Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993 TAG: 9309280072
SECTION: HOME & LANDSCAPE PAGE: HL-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"This house seemed huge," she said.
But the family hadn't been in the house for quite two years when they decided they wanted to move again. Although Yates was very happy with the location, most of the children's friends lived in other neighborhoods, she said, and they wanted to be near them.
But more importantly, the house that had seemed spacious when the children were younger suddenly seemed too small, Yates said. She and the children "started elbowing each other."
The house was on the market for six months in late 1992 and early 1993, "about five months too long," Yates laughed. "I was sick of keeping it clean."
The house was built sometime during the '20s or '30s, and is a typical Roanoke foursquare - four rooms up and four rooms down. The front door and the stairway open into one of the downstairs rooms, so it has served more as a foyer than as a living room.
The living room itself was big enough for the family, but there was no privacy when Yates or the children had company. The other two downstairs rooms are the kitchen and the dining room.
Upstairs are three bedrooms and a bathroom. Sometime after the house was built, Yates said, someone added a back porch with a half bath just off the kitchen. The upper floor of the porch is used as a sewing room.
Yates said she was "very creative" about providing space for the children to play, stashing different toys in one corner of each room.
Very few people came to look at the house while it was for sale, Yates said. They seemed to be looking for something either bigger or less expensive, rather than a modest, median-priced home.
So Yates decided that rather than move, she would work with what she had and add on a full bathroom and a family room.
Before she started the addition, Yates made other improvements to the house, such as upgrading the wiring and plumbing, stripping off the old carpeting and refinishing the pine floors underneath.
When the time came to plan the addition, Yates' fantasy was to build a greenhouse with a hot tub in the middle, or perhaps a sunroom, with an extra bedroom upstairs.
Reality dictated a simple cinder-block room which shrunk in size as Yates weighed the cost per square foot against her budget. The final cost of the project will be somewhere around $20,000, she said, give or take a few thousand.
Yates spent time shopping for a contractor, and finally chose the Harr Construction Company of Collinsville. They gave her the lowest bid, and she had seen their work at friends' houses and liked it.
The owner, Ernest D. Harr, "has bent over backwards to listen to my ideas," Yates said. "He gave me every thing I wanted."
Construction began in September, and is supposed to be finished in October.
The old half bath and the back porch were removed to make way for the new addition, which also will open off the kitchen.
When the room is finished, it will be 12-by-13 feet, with a full bathroom and a shower adjoining. There will be doors to the bathroom from both the kitchen and the family room.
From the addition, French doors will open outside onto a wooden walkway leading to the hot tub Yates decided she wanted anyway. An arbor will cover it from above, and latticework partitions on three sides will add privacy.
A set of wooden steps will lead down from the tub to the yard level. In lieu of the greenhouse, Yates plans to pack the back yard with plants to create a jungle effect. There will be a picnic table and a grill in back as well.
Much to Yates' relief, the sewing room she loves so much will be saved. During construction, it was propped up on supports, and will rest on top of the new addition when it is completed.
Actually, Yates said, she is glad she couldn't afford the huge room she initially envisioned. All the rest of the rooms in the house are relatively small, she said, so the new room will harmonize well with them and have the same cozy feel.
The children are happy with the changes, too, she said. When it's not being occupied by guests, the new addition will be their room, and Yates will have the living room to relax in by herself. The children even picked the furniture, she said.
Best of all, they've decided they finally like the neighborhood as much as their mother does, especially since their friends from other areas come to visit often.
Although Yates says she thinks her family is in the house to stay, she believes she has added to the resale value with the improvements she has made.
But if she has nothing more than make the house a more pleasant place to live in, "I will have done all right," she said.
by CNB