hiring subcontractors, and calling for inspections Because we’ve invoked city planning and build-
P R O T I P
doesn’t seem so difficult. Well, it is. For one
ing departments several times, this seems like a
thing, how quickly a sub returns your calls often
good place for an overview of submitting plans
When sketching floor plans,
depends on how long he’s known you, and as a
and getting permits. Generally, getting something
remember to include room for
homeowner, you probably don’t know many subs. built is a two-step process that begins at the plan-
chairs to pull out from tables,
And if, for whatever reason, you can’t keep the
appliance doors to open, and
ning department and ends at the building depart-
furniture drawers to pull out.
subs, materials, and inspections flowing in the
ment. In rural areas and small towns, the two
proper sequence, your project can seize up in a
departments may be combined, but usually
big hurry.
they’re separate: different issues, different baili-
GCs have mastered the complicated art of
wicks, and different staff.
maneuvering and managing—or at least the ones
Planners are, first of all, the keepers of zoning
who stay in business do. If your project is simple, regulations: how high a house may be or how
maybe you can manage it. But if your renovation big; how close it may be to neighboring houses;
is at all complicated or if you’re not well organ-
how much of a lot a house and addition may
ized, patient, persistent, and have plenty of time
cover; and what public processes you must go
to do what has to be done, hire a general contrac-
through to make changes to your existing proper-
tor who is. Contractors with some architectural
ty. In other words, the planning department cares
28
Chapter 2
most about how a building looks and how its use
affects the community.
The building department focuses on the con-
navigating the planning
struction and functioning of the house, including
and building Departments
health and safety issues. That list could include
how much steel is in the foundation; how walls
support the roof; what kind of insulation is in
tHe pLanning proCeSS
the walls; plumbing, electrical, and HVAC
details; or the location of fire sprinklers. The
brainstorm renovation ideas
building department makes sure that a renova-
tion project follows code and, ultimately, is safe
to live in. Thus building inspectors visit projects
talk to a planner: project feasible?
periodically to make sure that what’s on the
plans is what gets built.
rough-sketch ideas
For a stripped-down chronology of this pro-
cess, see the chart at right.
interview, engage architect and/or contractor
Developing a Renovation Plan,
and Getting It Drawn
refine design, firm up budget
At this point, you’ve tried to clarify the scope of
your renovation, are getting to know the lingo of
Develop drawings required by planning department
building, have a sense of how permitting works,
and have spoken to an architect and a contractor
or two. You have a fair idea of what’s possible,
pay fees, submit application and drawings to planning department
what renovation tasks you can reasonably do,
who could help design and build the project, and
planners review application documents
what it should roughly cost.
piCturing Your renovation
public hearings, design review as needed
One of the best ways to envision change is to
draw it. Start by prioritizing the items on your
get approval from planning department
renovation wish list. Then tape a sheet of tracing
paper over the to-scale floor plans you created
earlier and start doodling. Start with bubble
buiLDing perMit proCeSS
diagrams (as shown on p. 30) to indicate how
space will be allotted to different uses and how
(approval from planning department)
traffic will flow between work areas or rooms.
Do your drawings reflect your wish-list priori-
ties? Bubble diagrams may be as far as you get—
Develop working drawings with input from subs
but they will be useful to an architect or designer
trying to understand your needs.
If you enjoy the process, keep going. It’s just
Submit drawings to building department
tissue paper. Explore alternative layouts and add
detail. If you’re unsure about the size of an appli-
plan-check from/by building department, feedback from agencies
ance or a piece of furniture, measure again. Be
sure to include enough space to open and pass
through doors, pull chairs away from a table,
revise drawings as needed
open a fridge, or remove food from the oven.
Pages 359 and 382 show the minimum clearanc-
permit approved; pay fees, get permit
es needed in kitchens, bathrooms, and the like.
Have fun, but be realistic: Don’t try to fit too
much into a small space. Analyze the trade-offs
Schedule construction
between one floor plan and another. In general,
the more problems a design solves, the better.
Most of us live in modest homes with relatively
renovate!
simple floor plans: entry, living room, dining
planning Your renovation
29
Two rooms across back of house
zzzzzz evolving Floor plans
Four rooms across back of house
Porch
Enlarged
Small porch with
covered porch
insufficient cover
Bath
Bedroom
Laundry
Bedroom
Kitchen
Bedroom
Large kitchen
open to backyard
Closet
Small kitchen
cut off from
backyard
Closet
Bath
Dining
Hall
Closet
Relocated bath
Dining room
Poor traffic flow:
walk-though
Bedroom
Dining room
bedroom
Closet
Small living room
Stairs
Living
Hall for improved
cut off from
circulation
front yard.
Safe stairs
Hall
Dangerous
Entry
stairs
Shrink
the porch.
Enlarged
living room
Sun porch
Porch
open to front yard
N
FLOOR PLAN: BEFORE
BUBBLE DIAGRAM
FLOOR PLAN: AFTER
The original floor plan presented a pleasant face to the
After weighing a number of floor plans, the architect
street, but the back of the house was a hodge-podge of
layout alternatives quickly.
settled on the design that solved the most problems.
doors, dead spaces, and tiny rooms.
mAkinG tHE most oF underused sPACEs
Every home has room for improvement. As
you allocate space to the activities you
enjoy, keep in mind the odd nooks and cran-
nies of your home. The areas under stairs or
sloping roofs, for example, may not be tall
enough to stand up in, but they may be
perfect for built-in closets and cabinets, a
bathtub, or a bed alcove. Window seats and
built-in breakfast nooks are also handy
places to store little-used items. Most
kitchen cabinets also can work harder:
Adding drawer glides to shelves will enable
you to reach items all the way in the back.
More ambitiously, if an empty nest has a
few unused rooms, they might be transformed
into an in-law suite for an elderly parent, a
private apartment for an adult child living at
home, or a rental unit. In fact, second units
are a hot topic these days, especially to
accommodate multigenerational families.
30
Chapter 2
A painterly elevation. Hand-rendered drawings help give clients a feel for the more subjective
See your design in 3-D. Google’s SketchUp software can
aspects of a design, such as textures, shadowing, and how elements relate to each other. This
be downloaded for free, or you can purchase a more
elevation and the following three drawings, created by architect Russ Hamlet, show the second-
robust version. When homeowners couldn’t see how a
story addition chronicled on pp. 40–42.
design would look spatially, Russ Hamlet used SketchUp
to show the drawing at left in 3-D.
room, kitchen, with a couple of bedrooms and a
Communicating designs to clients. Some
bathroom or two off to the side. Some layouts
people can instantly see drawings in 3-D, without
will be fairly obvious: dining room next to kitchen, the funny glasses, while others could labor over
bathroom between bedrooms. And if the house
blueprints for decades and still see only two-
isn’t big enough, there are probably only a few
dimensional lines on paper. So a good architect
directions that an expansion could go—bump out will probe to make sure a client can see how a
a kitchen wall, add a room or two off the back of
renovated space will look and function. For some
the house, bump up, and so on.
clients, the simplest sketch will suffice; other
folks will need more inventive approaches.
DraWingS: FroM preLiMinarY
Designers and architects who love illustrating
DeSignS to ConStruCtion SetS
frequently give elevations a more painterly feel to
suggest the rhythm and texture of architectural
How complicated and complete drawings must
elements, as Russ Hamlet did in his rendering
be depends on what they are trying to convey
above. In addition to well-established programs
and who their intended audience is. The more
such as Autodesk® AutoCAD®, architects also can
complicated your renovation, the more drawings use free software such as Google SketchUp™ to
you’ll need.
help homeowners see layouts in 3-D, as shown in
When you apply for a permit, the
planning department will want to
see a set of design development
drawings, which must be drawn to
scale but need not show
construction details.
planning Your renovation
31
the top right drawing on p. 31. Learning that a
client really doesn’t understand (or like) a design
until the work is done is a costly and dishearten-
ing realization. So homeowners must learn to
speak up early and often during the design phase.
submittal set for the planning department.
Homeowners who are thinking of managing the
renovation process: Heads up! If you meet with a
city planner to discuss your project, the planner
probably will give you a summary of town zoning
requirements, as well as a “submittal checklist” of
documents you must gather should you decide to
submit a formal application for a building permit.
(The checklist may also be on the town website.)
That submittal set must include a set of design
development drawings—elevations, a site plan,
and a brief written project description. Design
development drawings must contain accurate
overall dimensions, and their elevations should
have windows and doors correctly sized and
located. In other words, they are a set of techni-
cal drawings that accurately show what the reno-
vation is going to look like but not how it’s going
to be built.
After you submit your application and the
submittal set, the staff of the planning depart-
ment will analyze your plans. Within a set time
period, they will tell you if your plans are com-
plete or, if not, what you must add. The approval
process varies from town to town. Typically,
someone in the planning department issues an
administrative approval, or if a public hearing is
required, zoning commissioners issue a ruling.
Once a project design is approved, you must sub-
mit a set of working drawings to the building
department.
Working drawings, also called a construction
set. The building department has its own check-
list of things you must submit, including a set of
working drawings. Because this is the final set of
drawings from which the contractor will build,
the architect and contractor often confer at
length before submitting them.
This stage is all about details. If there’s a
Working drawings must be extremely detailed because they are the final document that the
structural component to your renovation—for
building department approves and from which the contractor builds.
example, an augmented foundation or a seismic
retrofit—the drawing sets will now be reviewed
by a structural engineer. Sets will also be sent to
P R O T I P
electrical, plumbing, and HVAC subcontractors
so each can make suggestions and prepare their
email is an easy way to keep a record of exchanges with designers, con-
bids. There may also be soil engineers involved
tractors, and others working on your renovation. via a Skype™ connec-
and, routinely these days, an energy consultant.
tion, you can also record phone conversations on your computer. but
In a small project, the architect assembles
always ask permission to record the conversation first—recording without
most of this information, and the appropriate
the other person’s oK is illegal in some states.
<
br /> subcontractor often works out unresolved details
on-site. At this point, there is a lot of back and
forth between the subs, the architect, and the gen-
32
Chapter 2
eral contractor. The structural engineer, for exam-
ple, may suggest foundation details, but the archi-
stAYinG in touch in
tect or general contractor might challenge them
tHE DiGitAl AGE
because of their cost and propose alternatives.
Once your team has heard back from all the
Renovations are always unpredictable. But
subs and specialists and incorporated their sug-
a contractor with a cell phone can share a
gestions, it will review once more the building
discovery (say, a rotted sill) with a client or an
department’s checklist. That done, four sets of
architect almost immediately and get feedback
working drawings and supporting documents are
printed and the whole package is submitted to the
approval for a change order quickly. This keeps
building department. On average, it will take
the job flowing and avoids costly delays. One GC
the building department about a month to check
notes, “The only way to keep a job affordable is
the plans, although three months is not uncom-
to make it efficient.” Alternatively, if homeown-
mon. Once the review process is complete and
ers are puzzled by a construction detail, they can
everything has been approved, your plans are
photograph it and send it to the architect to
stamped and you get a building permit. In smaller
make sure the builder is on the right track—
communities, the approval process is typically
without needing a site visit.
less formal and doesn’t take as long.
In a somewhat related vein, you and your
Making the Most of Your
team can also use free software such as Dropbox
to gather project info in a single place, where
Renovation
anyone can access it. Evernote, also free, is
To restate an essential point: How much help you
another place to store job-related photos, site
need depends on how experienced you are, how
links, and the like.
much time you can give to the project, and how
ambitious your renovation is. In this section,
you’ll find suggestions on how homeowners—
especially, owner-builders—can most productively
work with architects, designers, and contractors.
Here’s his advice on how to save money while
Yes, we’re talking about money but also about
Renovation 4th Edition Page 8
