The urban experience

19 years ago

I'm interested in hearing about the experiences others have had renovating/remodeling their homes in urban areas, particularly rowhouses. Costs? Permits and bureaucracy? Unexpected problems? Live in or move out? Horror stories? Happy endings???

My partner and I have a 1927 rowhouse in Washington, DC that needs quite a bit of work--it was remodeled in the 1970's and/or 1980's but the kitchen and baths need to be completely redone, and some of the previous remodeling will be UNdone. We're still in the design phase and working with an architect who has experience with similar homes. The house has an "English basement" (basically an apartment that is rented out, never heard the term before coming to DC), two full floors, and an attic over the front 1/3 of the house, angling sharply down to a long flat roof over the rest of the house. (I'll see if I can find some photos to post later.)

The biggest part of our project will be converting our attic into a master bedroom suite, which will mean constructing a new staircase to the third floor, bumping up the roof, bumping out the back wall a few feet, and adding a full bath and closet space (not to mention all new floors and possibly reinforcing joists).

On top of everything else, getting construction materials in, and demolition debris out, is something I'm wondering about. It doesn't help that we are on a hillside, with steps up to our front door, and steps in back going up to our garage on a narrow alley.

The big payoff is that the new third floor will open to a rooftop deck overlooking the back garden, with decent long-distance views and a surprising degree of privacy thanks to mature trees all around the neighborhood.

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Comments (3)

steve_o
19 years ago
I'm interested in hearing about the experiences others have had renovating/remodeling their homes in urban areas, particularly rowhouses. Costs? Permits and bureaucracy? Unexpected problems? Live in or move out? Horror stories? Happy endings???

Well, I'm not the poster child for remodeling, but I did update my entire house recently and I live within city limits on a standard (40'-50' wide) lot. I am fortunate in having a driveway rather than an alley (more common here). But there were no issues with permits, few issues with the neighbors, and, within the parameters of the money I could spend and knowing that I may not be in this house forever, I think it worked out well.

I lived with/through it. There were only a few times I had to grit my teeth and bear it. The workers were respectful of times to make noise (started around 8-8:30 and usually quit by 6) and tried not to block curbside parking (some neighbors don't have off-street parking).

While it may be more challenging for you because you don't have one or two sides of the house available for work (which may mean more manual work instead of big machines), it was a chance to meet the neighbors (!) and it was really easy to get rid of stuff like the old bathroom vanity (putting it by the curb with a "Free!" sign made it vanish overnight).
chazas
19 years ago
My partner and I completely gutted and remodeled a Dupont Circle rowhouse about 10 years ago, and did a partial renovation of an Adams Morgan rowhouse several years before that.

DC permitting is, as you can imagine, a bit of a nightmare. Are you in a historic district? That adds a layer of complexity. In our Dupont project, the historic preservation officer "strongly encouraged" us to get our facade work passed on by the local advisory body - which they did. She proceeded to recommensdthat the historic preservation board reject it anyway - which they did. So we had to spend a bunch more on a complicated third floor window grouping that didn't add anything to the structure or its conformity to period influences.

Parking is always difficult - our contractors always got get a lot of tickets, and we did try to keep them from blocking alleys so as to not to annoy the neighbors too much.

I would STRONGLY urge you to move out while this work is being done. It might save your relationship.

When remodeling, you always run into problems you didn't expect that you have to address - we call it the "mushroom factor." Budget accordingly.

All that said, our rowhouse renovations were significantly easier than what we're doing now, which building is a ground-up new house in Arlington. At least when you're renovating an existing structure, even a shell, there are given parameters you have to work with. When you're starting from scratch every decision is based on a clean slate.

Good luck.
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JohnnieB
Original Author
19 years ago
Chazas, we are in Mt. Pleasant, and yes it is a historic district. Besides the city, plans have to be submitted to two historical groups (the city's and the neighborhood's). Our architect has warned us to expect the permitting process to take two to three months. She has done a lot of work in the city, including our neighborhood, so hopefully the process will go smoothly! We're trying to minimize problems by not touching the front of the house at all (the non-historic dormer windows were added when the front of the attic was bumped out during a previous renovation; it would never be allowed now but we are REALLY hoping it won't be an issue as it was done before this became a historic district).

Parking is not nearly as bad in our neighborhood as in Dupont or Adams Morgan (we lived in both neighborhood before buying this house) and there is non-permit parking available just down the street. We also have a garage, although that may have to be used for delivery, storage, debris removal, work space, etc.

The project is extensive enough that we have pretty much decided to move out of the house. MANY people have recommended it and fortunately we have a basement apartment that will be minimally affected (downside is that we will have to ask a good tenant to move out!). Our hope is that this will help minimize both the cost and duration of construction.

BTW here are photos of the house, first the front from two different angles:

And a view of the back:

The above photo shows (barely) the raised area in front over the attic where the bedroom will go, and the long flat roof where the deck will go. The photo is a bit deceptive as the house is much longer than you can tell from the photo (20' wide and about 50' long).

Finally, a view of the back yard from one of our second floor windows; we were fortunate to find a house with a deep (if narrow and sloping) back yard AND a garage. This will be the view from the new rooftop deck, which we had talked about adding even before considering doing all this other work: