THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409160453
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: The Big Makeover
Part two in a six-month series
A look at one couple's efforts to renovate a waterfront home in
Virginia Beach.
SOURCE: Shirley Bolinaga
LENGTH: Long : 173 lines
The Big Makeover, Part 2, finds David and Suzie Shulmister emerging from six weeks of big changes in their lives and living quarters.
Jacob Wesley, their first child, was born Sept. 6, overshadowing even their mammoth renovation project. While they like their rented condo near the Oceanfront, the two-bedroom space suddenly seemed to shrink after the baby arrived, said David.
About a mile away in Birdneck Point, their waterfront home too did some temporary shrinking, losing its screened porch, its former TV room and about half of its dining room, along with some interior walls, ceilings and kitchen fixtures.
Major renovation, it seems, often starts with major demolition.
``People just don't realize how much there is to tear out on a job like this,'' said Steven W. Howell, the contractor who is doing the six-month, $140,000 project. He has already hauled away some 60 tons of construction debris.
The Shulmisters are taking the temporary destruction of their home in stride. ``Suzie jokes that we spent all this money and now we don't have anything,'' said David, an emergency room physician who usually drops by the site daily.
Joking aside, they are pleased with the progress Howell is making, he said. ``I think he's doing great,'' said David, who bought the house last fall for $240,000 with the intention of renovating it.
Ironically, much of the area being torn out was created in past remodelings. The garage, which had been converted to a TV room and storage area, is being returned to its original use. The dining room, now torn apart to make way for a kitchen, was another addition.
When construction is complete, the house will boast on the first floor: a new 21-by-18-foot great room; a 19-by-13-foot kitchen; and a 12-by-15 breakfast room. Upstairs will be a new master bedroom, 21 by 18 feet, and a 12-by-12 master bath.
All the new rooms are on the waterfront side, designed to take maximum advantage of beguiling views of Linkhorn Bay.
Other changes include dividing the present living room to make space for a formal dining area and installing a new two-zone heating and cooling system.
Howell, 39, and his longtime subcontractor Dennis Capps began work on Aug. 5. Within a week, the house was drastically changed, and parts of it looked as if a miniature tornado might have whirled through. ``It looks like it's being torn apart,'' said Howell cheerfully.
The kitchen, dining room, TV room, and a storage area were all gutted. Plaster walls, ceilings and kitchen fixtures had been ripped out and hauled off to the landfill.
Demolition is both labor intensive and costly.
In just the first week, Howell carted off six loads - about 24 tons - of debris in his dump trailer. He pays $75 to $100 to dump a load at a site in Chesapeake, but it would cost twice that much to hire someone else to haul it away, he said.
He had the trailer custom built to replace a dump truck he used to own. It operates hydraulically like a dump truck but costs much less to keep on the road. ``You push a button and it goes straight on up and dumps,'' Howell said. ``I amaze people when I pull up to the landfill.''
The dump truck cost almost $2,000 a year to insure, but he pays only about $110 for the trailer. Insurance savings alone paid for the $5,600-trailer in less than three years, he said.
By last week, Howell had hauled away about 15 loads of debris, weighing some 60 tons, and will still have plenty more to go when he tears off a large gable area on the second floor.
Rising dump fees and a scarcity of landfill space are adding to the problems and costs of remodeling, Howell said, and he fears that both situations will worsen.
Demolition is one of the most time consuming parts of the project, Howell noted. He and Capps, a carpenter and boyhood friend, used mauls, hammers, crowbars and even hands to dismantle the house. Often, Howell said, ``you just grab a chunk with your hands and rip it down.''
Tearing down has to be done carefully. He has to be concerned about what might be hidden behind the work area, such as electrical wiring.
He also has to be wary of walls that are supporting areas above them. ``You can't just rip things out without worrying about something else falling,'' he noted.
Before he could tear off half the old dining room, for instance, he had to build a temporary wall to support the weight of the second floor until the new support system is in place.
Now, six weeks into the project, signs of the new house are emerging.
Most of the new plumbing is roughed in. The electrical service and much of the wiring are done. Howell is particularly pleased that the new power lines outside will go underground, eliminating a jumble of wires connecting to the house's exterior.
The footings and concrete slab for the new parts of the house were poured just after Labor Day, and framing the great room was finished last week.
Over the next few weeks, more of the new house will emerge. By the end of next week, he hopes to have all the walls framed for the second-floor master bedroom. His goal is to have everything enclosed by the end of September.
``Usually the hardest part is tying in the new to the old and making it match, making it flow as if it had been part of the house the whole time,'' he said. His goal is always to make a house look as if it has never been added onto, he said.
He admits that's difficult sometimes - ``especially if you have a homeowner who doesn't want to spend the money, who wants to cut a corner here or there.'' When that happens, he said, ``I try to tell them, `Look, if you do that, you are going to destroy the looks of the house,' and I kind of back away from those.''
He feels the finished product reflects on him, and he wants both himself and the homeowner to be proud of it.
Howell also builds new houses, usually in the $200,000-plus range. In some ways new construction is easier because it is more predictable, he said. When he starts a remodeling job, he can never be sure what to expect. ``When you tear off a wall, you can find anything,'' he said.
One frequent find is termite damage or even nests of live termites. He recalled a commercial building in Norfolk, built about 1918, that was literally eaten away inside. ``The four outside walls stayed and everything inside came out,'' he said.
On this job, he has encountered no live infestation and only one spot where termites had once made a few meals, leaving minor damage. Even that was in a section scheduled to be torn out to make way for new overhead garage doors.
Unwanted surprises so far include discovery of a bad sewage pump that had to be replaced and an abandoned septic tank that had to be pumped out and filled with cement.
Not all hidden elements are undesirable. Howell was pleased to uncover a cast iron column in the garage, just where he had hoped it would be. The column helps support the second floor.
Howell, who is a hands-on contractor, active in all phases of the work, enjoys reading the history of a house in its materials and construction. He pointed to rock wool insulation used in the Shulmisters' house. ``That's what they used to use when I was a kid,'' he said. ``It weighs a ton compared to what the fiberglass (insulation) weighs today.''
He notes old rafters that are thicker than new ones. ``It seems materials are getting thinner and thinner every day,'' he said. ``These are about an inch and seven-eighths thick, and the new ones are barely an inch and a half.''
Howell's knowledge was gained on various construction jobs, beginning when he was a Kellam High School student. In 1983, he was working for a local cement company when he decided to strike out on his own.
Now the father of four, he had two children then, and admits to being ``scared to death'' to start his own business. ``I said, well, I've been in construction all my life, and the worst thing I can do is fail. I'll just go out there and give it a try. And it worked out.''
His first job was adding a front porch to a house in Norfolk. He quickly progressed to larger additions and renovations and to new construction. He went from a Class B contractor's license, which at the time limited him to jobs up to $25,000, to a Class A, which means he can do virtually anything.
``They say if you make it past your first five years, you've done well,'' he said. ``I've made it past my second five, and I've really enjoyed it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by David Hollingsworth
It's time to tell the Oceanfront condo goodbye. The waterfront
house in Birdneck Point being renovated by David and Suzie
Shulmister is beginning to assume its new shape and personality.
Some of the makeover involves undoing previous renovations.
Color Staff photo by Christopher Reddick
[Photo of the house]
Color photo by Jim Walker
At left is the house before the current renovation began.
Contractor Steven Howell has already disposed of 60 tons of debris
by trucking it to a landfill in his custom-built hydraulically
operated trailer. ``You push a button and it dumps,'' he says.
B\W by David Hollingsworth
Contractor Steven W. Howell, above, has to make sure the second
floor has support before removing any walls. At left, Howell and
David Shulmister, his client, go over plans for the $140,000
renovation. Shulmister bought the house in Birdneck Point, Virginia
Beach, last fall for $240,000.
by CNB