If small babies are visiting: there is the kitchen sink. Worked best for our D and it was great not having to bend over and into a large bathtub. Just set the baby tub in there and spray away, great fun.
Toddlers and small children: a large shower with a hand-held spray worked very well for us. If it’s too slippery, just use a small rubber mat.
Most of what I’ve seen at bath shows skew towards luxurious (albeit heavy water-using) multi-head shower spray systems. In drought-stricken Southern CA, it’s possible baths are non-PC.
Understanding that the door to the crawlspace can’t be easily moved, why not just have it inside the bathroom. Then you could expand the bath towards (or even under) the stairs and increase the size of the closet. With a bigger bathroom you could add access from the family room and have plenty of space for a tub if that’s the way you decide to go.
I’ll second Snowme’s suggestion! That’s a great idea! There’s no reason the bedroom wall has to line up with the bathroom wall and that nook on the south side of the stairs is just wasted space.
That is a very interesting suggestion. I could even stick the tub in the area with the slanted wall coming down under stairs. But today I’ve got bigger issues
PLANS UPDATE
My draftsman is a peach, although he is an odd ball kind of anti-social character. He had a rough set of plans at the structural engineer’s office by this afternoon. In fact, they sat together coming up with design ideas and back/forth with me on the phone a lot of the time.
Deck is going to have to have steel posts… dang!!
Some kind of gobbly goop about how I am going to have to bring everything to current 2015 code if I touch it. This means I have to tear off drywall in a lot of places and put in shear walls - because I am adding the window in the bedroom.
Then there was a big discussion about having to rip the house apart and put in a balloon shear wall all the way through upper floor to roof because we opened a hole in the living room for the staircase.
Then they thought maybe if we started the staircase back in the dining room (running east/west) and then a landing and then a turn down into family room maybe we don’t have to do balloon wall thing. I really don’t mind that idea. I doubt if anyone is really going to use that small space (that has the wall of cabinets that I was going to use for storage) to put a dining table. Most people are going to put a dining table out in the living area next to a view window. But, putting a staircase there will create a kind of ‘dead space’.
So, they had me on phone running up and down taking measurements and trying to make decisions on the phone.
Then I had to crawl down steep dirt slope and do a ‘slope’ percentage measurement with the giant 6 ft level. All I know is at the end of the 6ft level, the dirt slopes 39". Not sure what ‘percentage’ that makes the slope.
Geez, I wish this guy would have answered the phone when the City came knocking at my door on the Hoarder House project. He is charging 1/3 the cost of the other draftsman and structural engineer is 1/2 the cost!
Met my investor, my carpenter and the listing agent at the La Mesa house to do a thorough inspection. Once again, thank goodness for my carpenter! We got underneath the house and the prior owner had done a crazy thing. He had dug out 2 ft of dirt to get more ‘head room’. You can definitely stand up down there, but he just chopped 2 ft down on the stem wall - the footing is completely exposed and the lower stem wall is leaning ‘out’. We can see a lot of evidence that someone tried to cover up stucco cracks on the exterior in this area.
Prior owner dug 2 ft down around most of the piers holding up the house. They are loosely mounted on some unsupported concrete on 2 ft high ‘mounds’.
I walked right back up to the Listing Agent and made her come under house and look at the mess. I cannot believe this house was in escrow for 1+ years and no one did a foundation inspection??? That is very hard for me to believe. There is a medium amount of money needed to correct the situation. I don’t even know if we are going to have to haul in yards of dirt (after previous owner hauled it out somehow) and refill the crawlspace.
Now we have to dig even deeper to create the concrete bases for 22 piers.
But, at least I know the cost to do all this because it will be the third house where we have replaced all the piers (to code standards, despite what that last Home Inspector said)
The investor looks like he might have cold feet at this point. Three way phone calls all evening with contractors that he knows and trusts so they can talk him down.
I will not be making an offer at the price the listing agent was asking for. She says that the Seller will ask her to put it back onto the market.
That staircase configuration sounds good. For a staircase that long, it will be nice to have an intermediate landing and maybe you can have standard 7" to 7.25" risers if you have more space.
One thing that isn’t clear from the plans you posted is how far back the “empty space” beneath the house extends (as compared to the upper floor). I think you said the former garage is 20 feet wide; how many additional feet do you have before you hit whatever kind of retaining wall is down there? Where does that overlap with the upper floor?
Really interesting process. The hard thing abt adding stairs is making them appear as if they were always meant to be there.
Yes, listing agent acted all surprised. Then she pretty much got ‘cold’ and said they will put it back on the market. What the hey??? There’s just no way that the ‘contractors’ who found the sewer line issue didn’t mention the major issue with foundation under the house. I’m assuming that she feels that is all part of an ‘as is’ sale.
Just got a call from private lender and he is getting cold feet. So, even though I sent an informal low offer, I am just going to back down from this one.
The empty space below the original portion of the house goes all the way back to the street side stem wall. The dirt slopes upward under the house. You can walk around with a lot of headroom until you get about 6 ft from the street stem wall. My electrician is loving it… he has all kinds of room to work under there running wires.
“Just got a call from private lender and he is getting cold feet. So, even though I sent an informal low offer, I am just going to back down from this one.”
I think that is wise for both of you.
There will be some other opportunity to work together that wont end up being a be a can of worms. ^#(^
I think I’d be very cautious with this realtor, if this is an example of her “candor,” and I’d do a very careful and thorough inspection of anything she lusts. Would NOT trust her word, as she is not behaving as you or I believe realtors ought. Scary! Who knows what other issues lurk. Let this one go and focus on making #4 perfect!
cb, on the La Mesa house, if the price were reduced to accommodate the structural/foundation issue, would you still be interested? Or are you absolutely done considering that one?
I have submitted an informal low offer on La Mesa house. At this point, I’m hoping that it doesn’t get accepted, although I am not contractually liable since it was just an email offer, nothing on a purchase contract. But, I am really careful with my reputation - I want to be known as a Woman of my Word. This agent might have something really good in the future and don’t want to burn my bridges.
That agent sounds like she might not have told you the whole story about the underside of that house. It’s hard to believe she didn’t know! I would wait and see how she resists this house. I wonder if she will disclose the foundation issues. If she doesn’t, I wouldn’t want to deal with her…at all.
But you are fortunate to have a crew who can evaluate these things for you personally. I guess that’s what matters. But your time to evaluate is money too. If you had known about the foundation issues, you would not have put in an offer or taken the time to look further yourself.
You guys give agents way too much credit. Most know very little if anything about construction or electrical or plumbing or how houses are put together.
She may or may not have known dirt was removed but that would not equate to “possible foundation problem” in her head.
“You guys give agents way too much credit. Most know very little if anything about construction or electrical or plumbing or how houses are put together.”
Exactly. And that is also why savvy buyers put inspection contingencys into formal offers to buy.
Geez, only 2 weeks into project and we already have a poop incidebt. Carpenter in crawlspace and he discovers pile that is very old. What the hey?? He keeps trying to grab the flaslight to show me??
Why do people poop under tge house? I just dont get it. Now im going to make someone clean it up and im not wearing white pants today for my excuse!
