Before+After: Changes of Plan

The 2,000 square feet of space in this 1967 ranch house had small rooms and an awkward flow. After living with the unsuitable space for 20 years, Mike and Helen Moskal began looking for a new house, but they ultimately decided to stay and remodel.

A few years before tackling this project, the couple built a new vacation house on a lake. It had an open floor plan and a 25-foot vaulted ceiling in the main living area. “You could view the lake while standing at the kitchen island,” Mike Moskal says. The couple wanted to re-create that same feeling of openness and capture the views of the back yard in their existing house.

The original dining room was open to the living room, but it was cramped and separated by a half-wall. Mike Moskal especially wanted a family room on the main floor.

The couple hired architect Bill Wedeking of Mosaic Design Group to incorporate their wish list into the floor plan. Wedeking added 1,000 square feet to the existing house by designing a 4-foot-wide addition that runs the length of the back of the house. He grouped together windows in the living room to capture the view and raised the ceiling height. The architect also added two bedrooms and a bathroom, updated the basement and master suite, and enlarged the kitchen.

Moskal acted as a general contractor on the lake house and did not want to repeat the ordeal. He hired Kinter Construction for this major remodel partly because of Mike Kinter's attitude. “He had ideas right from the get-go. I would show the design to other contractors and they argued and pointed out things that would not work. Mike never said it would not work, he would say, ‘This is nice, but maybe we could improve it by doing this,'” Mike Moskal recalls. Wedeking encourages his clients to choose a contractor based on comfort rather than competitive bids because when questions arise, as they did in this project, they trust the contractor to do what is best for them.

Architect Bill Wedeking chose subtle hints to note divisions between the living room, dining room, and kitchen. These include fluted columns, a tray ceiling in the dining room, and a decorative wall with operable stained glass windows.

Photo Credit: Bob Calmer, Calmer Photography

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Production manager Jeff Kinter, son of company owner Mike Kinter, led the on-site crew. He attended the preconstruction meeting and went over the project with the Moskals. “I like to be able to go in and look at the site, talk to the customer, and get a feel for what they are expecting for the finished project. The homeowner, architect, salesman, and production manager are a grapevine —you can lose a lot in translation,” Jeff says. After that meeting, Kinter likes to take a few days to come up with a game plan. “I take a few days to sit down and dissect it — to figure out my best plan of action,” he says.

It was during this time Jeff noted a few areas of the plans he wanted to examine more closely. “I pinpointed a few trouble spots. Once you get into the construction, you get a better feel for how things come apart and fit back together. I would look at those a few weeks in advance trying to come up with a better solution,” he says.

Wedeking says homeowners find it hard to visualize 3-D spaces from a drawing. He tries to get them to understand the space by using boxes or furniture to lay out the borders of the rooms, but on a large project like this, it's difficult for them to picture the completed redesign. “When you see a feature on the site, it looks different from the blueprint,” Moskal agrees.

Jeff says when homeowners receive the final plans from an architect, they often believe the project must follow the drawing. But on this job, he proposed several changes to the Moskal plan that were adopted into the design (see Floor Plans).

Photo Credit: Bob Calmer, Calmer Photography

Living on site helped the Moskals understand the changes and make adjustments as the project developed. “I told them, ‘I will build it just like the print if you like, but here are two or three different options,'” Jeff says. “I wanted to make sure they were happy and getting the best possible project.”

In the end, Moskal gives the designers and carpenters the ultimate praise for a remodeling project. “I have no regrets,” he says. “There is nothing I would do differently.”

Mike Kinter says for changes that involve additional cost, he likes to provide the information to the clients within 48 hours. “This project was large enough that we could work on other parts of the job while we waited for them to make a decision,” he says.

The project included a new deck and landscaping around the pool. Owner Mike Moskal wanted a maintenance-free deck so he chose Ipe hardwood for the decking material. The contractor used hidden fasteners for a clean look. For the front elevation (below), the contractor cut away a section of the roof overhang to bring more light into the entry area.

Photo Credit: Bob Calmer, Calmer Photography

One of the reasons for the high price of the job was that the Moskals chose high-end materials and finishes. The homeowners had an allowance for the fireplace, and the unit that they chose cost more than the allowance, so they paid the difference and Jeff charged them for adjusting the bulkhead to fit the new fireplace. The Moskals had allowances for certain product categories, but they chose to purchase some products directly. They purchased the leaded glass that was set in the dividing wall between the kitchen and hallway through a local supplier and they purchased the front door from a Web site. The $1,600 solid mahogany door and side lights were a beautiful addition to the house. Jeff says the crew tried to accommodate the Moskals' choices. “But with the door, if it was not right, I would have said, now can we order something from our product lines?”

The homeowners were going to move out during the extensive remodel, but around the time the foundation was laid, they changed their minds and moved their necessary belongings into two rooms and a bathroom. The crew had to clean up every night, build temporary walls, and gut one section of the house and roof at a time instead of doing it all at once. This lengthened the schedule by three to four months.

Kinter Construction did not present a change order for this time and additional materials. However, it can't be considered a total loss because they received a different kind of return on their investment. The Moskals are enthusiastic clients and have showed off the project to friends and neighbors and allowed Kinter to bring in potential clients. The contractor brought seven homeowners to see the project and sold two of those jobs. The house will also be on the local tour of remodeled homes, where the Kinters expect almost 700 homeowners to view it.

The Moskal house is at the bottom of a hill, with access only by a driveway with a 30-degree incline. The limited staging area for materials required a lot of coordination. The homeowners lived in the two front rooms and bathroom during the remodel and their furniture occupied much of the garage.

Production manager Jeff Kinter spent a lot of time coordinating deliveries. “Most of the time our suppliers were good at keeping things in their warehouse and holding them until we were ready,” he says.

Kinter would have one load of materials delivered to the site and the crew would work off that pile until the next load was delivered a few days or a week later.

The crew stored some materials under the 9-foot-wide roof overhang, as well as inside the house. “We would store stuff in one room while we worked in another,” he says.

To pour the footers for the new foundation, they used a concrete pump truck. It could not be maneuvered down the driveway, so they parked it on the street and ran a 6-inch-diameter hose down and around the house to the back yard. They used their Bobcat to shift a load of concrete blocks from their street-level delivery to the back yard.

When owner Mike Moskal chose a corner fireplace, the crew had to redesign the wall in the living room so it would fit. They had to move the windows down and extend the bulkhead over the top of the fireplace by 2 feet. The trusses had already arrived on site, so this was a significant change. Inspired by the change, Kinter added built-in cabinets. “The artist in me got into making the whole wall look like one big unit to tie everything together,” he says. He measured the television and stereo components and ordered cabinets from the custom cabinetmaker. Moskal enhanced the look by updating from brick to granite.

The stairs to the basement on the original plan were U-shaped and closer to the rear wall. Jeff Kinter recommended L-shaped stairs that opened closer to the kitchen. The plan called for a larger window to bring light into the basement family room, but the original stairs would have come down 2½ feet and blocked the light. “The L-shaped stairs also lined up with the hallway that went down the center of the house,” Kinter says.

Kinter Construction brought in their favorite kitchen designer to shift cabinets and appliances and create a larger island. “Before we ordered the kitchen cabinets, we gutted the room and drew lines on the floor that showed the island and cabinet placement. We had Helen walk through the kitchen to make sure it was comfortable,” Kinter says.

Remodeling plans, original version

Kinter removed the 3-by-5-foot landing just inside the doorway of the sitting room. He installed a gas fireplace instead of a wood-burning fireplace and, as in the living room, replaced the brick mantel with granite.

Kinter changed the curved wall to a straight wall to create a larger front foyer and give the Moskals a place to hang their art. He sketched out the location of the old and new walls on the floor, and the Moskals agreed with the change.

Kinter changed the front hallway from 7 feet wide to 6, to create a larger sitting room. “Hallways are the biggest waste of space,” Kinter says.

Remodeling plans, final version

In the master bath, the final plan shifted the exterior door to make room for an extended vanity. An angled tub made room for the move.

Kinter shortened the closet and created an opening for the homeowners to walk from the master bedroom directly to the kitchen. In the original design, the homeowners would have had to walk down the hall and past the front door to reach the kitchen. “I felt we could redo that and capture that wasted space,” he says. He moved the pantry to the laundry room and made the laundry room smaller. In the original floor plan, the open laundry room had a window to the front of the house. “If someone was standing at the front door, they could see into the kitchen,” Kinter says.

Photo Credit: Bob Calmer, Calmer Photography