HilltopMidMod

Follow the renovation of a 1960 mid century modern home in the Pacific Northwest

Construction starts but Covid has other plans for us.

When we left Seattle back in early March of 2020 we thought we might be gone for a few months or so. But as you all know things didn’t quite turn out that way. We had a plans submitted for permits and had selected our contractor and were just waiting for the go ahead. We were optimistic that we’d be back late summer as we started construction to monitor progress. Once the severity of the pandemic became clear we had a decision to make. Do we start not knowing when we’d be back to see it or just put the whole project on hold?

Robert and I debated at the onset if we should start the construction process during the lock-downs with so much uncertainty around our ability to travel. We had decided to move ahead not knowing it would possibly be a year and half before we’d be able to return to the US from Australia. Without getting into the politics surrounding the pandemic we did find being in Australia, with its very strict approach to travelling, quarantining and mask mandates, ended up giving us a bit more peace of mind than we anticipated. This helped offset the nervousness of starting the project remotely.

The idea was to gut the existing structure, put up the addition then bring in the steel to open the back up and expand the back roof line. The main structure is going well and it’s exciting to see progress, even if it is just through pictures. We continue to select fixtures remotely that help define some of the electrical and plumbing needs (ie wall mount faucets versus vessel sinks.)

This update is mostly in progress work.

You can really start to see how the two buildings interact in this photo.
This is the lower studio space where we’ll be able to park a couple of cars or we can use as rec room.
We decided to extend the stairs a bit so they weren’t so steep entering the house.
This is looking back towards the kitchen entry. It looks quite big with the bathroom gone and walls demo’d.
The master bedroom starts to take shape.
We also locked down our decking material. We are going with a tight bar grate as seen on the left above.
We’ve also decided on Marlin windows since they are made locally in Spokane and come in the anodised silver that match our current window style. We will be replacing all windows on the existing house as well.

Exciting to finally see it take shape. Though there have been a few hiccups along the way nothing that has made us regret the decision to move forward. We are so thankful that Rick Chesmore agreed to oversee the project for us and Robb Allen who knows every inch of the design and continually troubleshoots issues and educates me with my design choices. Will post updates of the back of the house as it gets opened up for the large 22’ door. The steel for the roof supports and new deck should be up soon as well.

Laurie Dietz

3 responses to “Construction starts but Covid has other plans for us.”

  1. Hi Laurie,

    Will you be choosing a railing to go with the decking material? If so, have you chosen one yet? I, too, have a mid-century house (in Magnolia) and the rotting painted wood deck and railing need replacing. Looking for ideas. I love the grating you selected and am trying to envision a railing that would work with it. .

    Thanks!

    Janine Gross

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    • Hi Janine. We are using a 3” box mesh panel from McNichols inside a 1×2 box steel frame. We did it in our last MCM home and it worked out quite well. Low maintenance and still quite see through. It will be painted black or dark gray depending on the where we land on the color for the beams.

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