Our biggest decision right now is stucco color. The original house is some type of pale orangey/yellow and the stucco texture is what we call ‘70s Slash and Dash’. Very heavy texture which I don’t personally like but all the little houses on the street seem to have been built the same with same texture.
They are concerned with selecting a different color for the back garage and 2nd storage ADU building. But, the front house needs painting/fog coat very soon and I don’t want them to be constrained with what the color of their current house. I’m rooting for a neutral light brown/grey.
The issue with standard stucco colors is that the companies seem to be stuck in the 80s or something. Everything is pink, yellow or orange or pukey milk chocolate. There are not any modern stucco colors. They need to catch up to modern colorings.
We have Navajo white on the stucco of our Tudor house. I would think that could be an alternative to the Agate if it has green undertones. The Navajo white is a white/beige and very very neutral in almost any light.
One of our neighbors has Thunder Sky and it’s beautiful but I don’t know that it would go that well with the existing house unless they repaint.
We owned two stucco over cement block houses many years ago; both were built in the 1920s. The first (a little bungalow) was similar to the Bay Ridge and Thunder Sky colors on that chart. It was never painted and we kept the original color, along with white trim and a glossy black door. The second house was sort of a Spanish Revival style with terracotta tile. It was bright yellow when we bought it and I had it painted similar to the Sandstone color on the chart.
Boy, just realized it has been a month since I loaded some photos and posted progress. We are almost done. We just have to finish installing kitchen details, kitchen backsplash and put up stair railings. We have been stuck waiting to finish the stairs because we don’t have our final coat of stucco color applied yet so I cannot get rid of the scaffolding.
Stucco Color - the stucco guy finished all the base coat and put on 3 samples of colors that I chose for the owners. I love one of the colors (Omega 245) but they didn’t like it. They are stuck on yellowish colors. So, we had to wait for the stucco guy to bring a big box of chip samples and they selected Omega Ivory which has a yellowish hue. I did not win that battle and she jokes that if I ever need to bring someone over to show the ADU for a ‘reference’ that I can clearly state that I did not pick the stucco color - blame it on them.
Loaded some photos - It just gets impossible to take photos because everything is always surrounded by mess!!
Cost to Date : $121,000 but that includes a lot of the owner’s selections/purchases that are out of scope of our project. I think I’m running over about $10,000 over estimate due to serious delays and issues from the rainstorms we had. We just could not keep the house covered properly and we had water damage in garage.
We also experienced a first for us. For building inspections we are required to do a water test for leaks in ABS drain pipes. This involves capping off the end of the sewer line and filling all of the pipes with water up through the roof vents. We have to ‘cap off’ things like the toilet flange, sink drains sticking out of the wall and shower drain. It is a lot of water in the pipes that causes huge pressure, kind of like a pressure test. We always do this whether there is an inspection or not. So, we had already tested, but needed to fill pipes again for the official building inspection. About 30 minutes before inspection the shower drain test cap just BLEW. I was standing there and suddenly there was a gushing 6 ft geyser in the bathroom. Needless to say all hands on deck with wet vacs etc but it flooded the existing bathroom downstairs. I had some explaining to do when the building inspector arrived We had to tear off drywall in downstairs bathroom and dry everything out. Huge chunk of the contingency funds.
The end is near and pretty pictures will be coming. I am drowning in new projects that we have to start immediately and I’ve got one guy going off on long vacation and another guy that I have to loan to my mentor who is building a cabin out in Montana.
Next project is a garage conversion to a ‘Pool Room’ with bathroom and then we are remodeling a guest cottage in back of a historically designated Spanish house.
Found a site where you can get compare colors. It includes the RBG, CYMK percentages so you can tell better if something leans green or yellow for example.
That was rotten luck on the water test, but it sounds like your crew made a quick recovery. Add me to the fans of your shower tile. Can’t wait to see more pictures.
I was returning from errands and thought, maybe I’ll stop by in the alley and see how it looks.
Then I drove down the alley - the narrowest one I’ve been in, not to mention steep. I saw the new ADU above the garage and tall fence. Good thing for the front view between houses because that back alley is nothing. Our alley is a lot nicer .
Cannot believe I let another month go by without any updates. I’m so so sorry. We finished up the studio apartment about May 5th BUT I had a really hard time getting the vinyl railings for the exterior stairs and deck. At first I thought we were going to be OK with the standard 6ft length railings which are in stock so I didn’t pay attention. Then, when I went to do final measurements I discovered our stair length was 7ft and there were two areas of deck that needed 8ft long. Ooops, I had to scramble everywhere and special order some railings to be shipped in.
Thank goodness, the owner’s daughter was not going to move in upstairs until Memorial Day weekend. So off to next project while waiting for railings. We got the railings last week and I underestimated the complex measurements and called for a final inspection Friday morning comes and we still don’t have last two railings up. Inspector shows up and he goes upstairs, looks at the smoke detector and then tells me I can send him pictures of railing when completed. That was the fastest final inspection ever!! He didn’t even look at the fancy humidity sensor or occupancy sensor in the bathroom. I sent the pictures in the afternoon and that project is complete.
Fixed the crooked house numbers but now I have one lingering problem. There are little holes in the stucco where screw anchors were for the crooked house numbers and I cannot find a stucco match to patch the little holes. Luckily my stucco guy is so nice and said he would swing by and cover up our mistake
Schedule - we were one week behind due to the heavy rains causing delays, and creating extra work because of water damage. It took 11 weeks to complete and another 3 days to do Trex stairs and railing.
Budget - Heavy rains caused an extra $5,000 to the budget between tarping and repairing damage. Total cost $115,000. Owner spent $20,000 on appliances, cabinetry, etc.
I don’t know about Coralbrook’s area, but we were able to satisfy a county inspector at our last house by installing an occupancy sensor for the bathroom vent fan. Otherwise, they wanted one that ran at low speed 24/7.
We’ve also installed them in a powder room and guest bathrooms because guests often forgot to turn on/off the vent fan. They’re also handy for lights. One of the first things H did when we moved was to install an occupancy sensor for the overhead light in the laundry room, so we wouldn’t have to fumble for the switch with our hands full.
We had to tear off drywall in downstairs bathroom and dry everything out. Huge chunk of the contingency funds.
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