First story moves up
When Mark and Dana Schmidt bought their home, all they could see out the kitchen window was their tiny backyard. Today, they look out the same window over the rooftops of downtown Ventura and out toward the Pacific.
The new vista is due to a rather adventurous gamble they took to enlarge their 740-square-foot 1928 bungalow.
With no space to expand out, they opted to go up -- but not the conventional way. Instead of adding a story on top, they jacked up the house 12 feet and tucked another story underneath.
“I don’t think many people think of this as an option,” said Dana, 32, a diving coach and mom to two small children. The Schmidts probably wouldn’t have gone that route either if Dana’s father, an architect, hadn’t previously worked on a house in San Luis Obispo where the first story was raised to add another underneath. The Schmidts thought it would work on their house as well.
The gamble paid off for the Schmidts, who calculate that they saved close to $100,000 with their unconventional add-on. The approach is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who favor a traditional floor plan. As you walk in the Schmidts’ front door past a mini-parlor, a hallway leads to three new bedrooms, a bathroom and laundry room. The new staircase leads up to the second story, which is virtually the old first story, housing the kitchen, dining area, living room and a bedroom-turned-den.
Though Dana was concerned about lugging groceries and children up to the second floor, she said it has “turned out way nicer than I expected.”
The couple bought the frame house in 2002 for $240,000. Though the home had only one bedroom and the lot was a mere 2,500 square feet, the Schmidts always intended to add a second story one day.
It took a year to draw up the plans and get them approved by the city in 2004. The couple then enlisted the services of veteran house mover Eric Brandt of Santa Maria. He said his company, Brandt House & Building Movers, does four or five similar jobs a year. The Schmidts also hired contractor Steven McKee of S.P. McKee Design & Construction in Newbury Park, a company specializing in older-home remodels.
When they were ready for liftoff in August 2004, the Schmidts moved in with Mark’s parents in east Ventura for the five months it took to finish the project. The move was easy because they left their furniture in place. When the house was elevated, the furniture went up too, said Mark, 34, who teaches at Ventura High School and coaches swimming and water polo.
Still, the odyssey was nerve-racking, recalled Mark, who videotaped the house being raised. After the structure was unbolted from the foundation, it took Brandt and his crew just one day to slide two girders under the floor joists and lift the house into the air 15 inches at a time with a hydraulic jack.
“That’s your whole livelihood up in the air,” Mark said. “What if it falls on a neighbor’s house or car?”
Once the remodel was underway, the couple learned the house needed a new foundation. That added $10,000 to the project’s cost, which in the end totaled $130,000, including the $15,000 they paid Brandt to lift the house and set it back down on the new story.
The house was up on wood-block stilts for about two months while the new construction went on below. During that time, it drew the curious, who monitored the tumult going on inside the chain-link fencing.
“People were fascinated by it,” Dana said. “They wanted to know how and why.” The family finally moved back in early 2005.
Two years after the remodel, the Schmidts like having their living quarters upstairs.
They keep their window shades up all the time, enjoying views of the Ventura hills out the front windows and the ocean in the back.
“It feels like a new house,” Mark said.
But the house definitely has a period ambience, and that’s what the Schmidts had hoped to retain. The roofline is the same, and the new first floor is in character with the upstairs. They even retained the original front door overhang and rehung it over the new entry. It fits in well with the mix of older one- and two-story homes in the neighborhood.
As much as they like the house -- the beach is an eight-minute walk away -- they recently listed it for sale for $699,000 and are in escrow. The backyard is only 11 feet by 22 feet, not big enough anymore for their two sons, Connor, 3, and Brennan, 1, and a new puppy.
Jacking up a house isn’t for everyone who wants to add a story. The option worked for the Schmidts because the original house was small, square, simply constructed and on a raised foundation, which made it easier to lift. Also, they did virtually no remodeling to the old portion and scrupulously shopped for bargain materials.
Adding under saves in other ways, according to Jennifer Lefaver of Trost Jacking & Drayage Inc., a Concord, Calif. firm that does two or three such jobs a year. “You don’t have to pay someone to tear off the roof.” And construction crews are working at ground level, not on scaffolding.
Contractor McKee points to another advantage: Adding a story on top of an existing house calls for strengthening the old portion to withstand the added weight. By doing it the Schmidts’ way, the new portion was engineered for the additional load.
Adding up rather than under can cost almost as much as building a new two-story house, according to Richard Hess of Hess Engineering in Los Alamitos. It depends on the home and its complexity. Although Hess was not involved in the Schmidts’ project, he thought saving $100,000 on a job this size seemed a bit high.
An advantage of adding under, he said, is the placement of the stairs. Adding a story on top means the stairs have to be squeezed into the existing floor plan, sometimes sacrificing a whole room. It’s easier to design a staircase into a new floor plan than into an existing one.
Those who dream of adding under will need professional help, Hess said, such as an architect or building planner and a contractor.
McKee is so taken with the concept that he is looking for a house to buy with the sole intention of doing what the Schmidts did.
Meanwhile, with the Schmidts’ house in escrow, they are looking down the road to their next home -- an older home in Ventura that also needs a lot of work. Dana said. “We like to get down and dirty.”
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