Some of the projects from 2011

A brief sampling of some of our work from 2011:

Condominium renovation at Station 1 in Wrightsville Beach.  A challenging renovation with a floor, ceiling, and unit separation-walls all made of 8″ thick concrete.  Our plumbing had to be tight to the walls, relocated electrical wires had to be trenched into the concrete, and framing was all light steel.

Another condominium renovation at Wrightsville Beach.  This is just the kitchen photo from our 4th whole condo renovation in Cordgrass Bay.  Condo design was deftly executed on this particular project by Jennifer France of Big Sky Design.

Before and after of a home exterior restoration in Carolina Place neighborhood.  The homeowners asked us to get the house back to its original condition–remove the asbestos siding, restore all of the original trim details, repair and replace the siding as necessary, replace exterior doors with new solid wood doors, add exterior lighting.  This project won a preservation award at the Historic Wilmington Foundation’s annual award ceremony.

Thanks to the underwhelming work of the builder of this home on North Lumina Avenue in Wrightsville Beach, we removed every window in this house, provided proper waterproofing, and re-installed the windows.  We had to replace about half of the siding on the house after replacing exterior sheathing that had rotted completely through around most of the windows.  The Georgia-based company that originally supplied the siding went out of business so we had Special Wood in Wilmington fabricate several hundred square feet of new siding to match.  This is the third house on the beach to which we’ve done similar work, and more are to come soon.  Amazing, and, frankly, sad at the same time.

For a family with a house that borders the UNCW campus, we added a full second story to their home.  We started by bolstering the home’s foundation, then cut away the existing roof over the house, lifted it off with a crane, added new engineered floor joists, built new exterior walls, lifted a new roof system in place, finished the exterior, cut a new stairwell between floors, finished the interiors and painted the houses entire exterior and most of its interior.  The entire project took a little over 9 weeks–the same amount of time as some of our more complicated and sizable bathroom remodels.

Master suite addition with an 80′ wrap around porch–all work to match the existing details of this c.1925 house.

Arbor in Providence neighborhood off of Middle Sound Loop Road.

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British Columbia

Photos from the visit to see family around Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada.  August 2011.

Twitter link

I just grew to like Twitter when I heard it referred to lately as a “micro-blog.”  Obviously, blogging is hard enough for me as it is, having not posted anything on WordPress in more than a year!  Just can’t make the time to update this thing regularly.  However, a “microblog” that I can just do in as easy a fashion as clicking a photo with my phone and then hitting another button, and, voila, it’s uploaded to Twitter for all of the world to see.  Well, maybe not the entire world, but certainly for you.

Anyways, some day quite soon, I’ll ask my web maintenance fella (Brian at Graphic Moxie) to stick the little Twitter bird button on the front page of the site instead of having this post way in the back.

Update on WHERE WE ARE!

Back in December I provided a post with photographs on current projects.  Well, now that it’s November ’09, perhaps it’s time to bring another round.  In short, we’ve been blessed.  All of 2009 was exemplary.  Several new kitchen and bath projects for wonderful customers, numerous window and door replacements, and some interesting remodels.  Old School Rebuilders is excited about 2010.

While we don’t like to gloat on successful completion of significant repairs from original poor water-management construction, we do appreciate opportunities to do these repairs as it continually drills into our cores how massive the damage can be 5, 10, 15, 30 years down the road when a window, door, or siding installation goes bad for a homeowner.  Our unofficial motto when we renovate, build, or repair is to “think like a raindrop.”  Further, it is too-frequently evident that it is also of utmost importance to “think like a water molecule” when building.  The damage from water vapor isn’t as jarring to inspect and correct as the bulk water entries, but can be significantly more damaging to human health.  Wilmington lies in what is known climatically as a mixed-humid environment.  In other words, water vapor is abundantly present in our air 12 months of the year, and it always floats or condenses around different surfaces on the home differently at different times of the year.  Vapor and bulk water are something to consider with laser-focus as we build and renovate in Wilmington.  I feel bad for some of our customers that have purchased homes they assumed were water tight.  Sometimes, by the time that the problem comes through to the interior finish, what has happened behind the walls and under the floors is enough to make a homeowner weep.

Ah, I digress.  But it’s an important topic.

What follows is a sampling of projects from 2009.  A continued gratitude and honor to all of our customers for their continued trust in our work.  We appreciate your continued conversation with your friends and neighbors, on our behalf, whom are considering they’re own renovation/remodel projects.  On that note, please see our revised CUSTOMER COMMENTS section.

We replaced the windows and doors on 3 sides of this Wrightsville Beach home.  The half-round windows were replaced with similar-sized rectangular windows so we re-framed, added insulation, waterproofed, and installed new cedar shakes.  We also replaced all of the home’s interior trim and Silkwood painted the home’s exterior.

We constructed this two-story addition in the Brookwood area of Forest Hills.  This project will soon be featured in our gallery.

Wrightsville Beach: Bathroom repair from water damage and remodel of other areas of the house including replacing carpeting with wood flooring and installation of new stair treads.

We were called in by an engineer to replace this kitchen floor system on Chestnut Street in Carolina Heights.  We rebuilt the floor system and added some stiffening beams and posts.  At this point the cabinets, electrical, plumbing is completed and the maple flooring we installed is being finished.

Marsh Oaks patio-to-entertainment room conversion.

I like the idea that “the greenest building is the one that already exists.”  To help move that concept along, we were very happy to be a part of this renovation at 3404 Talon Court in Wilmington.  We were asked to do all of the interior wall framing; framing for, and installation of, all new windows and exterior doors; and construction of the carport upon which the vegetative, green roof sits.  This is the first complete renovation of an existing residence to LEED standards in North Carolina, and only a relative handful to have been completed in the United States.  For more information on green renovations, the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED program, and on the Talon Court project here in Wilmington please visit the website at: http://web.me.com/jdc001/TalonCourt/Welcome.html

While not intending to offend the designer of this c.1969 oceanfront home at Figure 8 Island, the current homeowner and I wondered how the brick wall in this kitchen was able to stay in tact for 40 years.  The wall, as viewed below,  completely blocked the view of the ocean from the kitchen.  We removed the wall, installed an Old Growth Riverwood peninsula countertop, repaired some errors in roof/exterior wall construction that were leading to water intrusion, and installed 2 new 8′ sliding doors.

We are currently replacing the siding on this house in downtown Wilmington.  There were some waterproofing details around the balconies that were overlooked during the home’s original construction and we’re correcting this and installing all new siding on the home.

Hats off to the folks at Cape Fear Green Building Alliance, Greater Wilmington Business Journal, and WILMA magazine

My kind respect to the Cape Fear Green Building Alliance, who, along with the Greater Wilmington Business Journal and WILMA magazine, put together a fine Green Living Expo and Conference.  The event was held at the Wilmington Hilton Riverside on October 21.  Offering hour-long classes on a variety of green-minded construction topics–energy tax credits, moisture management in custom homes, solar thermal, solar electric, sustainable interior finishes, high performance HVAC, green renovations, and many more.  What a great draw to Wilmington.  High-caliber presenters from all over North Carolina, I was extremely impressed with the lessons offered, and the reception from the Wilmington building community.  The trade show was free of greenwash, and the luncheon was inspiring.  I look forward to seeing this expo grow in 2010.  Old School Rebuilders was proud to make a contribution in the form of offsetting the entire conference’s power usage with renewable energy resources through NC GreenPower.

http://www.wilmingtonbiz.com/green/

nice little snippet in Wilmington Magazine

HOTLIST2009_ Hot Trends | StarNewsOnline.com | Wilmington, NC

 

scroll down to: HOT HOME STYLE: RENOVATING GREEN

current projects

Here are a few photos from current projects (Nov., Dec. ’08)…soon to be on the homepage gallery.

Wrightsville Beach condominium remodel (Cordgrass Bay)

 

Kitchen remodel (College Acres near UNCW)

  

 

2-story addition, deck, remodel (Forest Hills)

 

Deck and fence (Hydrangea Place, Forest Hills)

freezing cold

Brrr.  Woke up this morning to the sound of the heat blowing through the registers.  Oops, must have fallen asleep without putting a few more logs in the insert.  Clicked off that mechanical heat, instead threw in a few pieces of split oak.  Moments later, big fire.  Click on the blower.  Nice wood heat.  Getting ready to go gardening at Friends School with daughter, Caroline.  Need to fix up the beds, amend the soil, mulch around the perennials, and plant some kale.  A better Saturday morning than watching cartoons.