UPDATE: December 5th, 2018. The Building Permit has been issued and construction should begin just after the first of the year! This is going to be a fun one!
I love a big challenge….especially when it involves bringing a mostly original 1970’s A-frame into the 21st century.
A few months ago I started working with Yangchen and Tsering Denma on a new design project. Tsering is a Bay Area contractor who does landscape work. But, he’s also renovated a few houses for his family, and even built one from the ground up. The Denmas were in escrow on a house in Oakland’s Upper Rockridge neighborhood when I first met them. The neighborhood was beautiful, but the house wasn’t.
It had that Tahoe A-frame cabin feel. The interior walls were all wood. A mish-mash of low of shed roofs gave it a home-made feel and low ceilings in the upper level rooms. It had the original kitchen and bathrooms. A couple of illegal kitchens had been added over the years to create sort of communal living arrangement. It was like stepping back in time…to a place you didn’t really want to go.
Yet, this house had great potential and new owners with vision! We started by figuring out what their needs are. First, they’re a multi-generational household. They have both their parents and their small children living in their household. While they didn’t need an in-law for the parents, they did want a separate area that would allow for privacy. They also needed a total of four bedrooms, a laundry that was in the house rather than detached, a spacious open kitchen, and improved flow between the rooms. Also key was preserving the core architectural element: the A-frame living area.
After a couple of months of design work, we’ve come up with a great plan for the Denmas. We’re adding on about 700 square feet. The area where the master bedroom will be located is getting a bump out. We’re adding a family room on the lowest level that will have a roof deck on top. The location of the stair is moving and we’re demolishing the original shed-roofed entry to clean up the exterior. And the series of shed-roofed dormers at different heights and angles have been cleaned up. The roof pitches now all match, and the overall roof is vastly simplified.
I’ll try to update this blog on the progress as this will be our most dramatic project yet. And we have a talented and enthusiastic pair of clients working with us on it! We should have building permits by the first of the year and construction will begin soon after.
RADesignBuild Co. 