WeekWeek 00
StageSurvey
Measured drawings, a keep list of 31 windows and three plaster ceilings, a demolition map.
Willow Glen · 2025 · Whole-home remodel · 32 weeks
The bungalow that stayed.
A 1926 craftsman bungalow on a corner lot, 1,640 square feet, bought by a couple who had grown up two streets away. Every builder they called proposed a tear-down. They wanted the porch, the windows and the plaster ceilings, and a house that would stand another hundred years.
Constraints
What stood in the way.
- Historic district review: the street elevation could not change
- A brick foundation that had settled 3 inches across the width of the house
- Thirty-one original wood windows, all to be kept and rebuilt
- The owners wanted to move back in by Thanksgiving
The build
Three plates.
WeekWeek 09
StageStructure
New stem walls and slab poured under the lifted house; a steel beam replaced the kitchen wall.
WeekWeek 32
StageKeys
Final inspection passed on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
Result
What stands now.
The house sits on a new foundation, level to within a quarter inch. Thirty-one windows were rebuilt and reglazed. The kitchen, two baths and every system are new; the porch, the ceilings and the street elevation are exactly as they were in 1926.
- Scope
- Foundation, structural, full interior
- Duration
- 32 weeks, finished on the promised date
- Crew
- One superintendent, 11 trades in sequence
- Change orders
- One, requested by the owners
“They told us it would be a hard house. It was. They never once suggested knocking it down.”
Elena V., owner
Your lot, your brief.
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