De Bilt has started work on our Palm Project.
This is a comprehensive remodel of a single family home in El Segundo, CA.
The original house was built in 1947 by a WWII vet. It had been in the same family until we purchased it this year. There is a main house of roughly 1000 sq ft and a guest house built over the garage out back, which measures roughly 900 sq ft. We will just paint the guest house as it is in good shape. But the main structure will be completely overhauled. A second story will be added to bring the total square footage for the project to almost 3000 sq ft.
The photo shows the home as it was when purchased. What was not obvious to us until we got close is that all the walls are brick. This is a brick house, and in California this is extremely rare due to earthquake concerns. Many of the interior walls are also brick, though some were wood framing. The foundation is slab-on-grade which is good in this region as it allows the earth to help cool the home (we are in a predominantly cooling climate zone, which means we need to cool our homes more than heat them).
Because the brick walls cannot be guaranteed to support a second story, we are literally building a two-story wood frame home inside the existing brick outer walls. The second story will "pop-out" a bit so that the home looks consistent and as one integrated piece.
The style of the new home will be "Modern Farmhouse". The roof will be standing seam powder coated steel. De Bilt prefers this type of roof since it lasts 50 years, is fully recyclable, and it rejects most of the energy from the sun, helping to keep the house cool. We also like the look of a metal roof. Here is a photo which shows the "general style" of what the Palm Project will look like:
The Palm Project will have a large porch extending across the front. I nice place to sit and watch children come and go from the elementary school up the street. The home will be white in color with black window trim, just as shown above. There will be four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Each bedroom will have an en-suite bathroom with tub or shower. There will also be a powder room on the first floor, along with a laundry room. Upstairs will be a master suite with large walk-in closet, and one guest bedroom with bathroom. The guest house will have 2 bedrooms and one-half bath, making a total of 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms for the property.
Here are architectural elevation drawings for the Palm Project:
We used a local architect from town - "Saga Architecture". We prefer to use local trades whenever possible. Both to keep our money local, and because it is more efficient.