Major Home Remodeling: Second-Story Addition, Garage Expansion, Kitchen Updates, Mechanicals, and Exterior Design
Host:
Welcome to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction, online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Now, here is your host, Sean Prebil, and Mike Twohig of Edge Construction.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction right here on 1310 WIBA. We are hanging out this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
Do not forget, you can learn more about Edge Construction on their website, EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Mike, how are you doing this morning?
Mike:
Great, Sean.
Host:
Good to have you back.
For folks who do not know, you were off in Scotland this past week.
Mike:
Scotland. First time.
Host:
Yes.
Mike:
I thought, “Let’s go someplace nice and warm where it does not rain.”
No, it was my wife’s bucket list, I think. I am glad I went. It was great, and we had a fun time.
It was really Christy’s idea.
Before the show, I touched on the rain there. If you think, “Okay, Wisconsin, I am used to the cold. I am tough,” go to Scotland. It will rearrange your thinking because you are going to be cold and wet.
It took a little while to get used to that.
Host:
But they have some good, hearty food to keep you warm.
Mike:
They do.
They have this invention called haggis, which, if you try their other invention of whiskey, helps a little bit.
In my defense, it is cold and rainy. You have to warm up somehow.
I thought, “Well, I am there. I am going to try stuff.”
So I did try haggis. If you want to really be grossed out, look it up and see what it is made of.
But if you put gravy over anything, it is not too bad.
Host:
You texted me a picture of it, and I thought, “Oh my goodness.”
Would you have tried it?
Mike:
Would you try it?
Host:
Probably, yes. I think if you are there, you have to try it.
You said it was pretty decent.
Mike:
It was good. I liked it.
It tasted like sausage, and sausage cannot be that bad.
Host:
Real quick, before we get to this week’s conversation, we are talking about some of the bigger projects, specifically one you guys have been working on. There is a great work-in-progress project up at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Before we get to that, one final thing.
When you were over in Scotland, did you get a chance to check out some of the builds and some of the design? Did you take notes on anything you noticed there?
Mike:
I did.
It is not like here, where if you are driving around the outskirts of a city like Madison, you are going to see a fair amount of construction.
But I did find spots where they were building and got to walk through some things.
The European version of construction is different than ours.
I have probably mentioned this before, but when I have been over there looking at practices and asking, “How long does this product last?” they look at you like, “What do you mean? At least several hundred years.”
I am sure not everything they buy is built like that, but a lot of the stuff they buy is.
It is fun to see how they build.
I have been experimenting somewhat with what I call super-insulating. We do not build that many houses, but we built one last year. It is a pretty nice place out in the country.
We did two-by-four construction, which everybody here questions. They ask, “Why would you do that?”
Well, believe it or not, you do not need two-by-sixes for structure. You do not need it for strength. You can stack your floor joists — those big flooring members that support the floor — on top of two-by-fours. There is plenty of strength there.
Generally, we moved to two-by-six construction for insulation.
Now there are ways to get to the R-value we need in a wall without a two-by-six cavity.
Over there, I noticed they are doing two-by-six plus the super-insulation.
In that house we built this year and finished in June, we did two-by-four construction, plywood, and then two inches of rigid foam on the outside. We ended up with a wall that is around R-30 or something. It was a lot of R-value and a pretty tight structure.
We will do a different show someday about the science behind that and why it is a good idea, especially up here in the North, because we are really protecting our house if we put rigid foam on the outside.
You will notice around town that nobody does it. Nobody does it. They do not want to spend the money, and it takes a little more time.
But I think that is where we need to head.
I saw a lot of that there and learned a few things.
If you are building a house for several hundred years and for generations to follow, you do it differently. You are not afraid to invest in better products.
Some of it is actually dictated by their government system there.
I had heard this before from different builders over in Europe, that there are no windows made in the United States that would pass the test in their country. Scotland was kind of no different.
The amazing quality of their windows and exterior doors — they are really made well.
Like I said, they are building to a different standard.
Host:
One final thing on this, and this will probably bridge nicely into what we are talking about this week.
We think of things like interest rates, and also the fact that if you have the money, the financing, and everything in place, it is physically hard to find a house out there that is absolutely perfect.
Are we starting to see some of that focus on longevity coming to the States a little bit because of the way the market is?
Mike:
We are, and that is a super healthy thing for housing.
In my eyes, it has not really hit new construction, at least in the Midwest.
I have friends who are builders on the East Coast and in some of those areas, and it has hit there. They will not build houses that are not built to that standard.
They probably have customers who can afford to do a little more. I know budget always comes into play, but I think some things are musts.
That is where I come down on that.
If we build a house, it is probably going to have rigid foam on the outside. We are going to do different things to tighten it up.
The payoff is that it is going to use a lot less energy, and it is going to use less energy forever. It is not a system that is going to wear out.
I am not picking on windmills and solar, but those things have a half-life. They wear out.
Insulation does not really wear out.
To me, it is a no-brainer, and it is pretty cheap to do. It is a smart thing.
Host:
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
From there, you can link to their social media pages, including Facebook, Pinterest, and Houzz, which is a fantastic tool for remodeling. It is a great place to see their portfolio.
Again, just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com and pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
As we talk about what has been going on domestically, things like interest rates and other factors have caused people to say, “Maybe we are going to stay in our current home much longer than we originally intended.”
For a lot of folks, there are great benefits: great neighborhoods, great reasons why they bought the house in the first place.
It is a good time to start the conversation about maybe expanding, going up, going out, doing a basement remodel, finding different ways to add space, or even simply upgrading the current space to meet your current standards.
Mike, you have a project you guys have been working on in Middleton.
You put the house in progress up on the website, and this is a big project. I am scrolling through on my phone to look at all the details, and it keeps scrolling and scrolling.
Let’s start from the beginning.
The house you started with was a very modest, very typical ranch house, right?
Mike:
Yes, it is a 1950s ranch.
It had some updating. It was not exactly like it was the day it was built, but the updates were piecemeal over the years.
We were trying to make this small house work.
In some of the neighborhoods in Middleton — and if you have a Middleton zip code in your address, I am pretty jealous because it is where people really want to live — their values have come up quite a bit over the years, and they are worth investing in.
This is one where it looked like they had done everything they could.
They had finished their basement, and they still had two bedrooms upstairs and a bedroom downstairs — quotation mark “bedroom” downstairs.
They had gone as far as they could with the footprint they had.
This is a growing family. They love where they are living. They like the schools and everything about it. I think they have family close by.
That is how this process started.
The design portion probably took nine months, and all these discussions happened: “Is there any way we can stay here and have a house that we really, really want?”
Host:
Obviously, the big thing is the addition of that second floor, but the first floor, basement, and all these other spaces were touched as well.
We will break all those areas down — the kitchen, the main living area, and some other areas of the first floor.
But first, we have to talk about the most dramatic thing you see from the curbside.
If you look at what the house looks like right now and maybe go to Google Maps and drive down the street to see it before, you would almost think the original house was bulldozed and they started from scratch.
It is an amazing transformation.
Let’s talk about some of those bigger things on the outside.
First off, the garage gave them actual workable space.
I have never understood this. You mentioned a 1950s home, and I see a lot of homes from the 1950s with single-car garages. Then I look at cars from the 1950s, and I think they were huge.
Was that ever actually a garage?
But you were able to do some amazing things and give them a garage they can park cars in. What a novel concept.
Mike:
Yes.
When you look at the finished product, it makes sense, and it fits the neighborhood.
We did not go way over the top, but we got it really nice.
That smaller garage that was on there almost looked like it had been an afterthought, like maybe that went on later.
During our first visit, the homeowners were asking, “Is there any way to do this?”
There are a lot of things that go into figuring that out because we pushed the limit on their lot. We got out as far as we could, and we were able to get them a two-car garage.
There is an access door to the backyard through there, which is pretty nice.
It is a legitimate two-car garage because it has two separate doors, with space in between, so they will have no problem getting their two cars in there.
The concrete floor was all wonky and broken up. There was no saving any of it, so we ended up pretty much tearing that part right off.
Host:
How does that work?
I do not think we have ever talked about concrete and garage floors before. How does that work to break the old stuff up and pour a whole new foundation?
Mike:
This one was a little more complicated.
I do not know if you can see this, but maybe we should post the plans online sometime because I give our gang in design credit for coming up with the ideas here.
When you are looking at it from the street, the left-hand side of that second floor bears about six feet into the garage. So we had to put a post there.
What our designers did was draw it so that it landed on the old foundation.
When we demoed the old foundation, instead of just cutting it all out in that area, we left maybe 10 feet of it and cut it down so it is below the new garage floor, except for where that post is.
It sort of looks like it rises up and gives us a bearing point.
It is really interesting to hear me talk about.
I do not know if I am making it clear, but there are definitely ways to do it.
We saved the foundation that was on the right side of that garage, so we are butted up to their existing sidewalk and driveway. They had a pretty new driveway, so we were able to save that and not have to replace a bunch of it, which normally we would.
This one worked out pretty well.
Host:
It is pretty amazing.
Check that out online right now at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is the in-progress project titled Second Floor Addition in Progress. You will see it right there.
Just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are going to break down more of this project. We talked about the garage. We will talk about the addition of the second floor, and we will talk about the other areas around the house that were remodeled in the meantime.
I mentioned the website. Check it out online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, Mike and the team would love to talk with you. Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
More of the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction is next right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. Head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
We are talking about a project they are working on at Edge Construction. It is in progress and titled Second Floor Addition in Progress.
It is an amazing project.
It is amazing to see the before and current pictures of this project. Again, just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Before we get to that second big addition — the second floor — what is the timeline for these types of things?
You mentioned this particular project spent about nine months in design. When you look at it, you realize, “Oh yes, I can see why.”
Was there actually a conversation on this house about maybe just starting from scratch?
Mike:
There was not, mainly because they had the finished basement.
They had a nice full bath down there, a bedroom, and a great room that stretched the length of the house. It would have been tough to throw that away.
I think the structure of the house was pretty good.
We have torn apart some houses where we thought, “Oh man, we should have just torn this thing down because it is more work to rebuild it than it would have been to start new.”
But not this one. I think it worked out pretty well.
Through the design process, sometimes if you are a homeowner, you are poking around online and thinking, “That looks cool. I want to do this, and I want to do that.”
Some things just did not make sense if we were trying to keep this structure.
Luckily, we could have that conversation rather than them dictating, “This is what I want, and I do not care what the problems are.”
They made a lot of sensible choices.
With each one of those choices, saving the structure became a little easier.
Host:
So this project spent about nine months in design.
For folks who are thinking about doing something like this, is nine months about right?
Mike:
That is one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it.
Believe it or not, we have room for a couple of these types of projects next year.
These run pretty well with our normal kitchens, baths, lower levels, and interior remodeling because they sort of run in the background.
On these big projects, the timeline is a little stretched out. This one is in construction for six months, and I think we are actually running ahead.
That is an indication of how things are going out there right now. It is really nice for me because I obsess about scheduling. When things start to run better than I thought, that is always great.
It means things are straightening out a little bit in the supply chain, labor market, and things like that.
I would say nine months, with not too much sitting around. That time goes really fast when you are working on bigger projects.
If we were thinking about next year, what does that put us at? June or July?
We must have started this one in July, maybe the end of July, and we are going to be done hopefully by Christmas. So we are fitting in there pretty well.
But that does light a fire.
If you want to sneak one of these in next year, and you really want to get into a bigger house remodel where there is an addition involved — especially whether it is going up, going out, or both — you need to start talking to us now.
Host:
We are heading into those winter months as well.
How great would it be to go through this entire winter working on a fantastic project, planning, and designing?
It is a great time right now.
Give them a call at Edge Construction. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE — E-D-G-E.
Again, if you are looking for that bigger project, it is time now to get that conversation going and get the ball rolling.
With this remodel, and with a significant remodel like adding a second floor, there is a lot more to it than simply taking the roof off and throwing up a second story.
You have to get mechanicals up there — all things I have learned from you, Mike.
How is that all going to work?
Mike:
I have such an interesting story about that.
Host:
Oh, you really do?
I am not surprised.
Let’s talk about what all goes into the overall design of adding a second story to a home.
Mike:
A staircase is a big one because we have to find room for that.
The house kind of gets built around a staircase.
With this house, they had an opening for a staircase. It was kind of off the kitchen there. It is always in the center of the house, so that determines a lot of things.
We want to open up the kitchen, but we cannot really because the staircase is there.
We opened it up in one direction and made sure it happened. It feels nice, big, and open.
But that probably limits your island size.
We did get an island in there, and we have tricks now where we can order cabinets that are reduced depth. Instead of a 24-inch-deep cabinet, we might do a 21-inch or even an 18-inch. It looks pretty much the same. The drawers are not as deep, so you have a little less storage, but you can size it for the space and still get seating around that island in a narrow room.
We have gotten so much better on the design side. I can tell because on the construction side, this one went so well.
The trusses came, and we got everything torn off.
You are ordering trusses before you tear that roof off, so you have to figure out ways to precisely measure and get all that stuff in there.
There are so many ways to go wrong.
We also have to order cabinets before we even start this project.
We did a little initial demo just to get an idea where stuff was.
The biggest challenge when you are taking the roof off is rain.
Host:
Rain.
Mike:
Yes. Rain is a four-letter word, and it is also a four-letter word for anybody in my business.
The last thing I want to hear is that rain is coming to my house.
We have a great outside framing crew that I pulled in off new construction to do this. They always help us out on these bigger things.
I picked what I thought were the driest five days this summer. I thought, “If this goes perfectly, we are going to get this roof torn off, get the roof back on in four or five days, and we will have no problem. No rain.”
We got held up one day. We started one day late, which pushed us into Friday.
We did the tear-off on Wednesday. By Friday, we had the second-floor deck built, the floor up, and a couple of walls.
Then on Saturday, I was watching the radar, and a storm was coming in with an arrow pointed right at that house in Middleton.
We had tarps over it, but I went over there and was out in the rain for a little bit, trying to make sure it did not come in.
We ended up not having water come in. We got the roof on it in four or five days, so we had it closed back up pretty quickly.
That is an advantage I think we have on these bigger projects. I feel lucky to have that because we can pull in horsepower from the new-construction side and really get it going.
Host:
Water is really always your enemy, whether it is rainwater or, as you were showing me, some of the flooring and all the different layers.
It was one of those things where I thought, “Wait, what? Why are there all these different layers underneath the tile? What are they doing?”
Mike:
If you are not familiar with Schluter, do not ask me how to spell it. It is probably just like it sounds if you are a good German.
The Schluter system has revolutionized how we do tile in houses or anywhere.
One of the cool things about this project is that it looks like our designers got out there and took a million pictures and decided to post them mid-process.
If you are looking at it today, go to our website. The first thing you can see is this project. Click on it, and it will pull you into this project, and it is literally where it is at now.
The tile shower is done now, so the pictures are probably about a week old.
There is an in-process picture that shows the orange Kerdi-Board on the walls in the shower. That gives us our base to build that shower and tile it.
On the floor, it is kind of cool because I do not know if we have ever posted a picture like this. The orange stuff on the floor is called a decoupling membrane.
It separates all these layers.
You have plywood subfloor, the decoupling membrane, mortar, and then tile. That is really four things.
When you are going through heating seasons, cooling seasons, humidity, and dryness in the house, all those things move at different rates.
That decoupling membrane does what it says. It separates the tile from the subfloor and keeps cracks from happening.
I talked before about those smart Europeans building for several hundred years. I want to do as much of that as I can too.
Green does not just mean having a solar panel. It means using good techniques and things that are going to last.
If you are doing a bathroom, we all know half the problem with remodeling a bathroom is water. It will find its way through things.
Maybe it is a little less likely when you have these membranes and layers. You are sort of creating a bowl, and that stuff protects your house from water.
The tile becomes the artwork that covers up that bowl.
So yes, you wanted to know about the orange stuff on the floor.
Host:
I never thought the decoupling membrane would be a conversation.
As a matter of fact, until this morning, I had never heard those words.
I noticed those tiles are six-sided.
Mike:
Hexagons.
Host:
Yes, hexagons.
Is that something you guys are doing a few of? I feel like I have seen a few.
Mike:
It is like an old thing that has become new.
That would have been something popular 100 years ago. Now it has shown back up.
The thing is, 100 years ago, they probably had three tile choices. Now we have a bunch of different looks.
I wish you could see this tile floor now that it is done because it is a really interesting floor.
Host:
Really fascinating stuff.
It is something you will want to follow along with because this project is in progress and will be updated at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
You can look right now and see the photos we are referring to.
Just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. It is right on the front page.
We will talk more about this project.
In the meantime, check it out online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, big or small, they would love to talk at Edge Construction.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
And if you are looking for the big project, it is time now to give them a call at Edge Construction: 608-636-3343.
We will continue our conversation with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction next as the Home Remodeling Show continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
This is one of those weeks where you have to check out EdgeConstructionCompany.com. You definitely want to check out this in-progress project they are working on at Edge.
It is absolutely amazing.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
I mentioned early on that we would touch on mechanicals. I was not expecting, during the break, for you to start talking to me about something really interesting with the laundry and specifically the furnace.
Speaking of mechanicals, how did you solve that problem?
Obviously, the original furnace was not the right size for the new space.
Mike:
This is the problem.
This house started off as probably a 1,000-square-foot ranch. I think it was actually less, but I do not remember exactly.
They had a furnace in the basement serving that, plus the finished basement. We were looking at it and saying, “Okay, this thing is not really sized for this. It is sized for the house that was there, plus a little margin of error.”
It is not like you can add another 1,000 feet up in a second floor and have it serve that well.
We also had the issue of getting ducts up through a house that was not originally designed for this.
How do we get up there and really serve that second level?
We had to do some inventive beams in the floor system to carry everything based on what we had to work with. It was stopping us.
Our heating people said, “What about pricing out a furnace upstairs? We can put it in a smaller closet if we can fit it in somewhere.”
We fit it in the laundry room. It is just going to have a little double-door closet in there. I think we needed four feet by four feet or maybe four feet by five feet.
In the picture, if you find it, it is rough in there. You will see the air conditioning line coming down, the PVC for the furnace, and the trunks and lines all there.
I happen to know that furnace is now installed.
It is also going to do a better job because we are putting the furnace where the heat needs to go.
If you are building a new house, it would be ridiculous to have two furnaces in a house this small because there are other ways to get that done.
But in this situation, it is going to work great. The upstairs is going to be totally on its own thermostat.
If you like sleeping in a cooler environment, you can do that. You can also pick the temperature for your downstairs and basement.
It solved a lot of problems.
Host:
How great is the laundry that you are putting up there?
That is going to be fantastic.
Mike:
It is so fun to see people go through this design process.
You are designing this in CAD, so you are still drawing lines on paper, and we have the renderings. You can get a decent feel.
But you can tell by how we got a good-sized laundry that this one was going to be great.
They see it and say, “Oh my gosh, I actually went from a house with no room to do anything to a house with enough room to get the job done.”
Host:
I have to ask you too.
You mentioned that the basement in this house had already previously been finished. Was the laundry down there before?
Now they have more storage or more space for other things downstairs.
Mike:
Yes.
The laundry was in an unfinished utility area. It had the furnace, water heater, slop sink, and the electrical panel.
It was not very big. It was probably about as big as the room we are sitting in.
I think there was even a closet where they were storing stuff.
So yes, that changed quite a bit. We were able to open things up.
Host:
Let’s talk about some of the other spaces.
We touched a little bit on tile. We talked about the garage and some of the stuff that went into the second-floor addition.
Let’s talk about the main level, that first floor. You guys did substantial work on that area as well, starting with the kitchen.
You really did a full new layout in that kitchen. You cannot even tell it is the same space.
Mike:
No.
We took walls out. There was a closet built there.
In the past, I think now is the best time for design — not just for us, but homeowners are willing to invest more in design because that is where the great pictures come from.
I always tell our people, “I am sorry. The tradespeople got all the glory for a long time. Now we have to share some with the designers because without those great designs, we really have nothing to build.”
I like to think you are going to love the finished product when you see the staircase. I am going to get to do some fancy stair work, which always makes me happy.
But it is going to be right in the kitchen, so there were a lot of challenges to designing that kitchen.
If you look at the pictures we have now, you can see we got the island right. We have a legitimate kitchen there now.
It is not huge. This is still a small house.
But it is going to feel open and connected to the rest of the house.
That is a really fun thing for us.
Host:
There are upgrades like quartz countertops and other things too, really giving them that new feel.
I have a hard time believing that, if you brought somebody in, even with this project still in progress, they would not think it was new construction.
That brings me to the other part of this, which we do not talk about a lot: the exterior.
When you guys are doing insulation, upgrades, adding floors, and all the other stuff, you are doing a lot of exterior work.
The curb appeal on this, the color of the siding, the roof, and the shutters — from the curbside, you can tell it is a completely remodeled home. The workmanship and craftsmanship on the outside are definitely something you notice.
Mike:
Yes.
It is completely new outside. There should not be any maintenance on the house for a long, long time.
You have all the exterior doors.
One thing people probably would not notice is that we worked with the homeowners on the windows because every project has a budget. I do not care how big the house is.
They had replaced quite a few of their windows on the first floor, so we worked with them on that. We preserved them and used them in the design.
We did relocate a couple of them. We changed some things around a little bit.
The kitchen moved and expanded farther back into the house to get us some space, so windows were not quite in the right place.
That was one way we saved the homeowners some money.
It is also less wasteful. If you put a decent window in, I do not want to just toss that the next year. I would feel guilty about that.
I do not mind doing that kind of stuff.
Host:
What about the entryway too?
I am looking at pictures of the front door and that nice roof over it, giving a little space to keep the elements out when people stop by or drop things off.
I do not even know the correct term for the area above the door, but that is a very cool little feature that was added.
Mike:
I am going to get really technical with you. We put a porch roof over there.
Host:
I am writing that down in my glossary of terms.
Mike:
There was not anything there before.
It was kind of a weird brick wall sticking out. It was not doing a thing. It was strictly for looks.
Somebody had painted it. Martha Stewart stopped by and threw a coat of paint on there 10 years ago or so.
We tore that thing off.
There was brick around the bay window, and we tore that off.
There are so many subtle things that we did that made changes.
You are trying to do this and be sensible, but if you go this far, you want it all. You want a great design on the inside. You want curb appeal. You want to get rid of the things that do not make sense, that maybe got added because somebody had a bright idea at some point.
Houses have a lot of those.
We do that stuff too.
Host:
It has a very welcoming and comfortable look from the curb.
We will talk a little more about some of the things that were done on the inside, including the overall living area and the updated fireplace. We have details on that and so much more.
The Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues.
Remember the website, EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
More of the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction comes your way next right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
I feel like we may need to divide this out over a few more shows because we are just getting started here.
If you have not been to EdgeConstructionCompany.com and checked out the project we have been talking about, definitely do that.
It is a work-in-progress project: a pretty significant remodel with a second-story addition, garage expansion, first-floor remodel, and pretty much everything there was done.
In the last segment, we were talking about adding a furnace on the second story, as well as a laundry up there.
Speaking of that second story, we talk about how you never know exactly what you are going to find until you find it.
This house had a brick or stone chimney, and they wanted to preserve what they could. But you got in there and found it probably was not salvageable, correct?
Mike:
Yes.
That was one thing. It was not a big deal.
They had a wood fireplace. There was nothing wrong with having a wood fireplace, except this one was not a pretty wood fireplace. It was not a really great-looking one.
We were trying to figure out ways to make it look better, which we would have had some way around.
Early on, we optioned taking that thing out and doing a gas unit there.
When my framers were there, we were trying to preserve that brick or stone chimney. It extended up beyond where the second floor was.
My foreman, Ron, called me and said, “We are building these walls, and you can grab that chimney with your hand and move it around.”
I said, “Okay, this is not a safe situation.”
So we entered into a conversation with the homeowners and worked out a deal. We took that down and built a little — we actually call it a doghouse, Sean — a little dish-out on the backside of the house that the new gas fireplace can slide into.
That way, it stays flush with the front wall.
We did that, got a new gas fireplace in there, and got rid of the old brick.
Host:
Have we talked about how awesome gas fireplaces are recently?
I feel like years ago we talked about them a few times on the show, but I do not know that we have talked recently about just how convenient and common they are.
Every project where it can fit, there is often a place for one because they are also pretty affordable to have installed.
Mike:
Yes.
It is not nothing. It is a budget impact.
But for the benefits of it, I think it looks great.
The biggest benefit is that you have instant heat in a room you are in.
You do not have to turn the furnace up and heat the whole house just to heat the great room where you are hanging out.
They are very efficient, by the way. I know the ones we put in are over 95 percent efficient.
It is a product that does not need much maintenance. It has a lot going for it, and it is really nice to look at.
You can put them almost anywhere.
With an old wood fireplace, you have a lot of structure that goes with that.
Host:
Very cool.
I live in the woods. That is where you live with quite a few piles of wood.
But they are a lot of work, those wood fireplaces.
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
We just scratched the surface on this one. We will probably bring it back around in shows to come.
In the meantime, if you have not been over there, check out EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, whether it is a big project or a small project, now is the time.
For the big stuff especially, you want to pick up the phone and call them today at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Get that design phase rolling.
Again, for small projects as well, they would love to talk with you at Edge Construction: 608-636-3343. That is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.