Nate and I began our our quest to build something inhabitable while in architecture school back in December of 2011. After ~19 months, we dedicated the house! This project was the vision of two students wanting to do something big and meaningful with their thesis project. With no more than determination, faith and simple hand tools, we accomplished our goal. Not only did this project show how passionate and imaginative we are in our work, but it brought the Lawrence family back together.
For several years the eldest son had been living with relatives in Memphis, now he is home in Cincinnati, reunited with his parents and siblings. For anyone considering doing work with Habitat for Humanity, get involved! I can say this has been the most meaningful and rewarding process I have ever experienced.
-Michael
We had a great group on April 20th help us tackle the ruts and bare spots from our dumpsters and start the painting.
I apologize for being a month behind on photos, but Nate and I passed our thesis defense and have graduated! WHOOOO HOOO!
We finished hanging the drywall about 3 weeks ago, and the finisher was done about 2 weeks ago, here is the house just before paint. We had to make some odd angles and corners to make the second level work, but we installed adequate blocking so everything fit without much trouble.
The biggest pains were the 8'-6" ceiling height and the raked ceiling in the second floor. Two words of advice, hire a good finisher and talk to a professional drywall supplier if your going DIY. There are all kinds of special sheets that might make hanging easier for your application. for example stretch board (4'-6" wide) would have worked well for our extra tall ceilings and screed edge drywall would have saved a lot of sanding on our second floor corners.
Enjoy!
First, a big thanks to a group from Medical Mutual Insurance. They helped us get a ton of work done today and even bought some supplies for the house.
Also look for a Habitat for Humanity bit on channel 5 news. The reporter told me the interview was a test run, but recorded me anyway (I'm sure I'll look awkward). In case you didn't know.
Habitat does a wonderful thing in our communities. By fixing up old houses they are slightly increasing everyone's property value. Home ownership makes children 28% more likely to graduate high school and over 200% more likely to attend college. Please donate or volunteer on a site this spring. http://www.habitatcincinnati.org/
We are making great progress! We had a great group last weekend work through the cold and the snow to get a lot of work done. The white metal trim work looks great and the house is much more cheerful and bright than the dull, over grown home we started with.
The second floor bath posed some problems for the plumber since the waste water pipes had to run through floor framing that runs in two different directions. Nate had the great idea of putting the pipe through the space previously occupied by the top plates, saving us the hassle and clutter of adding a soffit in the living room. The soffit in the bedroom was a must, but a small price to pay for adding the second bath to the 1920's home.
The Rough-ins are almost complete. Its looking more and more like a house every week! The first floor bath got extra plywood backing on two walls to accommodate any number of towel racks and shelves. Data and cable outlets were run into each bedroom and the living room. The second floor framing took some extra time to get level and ready for drywall, but it made for more head room. The new basement stair fit perfect, compare it to the paint line of the old stair and its easy to see how much an improvement it will make while carrying anything large or heavy. The roof turbines are up and spin with minimal breeze. We project with proper use they can cut 30% off the air conditioning bill throughout a year. Also Nate's laminated wood table will look amazing in the new kitchen!
Thank you University of Cincinnati & UC Grad Caster for running an article on The Lawrence House & Smarter Single Family!
http://grad.uc.edu/student-life/gradcurrents/Get_Involved_Spring_2013.html
An exterior for a home can be relatively inexpensive with vinyl, but vinyl isn't always the most aesthetic. Exteriors can also get very expensive with stones or metal panels. For this renovation we will use accents of wood or fiber-cement board (shown as blonde wood) while the majority of the home will get vinyl siding (pale green) to keep costs minimal.
The home will have about 1400sf of vinyl and 200sf of the accent material. The slide below has some prices from an RSMeans 2010 book to give an idea of how quickly prices can go up with different materials (http://www.rsmeansonline.com/).
First a HUGE thanks to the Construction Management and Architecture Students from UC that helped the past two weekends. These have been our best consecutive weekends yet!
The new windows look great, they are all 7" wider than the old windows thanks to completely removing the original wood units and reclaiming their lead ballast cavities into more glass. The new rafters in the second floor will allow us to double the insulation previously in the roof and vent it as well. My favorite addition is the narrow window and sloped stair wall, it really opens up what was a dark corner of the home. The bearing height for the dormer is 6'-2" AFF, but the light and space it makes for the master bed does wonders for what was an attic bedroom.
Design it & believe it! This should be quite an improvement over the old kitchen. We haven't finalized the colors with the Lawrence family, but the layout should stay similar.
