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The Story of 85 Norman Lane - Home Transformation We bought our home at 85 Norman Lane just over two years ago, in the beginning of 2007. Sean and I had met in the MFA program at Mills College in visual arts, and wehad both recently graduated. I was interested in taking on a project that would use ourdesign skills as well as Sean’s impressive ability to build things correctly and efficiently. We had recently finished restoring an early modern in Portland, which had been a funand gratifying project. With that success under our belts we decided that we were readyfor a larger project - one where we could have a hand in the layout of the house to createsomething unique - and so the house hunting began. We looked for a basic house in a nice neighborhood that was in need of some majorupkeep and updating. We wanted to be inventive, not simply restoring the existing aesthetic of a home, but instead creating a contemporary house with an open floor planand greater energy efficiency. I grew up in an Eichler in Palo Alto, while mygrandparent’s home was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright’s, so I have alwaysfelt comfortable in contemporary-styled homes. Sean is a fan of Japanese architectureand design, which overlaps nicely with contemporary design in its appreciation formaterials and its desire to make each part of a house simple and efficient. Together, wewere interested in anything we could do to make the ecological imprint of a home smalleror more “green”. These things appealed to us about the latest updates in modern homes-the energy efficency, exterior woodwork, and ability to pull from other eras yet reinventthe styling - such as the wall-mounted faucets. We chose the property at Norman for the peaceful and safe neighborhood, the charming back yard, and the wonderful light (not to mention the hummingbird that greeted me atthe pomegranate tree the first time we were there). Perfect for taking late night walks withour dog and great for my daughter as she played at the neighboring schoolyard, we knewwe had found the right spot. The house was almost one hundred years old, and although
 
it had recently received a new coat of paint, its infrastructure (plumbing, electrical, andinsulation) was in dire need of replacement. As the discussions for our addition and remodel began in earnest, it was clear that weneeded an architect or home designer to help us create plans and get our project throughthe city. After interviewing multiple people, Jen Dikeman of Dikeman Designs becameour obvious first choice. Jen was perfect - knowledgeable about local codes, excellent atdrafting, creative as anyone I’ve ever worked with, and just a great professional. Jen putup with us as we went over and over many possible additions for the house– discussing where a room should go, which way a toilet should face or how steep of an angel the roof should be at for weeks that turned into months. We tried to work with the existing floor plan and shape of the house, keeping theelements that worked and modifying others. In the existing house, you had to walk though a bedroom in order to reach the only bathroom - a painful design. There were afew things we knew we wanted to add: the floating stairs in the living room, the 12’ wideopening to the back yard, and the modern-styled gas fireplace. Decisions made, I took ourplans to the city and got to learn more than I’d ever imagined about the permitting (andwaiting) process with the city of Oakland. With clean plans and engineering submitted,we obtained our permit with relative ease, and were off to start phase two: the messy part.First off was the garage, barely big enough for one car and with a head height of around 6feet; it wouldn’t even fit my little Subaru. Built into the hill, the foundation crew had tocrawl under the house and then dig holes straight down to the level of the new garagefloor. Pillars then held up the front of the house while yards of soil were excavated tocreate a garage four times the size of its predecessor. Meanwhile, they added large piers(big blocks of concrete) all around the perimeter to strengthen the sections we had notreplaced. Throughout all of this we stayed in our house, working around the jackhammers and dirt and often bringing lunch to the hard-working crew. Sean put in anew water main to the house, and when we discovered that our waste line was slowlyleaking into our new garage area, we had that fully replaced as well (200 year warrantee!).Next was the scary part: demolition. Loath to move out of our home, we found somefriends that would be away for part of the spring and we began what would turn into ourlong summer of house-sitting. The demolition was fast and furious: exterior siding was oldand rotten and the plaster walls were cracked, so it was fairly easy to say goodbye tothem. Anything that could be salvaged for re-use we grabbed and then gave away. Theelectrical was old and unsafe, the plumbing largely corroded. Worn linoleum and rottedroofing shingles were thrown into large metal bins. There was almost no insulation in theexterior walls. Our big surprise came when we discovered that the entire house had beenframed with old 2” x 3” lumber - lumber we had planed on using. The house had beenengineered, the windows had been ordered and the insulation had been designed forstandard 2” x 4” framing. Our wonderful framer Peter Sontag - of Sontag Construction -did his best to keep us calm as he quickly pulled out the majority of the existing exteriorframing and replaced it with new the stuff (perhaps he thought we wouldn’t notice).
 
Soon the floor for the second story was up and the sub-floor was put down and the stairswe had designed were going in. It was fun and almost bizarre to see something that wehad gone over so many times in our head now come to fruition. The windows createdframed views, and I would walk from one space to another saying “This will be ourbedroom, and this, the walk-in-closet”.The framing turned out to be (comparably) the fast and easy part. Infrastructure wasnext. Thinking that we could do this part on our own, Sean & I got to work. It was only afew weeks in when I realized that on our own things were moving far too slowly. Wecalled some friends and contractors, and soon had a small crew. Quincy was ourelectrician, with Memo as his assistant. Francisco (cast-iron man) took care of themajority of the plumbing while we hired out the heating ductwork to a local company.Every piece of old infrastructure had been removed so that now everything would be newand improved. My life became filled with trips to different stores to pickup more andmore electrical and plumbing supplies. Sean ran around making sure that everyone wasdoing the right thing and that these things were being done correctly. Periodicallysomeone from the city would come by to make sure it passed their inspections–and wealways passed on the first try. Even with all the qualified help, it was exhausting.Lucky for us a lot of our friends go away for the summer. Still, by the time school startedin the fall we were ready to move back in, and the lack of a working sink or toilet (or back door) was not going to stop us. We learned to live with a porta-potty (shared with thecrew!) sub-floors and temporary sinks. We kept working away and soon the hot water wasflowing from a du-rocked shower and somehow that was enough to make the house ahome. With the infrastructure under control, we finally were getting to the stuff I was excitedand knowledgeable about - the finishings. My intent at stores and online changed as Isearched now for just the right sinks, faucets, bathtubs, toilets, light fixtures, doorhardware, tile, light outlets, doors (interior and exterior), garage doors, kitchenappliances, kitchen cabinets, etc. Heath tile had donated some of their seconds to mydaughter’s elementary school for a Mosaic, so I knew that I loved the colors and qualityof their tile. I fell in love with the stand-alone circular bathtub with floor mount plumbing that is now in the master and with Jen’s help we quickly modified our bathroom design tofit it. I wanted each piece to be unique, which made things a lot more difficult, but moreinteresting too.Back at the house I had again underestimated the amount of work involved in theinstallation of all these unique items. I thought I would tile the kitchen floor but foundthat even with help it took me a day to get in about 4 (24” x 24”) tiles. Sean (of course)came to the rescue, becoming a master-tiler within a few days. Still we couldn’t keep up,and soon our crew was modified: Roman for painting, a different Francisco for tiling, Jorge for cabinetry, Jesus for finish woodwork, and Memo for anything that was left. OurSpanish speaking skills improved immensely. (Clavos! Tornillos! Escalara! Claro, esperfectomente!) Our determination to make each day fun - lead by Sean - kept us allafloat. Our crew was enthusiastic and kind, and I feel lucky to have known them.
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