Remodel Project 

A Private Residential Enterprise

Before, April 14, 2002

We had just finished fixing up our last house that we had spent 10 years on (click to view), when we were faced with a decision on how to care for my wife's aging mom.  She had always wanted a little place of her own out back, as she could no longer take care of her present house, and needed to be by someone. However, our former house had no room in the yard, so rather than pour more money and time into that house, we put it up for sale and started looking for a house with a lot big enough to build a granny flat out back.   

September, 2002

City of Riverside restrictions of lot coverage ruled out most of the lots downtown, and we did not want to move to a more rural area.  Neither did we want to have to work until we're 75 to pay it off.  After months of searching, it was apparent that this would be hard to find.  Even looking at houses $50,000 more than we were willing to spend turned up nothing. 

We finally found a house on a double lot not far from our old house.  It was about 1/3 acre, and in a nice neighborhood.  However, it had a 1925 Craftsman Bungalow on it that had only bad things happen to it since 1925, and was in terrible condition, even for a house this old. 

With the help of our home inspector and realtor, we talked the seller down in price to help defray costs of renovating it.  This will be no small project:  We are stripping it down to the framing, re-doing half the framing, pouring huge new footings in the cellar, and re-building it including plumbing, electric and fireplace.  It will basically be a new house once we're done. After this we will be building a 640 square foot Granny Flat out back, and then replacing the one-car garage.  Did I mention we're doing this evenings and weekends?  Everyone asks how long we think it's going to take to finish.  I tell them ten years, since that's how long it took to do our last house.  We ended up living in an RV for a year and a half, and then spent another year and a half building the granny flat below.

Click on the updates to see the saga of these two houses.

Granny Flat completed December 2005

Finish Carpentry, September 2003

Remodel Resources