Garden/Landscape Design – 10 years ago when we moved in, the “landscape” at our place consisted of a chain link fence, bamboo running wild and nary a square foot of garden bed or patio.   At the time it felt like we’d never get the place turned around.  Since then we’ve engineered a pretty good turnaround.  The trick for us was coming up with a long term design early on that we could then follow at our own pace, chipping away at it each season as time/resources allowed.  Along the way we’ve evolved the design a fair bit to incorporate new needs (addition, tree house one year, arbor the next, patio, etc.).  But having a main rudder for the effort has really helped, not only in getting a result that hangs together, but also in having specs for the various providers (garden centers like Merrifield, landscapers, etc.) we’ve used to help us implement the vision.

Our design resource was Pamela Underhill.  She crafted a starting plan for us and has since updated it 2-3 times.  What we liked?  She’s local, knows what works here/doesn’t, and has good tips for trades/plant providers, etc in this area.  We’ve consistently liked her ideas and built our own tweaks from them.  Her prices are reasonable and she’s always been happy to work with us on these smaller bits rather than a big single job.  Small nit, sometimes the turnaround has been a little slow but that probably comes with the relatively small size of our asks.

Landscaping and Maintenance -   For several years now we’ve worked with Community Landscaping.  Mike Balog runs the outfit which seems to do a lot of work around here.  Generally I’ve found Mike to be very responsive, reasonably priced and fair.  They’ve done several patio/paver projects for us, along with a few bed cutting and clean up jobs.  Quality has been pretty solid and where it hasn’t been up to snuff on a first attempt, Mike’s crew has been quick to get it fixed.  They’ve also taken good ownership for the various projects they’ve done for us over the years.  So if last year’s effort needs a quick tune up in a spot, Mike just does it, no new charges, etc.

We’ve also used the Greener Side, run by Aaron Gorski.  Aaron did some sod for us after our addition, put in a dry well to deal with runoff and completed some limited stone work.  Similar experience for us as above, generally solid results from an easy to work with local provider.  We stopped using them after some slow response on getting a bid a few years back but assuming that can be chalked up to growing pains, Greener Side is also an option to consider.

As with so many parts of the home ownership adventure, we’ll never really be “done” with the landscaping I suppose, but every year we get a little further along and get a result we love a little more.  If you’re undertaking a similar journey at your castle, these local resources are worth looking up.

As it is with architects, lots of route options here – design-build, big firm with lots of project management resources, smaller contractor where the name on the truck is the person you’ll be dealing with the most, etc.  [Side Note: If you’re one of those brave souls considering acting as the general contractor and subbing out all the different bits, take care… great, double probation, "hope you talk yourself out of it" kind of care.  I’ve done a bunch of construction projects myself over the years.  Including a total basement redo that nearly killed me.   Thinking of how long and ugly the process would have been had I tried to play GC on this much bigger addition job makes me shudder even now.]  Anyhow, assuming you take some contractor route, some suggestions:

• Get multiple bids – ideally across types like the above (bigger, smaller, in between, etc.).  After all the build up on an addition you can get so jacked up to get going that you toy with short sheeting the selection process.  Don’t.  We were surprised at how big a cost/approach range there was amongst the bids we got.  So very glad to have stayed at it (and probably could have done more).

• Don’t skip referrals, or digging on your own – again, tempting to skip after one or two calls to the names your contractor suitors provided.  But you can get feedback on style and approach that might meaningfully influence your decision from even the most carefully planted shill a bidder gives you.  Plus, nowadays with a little web digging, list reading, etc., you can probably unearth some useful independent commentary.

• Go see some jobs they’re doing – Finished ones are helpful but jobs in progress are even better.  What’s the work site like?  If the contractor doesn’t also swing the hammer anymore, is there a foreman you can meet?  Do they have folks permanently on their team, as well as subs, or is everybody a free agent?  Is the size similar to what you’re after?  Construction is controlled chaos at some level but I think you can sense a well managed job/team verses a loosely run one.

• Once you pick, talk through EVERYTHING, TWICE – Selecting your dance partner is only step one.  Before you move to a contract and final pricing, make sure you walk through everything about the job.  Do the plans from the architect give the contractor ALL the detail they need?  Are there any spots where the two disagree about how to bring about a certain design feature?  Have you documented all your expectations about your wants for the big parts of the job?  For example what’s the strategy for heating and AC?  There are lots of different options (and cost levels), particularly when you’re tying in old systems and new ones.   Better to thrash those out before you’re in the midst of the job.  So when you get an itchy trigger finger, step away, take a cold shower, really.  Ask yourself once again, have you gone through everything you can think of and gotten on the same page?  You’ll both be the better and happier for having done so.

• Fixed price vs. time & materials (or cost plus) – Most contractors would likely prefer a fixed price gig.  And for most homeowners it’s probably the cleanest option, knowing what you’re going to spend (a lot) and preparing accordingly.  Assuming of course that you don’t encounter any really big (i.e.  out of scope) surprises during construction, that you’ve got a good handle on what you want ahead of time, and that you can stick to your plan.  Sure the contractor makes more dough if the job goes well, but you’ve got the relative peace of mind that the cost can only go so high.  Conversely, the time and materials approach is more transparent to you and could ultimately cost you less if all goes really well.  But it could just as easily cost more if the project encounters new twists and your appetite for change grows.

• Keep it simple – We tried for some sort of hybrid that just created a bunch of cycles and wasn’t helpful for us or the contractor.  We landed up with essentially a fixed cost gig anyway.  Lesson?  Don’t overthink it.  Know what you want really well, negotiate the best deal you can through competition, acknowledge that the contractor needs to make money just like you need to save it, and move on.

• If in doubt, move out – An addition that breaks into your existing house anywhere is like surgery.  Once the patient is opened up, it’s ugly and chaotic until everything gets put back together.  Your place will get roughly treated by even the most careful outfit.  We originally thought we could stay in and just gut it out.  Yes, with 2 kids, and an addition getting tied in on two stories.   Nuts.  Thank goodness we saw the folly in it and moved out for three months.  The chaos also means you should take extra care to safeguard any stuff you leave behind.  Construction dust is like a sandstorm, finding its way through seemingly impenetrable barriers.

• Be prepared for ups and downs – You are guaranteed to hit some real low points.  A process as complex and close to home (literally and figuratively) as this is just wired for conflict at some stage.  Your, and your contractor’s, job is to keep the strife to a minimum and not freak out when it occurs.  And again, the more you try and thrash out any points of disagreement up front, the better.  At a minimum, you’ll have a good sense for how you and your new friend can handle spirited disagreement before the job ship has sailed.

Our contractor experience? – We used Bluestone Builders which is run by Tim Moran.  All in all a good outcome, albeit with some rough stretches.  Some quick hitters on our experience:

• Good relationship fit – Tim had a very helpful, friendly and even demeanor.  He gave us lots of useful referrals for other providers, as well as weighed in with useful tips, etc.

• Frequent communication, good transparency – Tim was readily available by email and cell, and happy to share bid info, details etc. electronically, through Excel, etc.

• Tale of two jobs – Great first half.  The foundation and framing up the exterior went really well moved fast, no big surprises, good communication, etc.  Mixed 2^nd half.  Interior and finishing stage (in and out) much more up and down. Communications issues ‘tween contractor and architect cost us a couple false starts.  We had some uneven subs and a fair amount of rotating in and out.  Attention to detail ebbed and flowed and we encountered some meaningful goofs requiring do-overs.

• Say and do disconnects – This is a general challenge in the contractor world from what I can gather and contractors themselves would tell you it’s a big problem they manage as well with their own subs.  I.e. you get an assurance that something will happen by a certain date and then it doesn’t happen, often repeatedly doesn’t happen.  We certainly had our fair share of these,  particularly in the later stages of the job.   Ultimately got done but not without pushing and focusing in on the details that I wished not to have to do so much.  Whatever route you go, be prepared to have to really watch the details.  These are complex undertakings with a lot of moving parts.

• Reasonable in conflict – When we had challenges, Tim was generally very reasonable in resolving a disagreement.

• Responsive since completing the job – This is a big one.  We’re now 2+ years past completion.  Tim’s always been quick to respond to questions with helpful info, as recently as the last 3-4 months.

• Would I recommend? – When we worked with Bluestone, Tim’s outfit was undergoing some big team changes that I think we bore the brunt of in certain respects.  The result was that we ultimately got a good result (and value) we’ve been happy with.  But it also felt like we had to work harder than we should have had to in order to get there.  So in the moment I wouldn’t have given a huge green light.  That said, I would certainly tell folks now to give him a call and see where things have progressed since then.  He brings a lot of good things to the table that with a more settled team would make for a pretty strong total package.

Final note for anyone west of Dulles who’s looking and happens to read this.  My brother-in-law runs a well respected construction firm (Carpenter Beach Construction, ) serving Loudoun, Clarke et al counties.  I mention them because a) I value family harmony and b) they have what is alas a relative rarity from my experience – a really helpful and comprehensive website that makes getting to know them a lot easier for folks looking for options.  Here’s hoping more of their contractor/architect brethren (including some of the leading names in Alexandria) follow this path.  If they do, will make your job much easier.

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1. It’s important to you that the flow between old house and new is really smooth and seamless
2. You care a lot about how the outside looks – how well the new exterior blends in with existing house, how much you do or don’t see from the street, how well you like just looking at what you’ve wrought from your yard
3. You’re willing to compromise on some of your wish list and spend more $$ per square foot (on fees yes, but also on the likely more complex build) in order to accommodate #’s 1 and 2
4. You’re excited by the idea of someone taking you to some places (ideas, design elements, etc.) you wouldn’t get to on your own
5. You’re prepared to manage what can be a healthy but sometimes trying tension between architect and contractor

Picking is always tough.  We found referrals most useful.  There are also some good searching tools available at the local AIA site.  As for our specific experience….we used Old Town Alexandria architect Patrick Camus and have been very happy with the results.  Patrick was then with Adams Architects and has since gone out on his own.  Don’t think he has a website but you can find him in the Yellow Pages and/or I can pass on an email if you’re interested.  Great guy, knows this area and all the players well.  A few specific notes:

• The really good – He totally nailed the vision.  Right out of the gate we loved the central idea of his design, which created an awesome set of new spaces and made some critical changes to our existing ones in order to deliver on a great blend of old and new.  Now 2+ years later, we get a steady stream of compliments from visitors about how well all the pieces fit together and in particular on the slam dunk kitchen/eat-in/screened porch he created.
• The mixed – In some cases our plans we’re a little short on the level of detail our contractor wanted for some of the finish work.  And the communication back and forth between Patrick and the contractor was up and down, particularly in the later stages of the job.  I think these were due in part to us catching Patrick at the transition point from working for someone else to heading out on his own.  In the end neither had much of an impact on the outcome but did lead to an important learning….
• A lesson – Take the step of clarifying exactly how much involvement you want the architect and contractor to have after plans are done and you’re in to the construction.  And generally err on the side of caution when it comes to plan detail.  Better to have more not less.

Couple other quick notes on process that really helped us.  We started with Patrick doing ¼ inch drawings in order to arrive at a core design concept we liked.  Then moved to the more detailed 1/8 inch plans for fleshing out the full idea.  Not sure if that’s standard or no, but really was helpful for us to get on the same page about the vision before diving into details.

And get a lot of eyes on your plans.  We carried copies around with us for a while and walked through them with all kinds of friends and family.  You’d be surprised at the great tweaks that can come up this way from unlikely sources.  And the act of talking people through your plan also helps you uncover spots you ‘re not yet totally comfortable with.

One last thought that came up for us at multiple stages including this one – do all that you can possibly afford.  The process of planning and doing an addition is so invasive, better to do as much as you can when the patient is already opened up and on the operating table.  In our case we considered just doing a single story addition and then coming back and adding a second story later.  Thank god we listened to Patrick and others who urged us to do both stories at once.

Next up – Selecting and working with the contractor (with whom you will become scarily close, however the project goes).

And in the meantime check out this helpful post on the financial return you can expect from the dollars you put into your renovation.

Sometimes finding high quality help on a smaller, ‘tweener size project like this can be really tough. So let me share a word on the project type and the lokal resource I used.

4-5 years ago I tackled the outsized task of redoing our basement. Took 5 months of near constant night and weekend labor but turned out pretty well. And there was a good dose of satisfaction in it, knowing I’d done most of the work to remake the space from cold concrete box to a set of nicely finished rooms we sorely needed. But that was two kids and a lot of life ago. The tools and knowledge are still there, but the will and time are not. So when I wanted to divide one of these basement rooms with a new wall, I picked up the phone instead of a hammer.

Through a referral I came across Juan Paredes who had done some basement work for another Del Rayer. 3 weeks after first chatting with him I had a nicely completed project at a reasonable cost. Juan and his crew showed up on time, worked quickly, kept a clean site and did nice, thorough work. They added a 12 ft wall with an L turn in it, hung a new door, ran some electric, matched all the trim, and painted it up for me. Along the way I added a few wrinkles (finally realizing the man-dream of hanging the flat panel on a wall with no wires showing) which they integrated nicely. I was particularly pleased that they did such a nice job splicing the new walls in with my new-old ones from a few years prior.

All in all a very successful outcome. A few notes. Juan’s conversant in English but range is limited so I found in person meetings easier than over the phone. In terms of jobs he can handle, I can only speak to ours. But the work he did for the other Del Rayer sounded more like a full basement redo with some cabinetry. He doesn’t have a web site I’m aware of but happy to provide his number to those interested.

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When we were doing our addition (two story job with new kitchen and master) a while back, oh how I wished for some credible context on the blizzard of decisions we were making, the big chunks of dough we were committing, the long term relationships we were entering into. So now that we’re done and happily ensconced in the new digs, I’m getting around to sharing some of my takes so that the next poor sod who undertakes this year long life muddler will have just a bit more information at hand than I did.

Not sure quite how many parts in this series I’ll deliver. Some of it I don’t care to recount or is just too detailed to be of use. Basic pieces I can see being valuable right now (wherever relevant I’ll profile the local resource we used) include:

• Must haves – identifying what you MOST want because you’ll end up wishing for more… knowing what you can’t live without will really help.
• Architect/contractors - Quick take on our selection process, the ones we used, lessons learned.
• Move? – Some real world input on why I think the answer should most often be OUT.
• You need that? – Ideas on things like designers, landscapers, and other items I wished we’d thought of up front.

So on to must haves…. short story, before you get started on what invariably will be a yearlong process (minimum), think very hard about what exactly you’re trying to achieve, about the most critical items. Then make a list you can refer back to. Because there will be tons of opportunities (with your architect, your contractor, your mother, your friend, your therapist, etc.) to add new stuff in the early going, then to reduce stuff once you’re into it and start realizing you have to throw a bunch of items overboard in order to keep your little addition balloon aloft. Picking the right things to toss over, and safeguarding those must haves that you can’t live without – these are the ingredients for a successful project you don’t have to give back to the bank once it’s done.

For example… here were the top 5 priorities we juggled along the way, modifying/give up other things to make them happen, with varying degrees of success:

1. Smooth integration between old and new – I’m the son of a restoration architect… so wired to care a lot about how the new part jibes with the original. We didn’t want the addition to change the view of the house from the street and we wanted something really nice to look at from the back yard. Meant some tradeoffs in the size and shape of interior spaces.
2. Screen porch – Given Del Ray’s man-eating mosquitoes, a space where we could be outside with the kids without risking life and limb was a big priority we resolved to preserve at all costs.
3. First floor bathroom – Like many houses in this hood, ours had no bathroom on the main floor. We pledged to have a high tolerance for plumbing gymnastics and lower priority trade-offs to get this accomplished.
4. Big open kitchen – we wanted a big cooking space that opened right on to where we eat. For easy kid cooking/serving, but also so that we could socialize with guests while preparing dinner, something we love to do.
5. Master suite with laundry – We wanted our own bathroom, and an upstairs laundry, and a master closet too. All within the 2nd story footprint that made the whole design work for us and would stay true to #1 above. With some creativity and flex we got them all, albeit in smaller sizes than we’d hoped for. But we also made our biggest mistake thanks to a priority miss up front. We didn’t put a tub on the critical list, dropped it when the planning pressure was on and have lived to regret it.

Moral of the story, know the items that will make you the most happy. Write them down. Say them out loud. Tattoo them on your arm. Whatever will make it easy for you to keep them in mind as you weather the barrage of choices and concessions you’ll make between start and finish of this crazy process. You’ll end up with more of what you wanted, less of what you don’t and an acceptable dollop of all that’s in between.

Next up: #2 – Plans/Architects

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Haven’t figured out how to regularly recreate these rituals in today’s mad world, but does my soul plenty of good when we do. So it’s worth the investment to keep the fireplace safe and functioning well. Helps first to understand the basics of your fireplace. Good post on that at local blog GWSlept here. For professional care and feeding of our little flame holder, we use Del Ray’s own Rooftop Chimney Sweeps. When we moved in a ways back they did some work for us to get the chimney operating and have been our source for regular clean ups ever since. Last year we had a little incident with the old damper a couple days before a big party for which a fire was a must. They responded immediately to our last minute call for help (despite the heavy early winter work load) and put us back to rights just before the holiday revelers arrived.

Now if I could just find a reliable firewood provider. Anyone?

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