"It's only original once"

Living by Hollywood's signature on this resto-mod house build is only 1/2 original.

I purchased this house as a Bachelor Pad as it's only 711 sq feet and then wife and baby came much sooner than anticipated. It's a unique eight sided home built in the 70's with windows on nearly every wall. It needed plenty of work but with 4 lots across the street from the lake and a killer view I couldn't pass up the deal.

This house project started with talking about framing in an exterior door in the baby's room. Some would have framed in the door and called it a day but where's the fun in that?!

We started with a nicely wooded lot, house and deck that wrapped around most the house. New windows, interior walls and flooring in 2009 but it was almost all gone by the time we took over. We found plenty of rot on the exterior since the PO never installed gutters so most of it needed replacing. The decision was made to put on an addition and fix everything at one time.



The addition started with a little dirt work. My brother-in-law and I put close to 15 hours on a backhoe and skid loader for three consecutive weekends. This was on top of the excavators digging the hole for the foundation.

Deck came off quickly with a backhoe


Plenty of dirt to add real estate in the front yard.




Forms up for 9' poured walls in what will become the garage/shop underneath.


Basement starting to take shape.


More dirt work. Here you can see the driveway taking shape



New backyard that backs up to lake property. Only neighbors we'll ever have are the native wild life.


At this point, Zoe and I moved down the street in anticipation of Maddox joining us in November. We couldn't have had better timing as he came the next weekend.

New baby, bad weather and a few months later and with lots of little details ironed out we got back to work. Next step was to tear off 1/2 the existing house so we can start new construction for the addition. Dad and I tore everything out of the house with the exception of the furnace. While I was gone 2 weeks ago I got these pictures from my framers.









They didn't waste any time getting the new structure up despite some more bad weather and delays. It's really starting to take shape and we're getting excited again as our hard work is looking like it'll pay off.



Main floor is set which will consist of 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and real closets. The kitchen and living room in the existing structure will also increase in size and get new windows and insulation.




One of the challenges was incorporating a staircase without giving up a ton of room inside so I came up with the idea to have a platform cantilevered outside the house. This will have windows looking out to a valley and the entrance to the lake.


The basement/garage/boat shop under the main floor. Still need to add a few piers for the steal beem and then the flatwork which will be done when the weather turns.


View from the back of our property looking out to the lake. We added a bunch of dirt up here and will have a nice backyard with a swing set nestled in the woods.


We still have a long way to go but it's really shaping up to be a cool project. It'll certainly be one of a kind! I've learned a ton in the process and am eager to learn more as we go.

Maddox isn't quite ready to help swing a hammer but he's excited to sleep in his new room and work on boats in the basement!

Looking Great!! Good job!

Now I have a great excuse to come over and check progress. I'll wait til the weather get nicer so we can ski too!

Also living in an octagon, (what are the odds???) I had to comment. I saw one pic a while back and wasn't sure if it was an octagon or not.

That is quite a project!! I thought we took on a big project this winter, but comparing our house reno to yours is like comparing oiling my platform to Alan's Hurricane project.

Here is our octagon.



We are moving soon tho. We bought a house just down the street. No structural work, just a complete cosmetic redo inside. Been at it for about 5 months now. On the home stretch.

Very cool project!
And what a view...

Larry, awesome place you have there! I'd love to see more pictures of how yours is divided inside. We're really having to get creative to utilize all our space in the original portion of the house.

Bill, Maddox is equally excited to meet your girls. He's quite the ladies man!

Here's a few pics of the current progress. I've been home for nearly a week but haven't been home in the daylight to really inspect the progress since we''re crazy busy at work these days.

South Wall








Interior Panoramic

That looks amazing. I love that you are so young and ambitious. I hope there will be room for 5 Murphy's to crash in sometime. Keep the pictures coming.

round and brown

Larry, that's a cool set-up! We didn't have near enough room to make something like that happen but I love to see how others maximize limited space. We learned that lesson when we only had 711sq. feet! This seems monstrous but we've applied the same conservative principle in hopes of making the most of the new space.

JMurph wrote: I hope there will be room for 5 Murphy's to crash in sometime. Keep the pictures coming.

We have you covered! The north half of the basement will be a rec room for Maddox/Entertainment room and a designated CCFan sleeping quarters. My goal is to retire one of our projectors from the work inventory to the basement entertainment center

At this point (subject to change) we're pushing to be back in the house by July 4th. I'll be really happy if this happens but we're not going to rush anything. We're building this as the house we'll live in for 10-15 years so no reason to take short cuts!

Alan, thanks for the encouragement! We were pretty certain we'd gone crazy when we started this project as it's a huge undertaking. With one step at a time and some patients we'll get there!

Looking Good!!

Back from a 2 week long work trip to Las Vegas so I'm catching up on progress. The exterior of the house is closed and ready for windows. Still waiting on them since my idiot materials guy didn't place the order when I finalized everything on October!

All is well and we're happy with the progress thus far. We still have quite a bit of work to do in the old part of the house so that should keep us busy the next few weeks.

South side of the house. The big opening is 18' wide which should be plenty for Zoe's car and a boat! The other door will be for the lawn tractor or skid loader.


View from the front entrance. Living room and kitchen on the left and hallway with 2 closets on the right.


Another view of the entrance. We're going to re-build the old beams so the old side ties into the new.


We gained a ton of room in the kitchen. The old kitchen wall was where you see the 2x4 on the floor. We're going to add an island, more cabinets and a pantry in the corner.


A little Correct Craft fun on Saturday as well. Finally making some progress on boats!