them. (I haven't worked out any details)
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-7.jpeg

Also, it seems that 99% of the time when you go from a garage into a home, you dump into the kitchen (or very near the kitchen). In this place, the kitchen has an external door, and the garage has an external door that is adjacent to the nearest point between the garage and home. The REALLY odd thing is that the two doors are not adjacent to each other (they are both West facing), and there's no door in the home that's adjacent to the door from the garage.


Also, the wall/door into the kitchen extends into the side wall of the house which takes space away from kitchen cabinets and counters. I've thought that we might push that out flush with the upstairs exterior wall.
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-10.jpeg
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-12.jpeg
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-4.jpeg


Another thing that's a little odd is that the front door is set back into the front face of the home which isn't that odd, until you open the front door and realize it opens into a wall that's so close that the front door has less than 12" between the end of the door and the wall. There's actually a tiny coat closet in the wall that's basically space under the stairs. It would be nice to push the front door of the home out to toward the front of the house. I didn't measure that setback, but I think it's 6-10'. I'm not sure how much work that would be compared to a couple of the other changes that we're wondering about. There's also a small box that sticks out just above the front door on one side about 2'x1'x1'. I haven't checked, but the only thing that I can imagine is that maybe it's for an A/C vent or something. It's odd.
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-2.jpeg

This house is like something either created by a beginning architect student, or maybe someone built the house, and said "I want it this way." and the architect thought "that's really bizarre, but ok."

this layout is not to scale, but is, based on my impressions and observations, a pretty decent approximation of the floor plan of the downstairs of the house.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1578788406.JPG

huge master
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-14.jpeg
unfortunate master bathroom
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-16.jpeg
https://photos.harstatic.com/156722835/hr/img-17.jpeg


What do you folks think?

Some possible changes (not thoroughly thought through)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1578791753.JPG

Over all, I like it. I could live there and I like space. The kitchen and master bedroom are great. That master bath - ugh. I would hate to wake up and walk into that room the first thing in the morning. It looks like the changing room at a swimming club.
It is odd that the garage opens into the living room.
Depending on your lifestyle that dining room doesn't need to be a dining room. After a year of wondering what to do with our small dining room MrsWD said, "It's your office!" And so it is. Our "dining room" is where your living room would be. We "live" in our dining room and it works out great.

I like the changes.
Kitchen to dining room is nice. Add door to porch and now there are three seating areas all visible from the kitchen command central.
'Open spaces' is the thing these days.

Get some white bullnose/wrap-over tile for the tub edges. I don't like sharp corners in the bathroom.

The structural support for an entire corner of the house is a couple decorative 4x4? ...err...no. Fix that.

You could still do a small vestibule/foyer/genkan with closet and/or bench seat for the entrance maybe.

Find a way to close off the living room. somewhat. Loud TV party can happen while not bugging people sitting at the table.

You should first find out what is a load bearing wall. This will limit the changes you can make.

I wonder if this was someone's idea of a dream home? I grew up in one where the designer wanted the kitchen to be the center of the home. It was literally in the center, you had to walk through it to get to the bedrooms, living area, entry, and dining areas. Everything led into the kitchen. Made for an interesting cooking experience. Oh, it was a galley kitchen as well. Looked at one that was designed as a gingerbread house. The weird angles and forced walls gave the home a feel of strange proportions. In some areas it felt bigger than it looked from the outside, in others much smaller. The second floor was supposed to have three bedrooms and two baths. In effect, you had to go through a bedroom to get to another bedroom. None were big enough for more than a single bed or crib. The unreal lines gave several roof areas showing signs of water/ice penetration.

It may very well be doable if you can put in beams and support the upper story.

Wife liked the blue tile. To each their own...

What's odd is that the garage opens to a wall. There's currently no door, you either walk around to the front door on the back door. I think we'd want/need to put a door to the living room (probably adding a closet/entry area). Right, the rooms can be whatever we want.
I think that we're thinking of ditching the blue completely. We also aren't fans of how the toilet is exposed right next to the bath. If not too difficult/expensive, I could see us putting the toilet in the spot where the shower currently is, and then moving the shower out and having a walk-in shower and "spa tub" together in the bathroom.

You noticed that too? Hahah. That's exactly why I'm thinking, move the whole wall out to where those decorative supports are and make that patio part of the living room / dining room area.

Right. I suspect that every exterior wall downstairs is load bearing, but I would ASSuME that as long as you replace one load bearing wall with another load bearing wall, you should be good, right?
That's one of my thoughts, original home owner had a say in how the house was built. I think they only stayed 4-5 years. I suspect they realized "we know squat about designing a home, this has some serious flaws," and left.
Honestly, I don't think the blue tile is bad. I think the way that it was done isn't the best. I think there's way, way to much of it. It may have been better if done in moderation instead of doing the entire tub surround and 2 entire walls floor to ceiling.

First thing I saw.

You're not alone. Even my wife thought of that and that's not usually the kind of thing that she notices.

And the large spa style tub is in that corner, so that corner supports a bunch of weight if someone were to take a bath.

Look elsewhere.

Or, cash in your 401k's, sell the cars, take out home improvement, ELOC and builder's loans and demolish the thing completley and start over. The new neighbors will thank you for it.

Or, if you really are hankering for a never-ending, very expensive project of dubious value, immediately break up the mass of the side elevation, somehow. Open up the interior of the first floor, loose the blue tile and ultra modernize the entire interior, both levels.

The front elevation is the least insulting aspect of the house.

The wall you want to remove to bring the patio into the interior likely has the plumbing for the master bath in it. Factor that into your budget.

This.

Since you asked.... thats a piece of work. It better be cheap, really cheap. New bathrooms, structural work, framing, new floors, stairs... and you end up with.... Good luck!

Yeah, that's also the kind of thing that I wanted to hear.

Another idea is you live in it and enjoy it for what it is. Then sell it to someone else who also doesn't mind the slightly quirkiness of the place. It's only slightly odd.

I, myself, I'd love the place.

I wouldn't try to fix it.

If you really love it...... put the kitchen/eating area where the large great room is. Other rooms become den/LR/office.

That porch ceiling is low. Is that the step down from the master?

I see $150-200k in renovations. Watch 'the money pit' before submitting an offer.......

No, the step down from the master is in the front of the house and that patio is in the back under the master bathroom.

I think the porch ceiling is a standard 8', but the interior of the home is 10'.

The stairs are steep and the turn-around is REALLY tight. They seem borderline dangerous. I also think they'll be difficult to "fix" but they may not be. It's not like they are a load bearing wall.

We've also debated creating a large front porch with extension that goes to the garage to allow getting from one to the other in bad weather. I'm not sure how you connect two buildings via a roof that are on two separate slabs that can move around, but I assume it can be done.

There is a lot of deferred maintenance that needs to be done. The door into the garage that would normally provide access between garage and home is so rotten on the bottom 24" that there are 3-4" gaps along the sides and bottom where the door has disintegrated. The tile around the bathtub has popped off in several spots. The supports for the small roof over the porch outside of the kitchen are 4 raw 4x4 beams that appear to be fairly new.

We think there are foundation issues. I didn't see any cracks on the inside or outside of the house, but the living room feels slanted. The garage definitely has issues as one wall has a crack in the outside brick.

The house has a gas-log fireplace, but there's a piece of wood and ash in the fireplace.

Run.

Run away! Run away!

For the costs you are thinking, you could find something that doesn't need fixing. Moving exterior walls like you are thinking would require foundation work too.

Can you say "money pit"? If you decide to buy?

If this is one of the conclusions that you've reached, I'm just wondering why you're still showing an interest. This is, in my opinion, a weird house, and the word "odd" is in the op too many times to count. Throwing money at it in large denominations doesn't seem very practical, and the upkeep, (paint, roofs, brick maintenance, gutters, etc etc) is going to be really expensive because of the size of it....

If the ‘Why?’ involves taking on an enormous project for the fun of it then he should go for it. But if there’s any consideration of the ROI, then it’s a really bad idea IMWO*.




*W = Worthless

All of it is doable, if there's something about the house (price, location, lot, etc.) that makes you want to buy it.

You'll never get all of your money back on remodeling but life isn't solely a question of money.

The brick can be saved and re-used, you can often still find the same brick years later, etc.

I'd offer more specifics but it's too early in the process for that.

I would buy more of a fixer upper and make it yours. When you buy a nicely finished home and then renovate a bunch of stuff, you are paying for everything 2X. Might as well buy something cheap, make it the way you like it while you are still in the appt and then move when it's ready. You might build in some equity if you are able to buy the fixer upper at the right price.

if near Houston, the critical thing is will it flood

and flood zones are WAy out of date

dunno if remodeling will add to your taxes - they do that here so watch out

some Interior mods will drive the taxes up here

my point is that he needs to figure out things for his property tax district ...

It's all a moot point now. We made an offer 17% less than what the seller was asking. The counter offer was 3% less. The seller's realtor told our realtor that they had previously refused an offer that was exactly half as low as ours. THere's no way we were even going to negotiate up that high. Our offer wasn't made based on the oddities of the design. Our offer was made based on obvious things that needed to be fixed, like a completely rotten door on the garage, obvious foundation issues in the garage as well as fairly apparent foundation issues in the house, deferred maintenance, possible roof issues (stain on the ceiling of one of the upstairs bedrooms), etc.... The house has been for sale for 1 year. In the first 6 months, the prices was adjusted quite a bit. It hasn't moved since last July. The guy is living in it and, I suspect, has no major reason to leave. The sad part is that it's just going to continue to deteriorate while he lives there.

I figure this is just the universe keeping us out of a lot of trouble. There was another similar house that we'd looked at previously. It is much better, but still needs a lot of TLC. It had gone under contract before when we were considering making an offer. It then came back on the market. When this one fell through, the missus asked about that one, but it's back under contract again.

I think we're just meant to stay put for now. We'll sign another lease and check again next time, maybe starting a little earlier.

Thanks for all of the thoughts.

I would not make an offer on any house that has foundation issues.

Whew!

I love "the blues" but only in music and moderation :D

Hahahah

Why not? Our last home had foundation issues. We had them fixed, and it wasn't even that expensive. Before we bought, we'd have gotten a thorough estimate on the foundation. Before we sold our last home, we had some foundation issues fixed by a company that did a great job at great price. We'd have had them come out to inspect and provide a thorough estimate.

The drink cart come with the house?
My priorities on a house are kitchen, garage, bathroom, and drink cart. I hate a badly designed kitchen. That one isn't great, but it seems to have space. The narrow stove is a big minus. The bathroom is awful, and I don't see any Tangueray on the drink cart.
I'm voting with the guys who say run!

Edit: I think you dodged a bullet.

Foundation damage has many causes including:

Bad soil conditions.
Bad drainage and site preparation, grading, etc.
Lousy builder
Lousy design and construction

When you fix the damage to the foundation, it doesn't mean the underlying cause has been fixed. Depending on what that is, it may come back. In some cases, there's no practical fix.

The foundation issues cause other issues in the structure of the house. Those can sometimes be difficult or costly to fix correctly.

Houses are notorious for being built without complete engineering and design, as most commercial buildings receive. Many residential builders take shortcuts and do things they shouldn't. That's because most houses are built on spec, not to a fixed price and a custom design. Build a house right and you might (well, you probably will) price yourself out of the market because you'll have a much higher price than the guy next door and buyers are usually not sophisticated enough to pay more for better quality.

Not trying to bust anybody's balls, it just is what it is. An experienced contractor will see things you and your house inspector will miss.

All that to say, there are plenty of houses out there. Pick one that is sited properly on good soil and don't go asking for problems.

Have you thought of building a new house?

Find a place to build, get a construction note from the bank, pick out the house drawings, buy the lot/acreage, hire a general contractor (or do it yourself), dole out the cash as things get done. Then you can get the house you want (3 car attached garage with a lift and pit) and possibly have maybe 15% (or more) equity in the house once it is finished. Then you convert the construction note to a conventional, FHA, VA or whatever.

A friend of mine did this many years ago and had 20% equity right off the bat. It just depends on what each sub-contractor wants to charge for their work. And maybe you could do some of the work yourself? Depends on what home inspectors will allow.

Interesting. In this area, I think the soil is almost always crap. I suspect that unless it's overbuilt you're going to have a problem eventually, whether that takes 40-50 years (our last home) or 30-40 (this one) it's eventually going to happen.

I've wondered before, "could you build it so that's never a problem?" and decided that I'm sure that you could, but that most folks would probably balk at a bunch of extra cost.

I've always thought that building yourself ended up costing more and being a huge hassle. We'd love to build ourselves.

In this particular case, we were thinking "short term". Find a place that needs some work (not necessarily tons or major) buy it cheap-ish (because most folks seem to want turn-key in the latest style) do as much of the work ourselves as possible and leave (or be prepared to) in 4-6 years with some equity.

Rebuilding a fixer-upper and moving every five years will drain you eventually.

It better be dirt cheap in a good area to go through all that.
Then there is the hidden reason it hasn't always been bought.

We definitely don't plan to do it every five years. It is in a very good area. The reason that it hasn't sold is because the guy is waiting for a Barnum fool. The guy wants too much money for the house that he's letting rot and will probably never get what he wants for it.

He's foreign (which isn't a problem), but I think it means that he doesn't understand what most folks expect our want from a house purchase.

It reminds me of one of those guys that has a classic car rioting in his yard but wants fully restored retail money for it. Then after years, he lets it go for a fraction of what he was asking.

As stated, bullet dodged.

Do some web searching on being your own general contractor. If you have some business skills, you can do it. It will take a lot of your time and effort, but will pay off in the long run. Check it out. And I bet the wife would like it too. You may find that shopping for HVAC, appliances, bath fixtures, lighting, flooring, paint, electrical, plumbing, drywall, etc. etc. can be fun because you can shop for the best prices and best sub-contractors. Building the shell of the house is one cost, but finishing the inside is another cost.

First, you pick a building site that can be contoured to drain properly. Then you get the soil tested and if there are any unsuitable soils present, you remove them and replace them with engineered fill that you bring in from offsite. Place that in shallow lifts and compact each one, then you test the compaction. Then you have an engineer design an appropriate foundation and off you go. That’s typical for any normal commercial construction, the fact that they don’t do much of it in residential construction is why people have so many problems. There’s a reason they say the foundation is the most important part of a building.

Sorry but that place has no written all over it for me.

Around here you can buy an existing house for half of what it would cost to build a new one.