The Final Stretch

The Final Stretch

The basement/garage conversion ADU is nearly done. 

I had an initial Certificate of Occupancy inspection, and it didn't pass. There was a minor change required for the plumbing: a drain needed to be added from the water heater. And, the egress window was obstructed from opening the full way. 

Cabinet, Tiling the bathroom

Cabinet, Tiling the bathroom

We finished the painting, and jumped into custom cabinet construction. I hired a builder to make them for $10K. I could have gotten them from Lowes/Home Depot for $8K, but there were some odd configurations and matching cabinet doors that I needed to do elsewhere in the ADU, so it made sense for me to go with custom cabinets this time. 

Insulating the Attic

Insulating the Attic

If you can only insulate one of the six walls in a box house, the most important one is the ceiling/attic. This wall is where a house loses the most heat energy in the winter months. 

On a rental unit, there is not necessarily much financial motivation to insulate well, because the tenant is generally responsible for the bills. However, weatherizing a home is always a good thing to do. 

Project Managing an ADU

Project Managing an ADU

Project managing the development of an ADU is complicated and overwhelming. In this case, I am juggling concrete cutters, concrete contractors (two different specialties), plumbers, electricians, painters, a builder, and two sets of concurrent city inspectors. While I get input from each of them, I must also coordinate their input with the designer's feedback. The following post is a snapshot into the complexity of managing this project.  

Visualizing the basement ADU

Visualizing the basement ADU

When lay people view 2D floorplans, it can challenging to understand what a space is going to look like. Fortunately, most CAD programs now have built in tools to help designers spit out 3D visualizations of what a place is actually going to look like when it's complete. Here's some snapshots of the great room layout for the basement conversion ADU. 

Same Day ADU Permit!

Same Day ADU Permit!

Things are moving along fast. Very fast. 3 months ahead of schedule. 

Let me explain. ADU permits typically take 10-12 weeks. But, sometimes, when you're converting a pre-existing structure to ADU, the City of Portland can actually do all of the permitting the same day. That's what happened in this case. Granted, it took 5 hours to speak with all of the different bureaus, but I walked away at the end of the day with a permit in hand. Here's the official online record of the permit.

Demo and Infrastructural Upgrades for the House

Demo and Infrastructural Upgrades for the House

This week is a blur of activity with the renovation. Demolition, hauling waste, building a new structural wall for a washer/dryer, plumbing, electrical, drywall, interior painting, insulation, HVAC installation, and more. 

There's a lot of different actitivities happening simultaneously. I'm serving as general contractor/project manager, ensuring that everything is running on schedule. I'm leaning heavily on the various tradespeople to guide the work, as much of the specifics of the process is new to me.