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The Recycled House
May 20, 2007
My house was built in 1910. There’s a separate structure in the backyard that was used as a garage. I’m turning it into a rentable unit. The goals are to keep nearly the same footprint of the original structure, reuse lots of it, use environmentally responsible building materials and other salvaged items, keep it sort of funky on the outside and smart and contemporary inside. The budget is not one penny over $71,000 $95,000.I’m calling it the Recycled House. I’m documenting what happens in this space.
I’ve been attempting to get this project going since. 2001-2002. That’s when the City of Charlottesville, Virginia underwent a major overhaul of its zoning ordinance, and I was able to get onto one of the residential zoning committees set up by the City on a bunch of different topics and issues to craft the new vision. I did this specifically so I could do this project, because before the zoning overhaul, the only type of “accessory apartments” that could be legally built were ones that were either wholly interior or somehow attached to the main structure. I proposed the idea of the detached or exterior accessory apartment, and everyone on the committee thought it was a good thing. It made it into the revised zoning code in 2003.
I started out with Contractor Alex, who had done a lot of work on my house when I did a major renovation on it in 1997. It took me about a year and half to realize that he just wasn’t going to get around to doing the project. Then there was Contractor David, a guy I had known for a long time who actually approached me about doing the project. He did some drawings, and we had several meetings. He wanted to knock it down and start from scratch. It took another year or so for him to just sort of disappear. Then there was Architect Carrie, whom I so, so excited to be working with because she specialized in small spaces (the garage is just 400 square feet) and she had some spectacular ideas. But after about another year, she told me she was just too busy to do it.
Finally, there’s Builder Scott. I’ve known him for over ten years, mostly as a waiter. He’s also an artist. He paints. He also does construction projects, and he replaced my rotted wood front porch with a cool brick one in 2004. He likes to hang around building sites and the dump and the Habitat for Humanity store and scavenge old bricks and windows and nice wood and other useful materials.
A few things I’ve recently learned about Scott:
- He doesn’t wear a watch.
- He doesn’t own a cell phone. (UPDATE! I gave Scott a cell phone. He lost it. But he now has another one, and it’s come in quite handy.)
- He has lost his driver’s license. Apparently, “it’s in the laundry somewhere.” (UPDATE! With a little help from me and my excellent online DMV skills, Scott replaced the lost license)
- He’s doing a lot of work on his own house. He’s sort of competing with me for materials he finds that are suitable for both our projects.
Permanent Link Filed under: Renovation
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1Patrick | January 8, 2008
Back in 1998 when my late wife Diane and I were making our tour America by RV journey we stopped off at the World Headquarters of ‘drw Design LLC’ in order to spend some time visiting with its founder DRW herself. As our RV was not well suited for parked on the public streets surrounding the World Headquarters we made the best practical decision available and parked in the alley, on the lawn and up close to the old structure now called My Industrial Cottage.
As I recall we placed an electrical adapter in the socket of that one bare bulb which once resided in the old garage, ran an extension chord and “walla” had AC power in our cozy LazyDaze RV.
I also remember Katina’s clothesline pole which I would usually somehow get hung-up in as Diane and I made our way back to the RV after some extended late night kibitzing and an occasional toast with DRW in her Executive Dining Room.
I’m looking forward to enjoying the view from the new brick front porch but will miss the soft hollow reverberation which was generated while walking across the old rotten one. Progress I suppose. When the light was good I had no problem negotiating those spongy planks.
Good Luck DRW. With what little influence I have I’m imploring any cosmic forces paying attention to intercede on your behalf to insure your Industrial Cottage will come in close to being on budget..... if not on time.