Nice demo work!!!
What the heck was the original builder thinking, building a 6" high false floor? That low kitchen ceiling would have been an instant “no” if I was a prospective buyer, it would feel so claustrophobic to me. (I am 6’ 3").
Are all the units built like that?
So where will you put the plumbing and the wiring that was under the raised floor? Will you be able to put it all in the walls?
We have decided they had to build the raised floor because Oops! we forgot to install a water heater and run all the plumbing. Probably not, but that’s what it looked like. I think they did not want to cut holes in all the floor joists because the joists go East/west and the lines are trying to travel north south. We found a small 20 gal electric water heater hidden inside a corner of the kitchen peninsula. We are going to replace it with a tankless water heater under the stairwell.
Most of the water lines on that floor were running from the water heater to the bar and kitchen sink. And then down wall to lower floor bathrooms. We will be running new lines from water heater up into floor joist bays and travel East west. I may have to build a small soffit area in new laundry area to house some bath vent and dryer vents
A soffit in the laundry area doesn’t sound like a big problem.
Wait, someone lives below her? Like a hobbit? Servant’s quarters? Did I understand that there is a different condo residence below hers? She is two story and they are one in the dungeon? Or did I completely misunderstand?
Yes!! There is a unit below. It looks dark and dungeony below. Small patios coming off the unit. I don’t even know how many bedrooms, etc are down there
It is not uncommon to have a 2-story unit on the first floor or on the top floor of a building with one-story units. Judging by those trees, the bottom floor unit is probably quite dark.
We are completely demolished and now going through ‘discovery’ phase. We have to open up a lot of things to figure out whether we can even move all of the plumbing fixtures according to the homeowner’s dream plans. Answer is NOOOO. Here are the constraints we have discovered so far:
- Large soffit hanging between living room and dining room is not structural. It only has 2x4s built in there to hold the drywall. Nothing important is going through that soffit except one drain vent going up to the roof. It can be rerouted in a pony wall built behind the new kitchen peninsula. So soffit is gone already and boy has the place opened up!!
- This place was built with NO holes cut in floor joists or ceiling joists for plumbing or wiring. This is why there is a lot of dropped ceilings, soffits and raised floors throughout. I'm guessing it was built with undersized joists and this was how they got away with it. The HOA gave us a condition that we cannot cut any joists. This makes it extremely challenging to try to move any plumbing.
- Joists go east/west on the plans and are 2x10 spaced 16" on centerline (not that any of you care!!). We can only move the toilets east/west inside the same bay. Cannot move them anywhere else because we would have to cut 4" holes in the floor joists to route to the original drain. Cannot make any new drain lines dropping down into neighbor's house.
- We have discovered that a lot of drain lines and vents are shared with neighboring units. This means we cannot move any drain lines. Period. I cannot get the homeowner to understand that!! But, we can reroute some of the vents, as long as we get them back to the roof exit. We cannot make any new holes in the roof, per HOA
- Existing toilet in the lower floor hallway cannot move anywhere! Not only is it sandwiched with joists running east/west, there is a big north/south beam supporting ceiling of unit below that is running north/south about 1 ft in front of the toilet. That toilet is not going anywhere and it is really hard to explain to homeowner.
- The plans drawn show every wall being taken down on lower floor and rearranged. We cannot take down the middle north south wall in the current configuration because a) it is load bearing with joists meeting on it and b) it holds a ton of drain lines and vents that are shared with unit below. It just cannot move without a lot of headache
- So, I have asked the draftsperson to swap laundry room into middle of lower floor and keep the current bathtub and toilet and build hall bathroom on right side of the new plan. This will make the bathroom smaller than she wanted but she is just going to have to live with it. I sent her a million pics from Houzz showing the new bath layout and I hope she has resigned herself to it.
- The current master bathroom toilet can move west in the same bay because drain is located on west wall, but it cannot move east because not enough slope to run pipe down to current drain in west wall. This means I have to design the toilet 'room' all the way to the left in the bathroom design.
Not to mention we found a pretty serious leak behind the powder room sink that is draining down inside of exterior wall and leaking out by front door. This means we have to tear out the powder room and we will have to be working without any sink or running water in the unit. Will probably have to build it in temporarily after we fix the leak
Frantically working on kitchen plans now because I am leaving on a pre-planned vacation next Monday and we have to have kitchen ordered before I go!!!
Photos loaded
How does it work with the homeowner, when they agree to remodeling plans that depend so very crucially on what you discover when you open up the walls? I can understand that it’s impossible to do what you originally wanted to do. Also I can understand that the homeowner agreed to the renovation because she thought you could do what you originally planned, more or less, and now she is discovering that she’s going to get something completely different.
When I first met with the homeowner and she showed me the plans, I realized right away that she could not do a lot of what she had in the plans. I made it very clear that we cannot finalize the plans until everything is opened up and we can see if any of the plumbing fixtures could move. I had already warned her that we may not be able to move toilets because they need big thick 4" pipes that cannot just be moved anywhere we want.
Problem is, she keeps pointing to a remodeled unit that was for sale that she went through to get her ‘ideas’. That was a bottom floor unit with different joist designs and rooflines.
She was looking at 509 So Sierra, Unit 149
She’s also looking at 591 So Sierra, Unit 47 (or 49 maybe)
Those will give you guys an idea of what she is aiming for
It must be difficult to deal with clients who refuse to understand constraints. Your next project should be to take a single family house and put two ADUs on the lot. 
She should have bought one of those other for sale units. Instead. She assumed she could do whatever she wanted,
Good luck! Luckily the HOA can deliver some of the bad news, not you!
Seems to me that even with the layout challenges, you can give her the feel/look she wants. Hopefully she’ll be reasonable!
We have a similar kitchen design, with shallower upper cabinets on the floor, backing up to base cabinets on a peninsula.
The storage is great! We don’t really need a place to eat there so the upper cabinets are taller than the base ones and there is only a little lip of countertop on them. They have a wobbly glass window on top and LED strip lighting inside. H has all his lovely barware in there on that top shelf and we love it!
Today I am taking the client to look at kitchen cabinets and finalize her kitchen design. I keep trying to explain to her that we have to nail the kitchen and get cabinets ordered because they could take 6 weeks for delivery. She has to move at an incredibly rapid pace in order to meet her self-imposed deadline. She keeps calling me saying " so and so said that Kraftmaid cabinets are not good’. I had to waste time yesterday pulling up two independent reviews and ratings of all kitchen cabinets to show her that Kraftmaid cabinets are rated A for quality and A+ for value
I have a huge problem looming. I disclosed many times before I took this job that I am on a pre-paid vacation from Oct 28 to Nov 15. This means that I have to have every single location of plumbing and electrical diagrammed and laid out for the crew before I leave. You would not believe the amount of drawings I am creating and ‘to do’ lists. My goal is they will have the framing, plumbing and electrical done while I am gone. Good luck with that!! They cannot seem to make it one hour without calling and asking where something is going to be… even though there are drawings everywhere to look at. They have just developed a habit of asking me to make every little decision on the fly. It is the way we work.
Yesterday my lead carpenter wanted to try to explain to me how he was going to route all the new ABS all over the place, what size, what shape, etc. I finally told him my head was going to explode and please spare me the details. The reason he reviews with me is because I am kind of the encyclopedia of building code requirements and they all depend on me to double check building code.
And, the dang draftsman is MIA and I need to do a final approval of the plans because they need to get submitted and approved by the City while I am gone. If we don’t have final approval from City by Nov 15, we will fall behind on calling for inspections and moving forward. Cannot call for an inspection until after I return and can walk through every detail to make sure we are ready.
And, just yesterday she wanted to know if we could order new windows and get new windows installed!! Uhhh… noooo … that is a big project and cannot fit into our schedule, let alone her current budget.
You disclosed your vacation. The homeowner agreed to work with you anyway. If the project runs over because she can’t make a decision or keeps changing/adding things, that’s on her. As far as your subs, appoint a contact person in your absence and have all calls go to them.
Our contractor went to Europe in the middle of our reno to see his daughter. His lead carpenter was the contact. If there were issues, we didn’t see them, and work continued.
Go on vacation, relax, and enjoy!
Can someone please send me a PM with the photo link? I don’t know how to move to a new group.
Can someone please PM the link to me as well?
Link sent. Replace the asterisks with the name of the photo site, which I cannot apparently even type here.