When my wife of barely a year and I were shopping for our first house, we knew that in order to afford a house in the community where we wanted to live we would have to accept something in less than perfect condition. And that was fine because I had some experience with home remodeling. Most of the homes in our area of choice were about 50 years old, since the village had developed this area shortly after World War 2, and were in outstanding condition with a price to match. But we caught a lucky break early in our search. We found a 3 bedroom Cape Cod brick home that was solidly built, had a decent size lot with old trees - it even had a detached 2 car garage which was a rare find in the neighborhood. And most important of all it was in our price range.
But the reason for the economic pricing was immediately apparent upon closer inspection: it was a mess. The basic house was structurally fine but it needed modernizing and remodeling in virtually all of the rooms. The worst room of all was the family room addition on the back of the house and is the subject of this story.
It was a small lean-to structure at 12' by 22' and had clearly been a three seasons porch that had been enclosed years ago for use year round. It's condition was deplorable: it was a mean looking structure with a crude chipboard ceiling that had been varnished, and was covered inside with ridiculous hunting theme paneling. The room had no heating or air conditioning ductwork and the electrical service was run on the walls using hazardous exposed plastic cables. Even the patio door and sliding windows were just plain cheap aluminum units. The icing on the cake was the decrepit concrete patio outside the door. Its maze of cracks and heaved chunks would've been hard for even an earthquake to replicate.
Nevertheless, the price was right and we were confident we could tackle all of the remodeling projects ourselves. The house was purchased, we moved in, and proceeded to transform our home room by room. But as hideous as the family room addition was, other projects were of higher priority, and as the house also had a living room we really didn't need to occupy the family room just yet so it was left vacant. We first needed to remodel the kitchen, master bedroom and bath, and downstairs bath to restore the main living areas to acceptable conditions. These projects plus a new roof and several smaller jobs consumed the first three years of our financial and time budget while we lived in the house. After these projects were completed it was finally the family room's turn!
This is an account of our experience of replacing the family room addition. I've included lots of pictures, as well as short descriptions of each stage of the project.