Shore House Renovation

Over the last few weeks, we completed a large renovation at a shore house in Oxford, MD. Previously, the addition was a screened-in porch that was mostly unused. After the renovation, it's got a sitting room, a bedroom, a storage area and a new shower for the hall powder room. The homeowners definitely added a ton of practical living space.

My crew moves pretty quick, and they'd already torn out all of the sliding screen doors before I got there on the first day of the job. However, here you can get some idea of what the space looked like before the renovation.






The plans called for a lofted ceiling in two of the rooms. Here, we sealed off the attic space to allow the high ceilings in the bedroom and sitting room.



We leveled the floor and added new floor joists to support the weight of the new rooms. We were fortunate because the porch was extremely well built, so we didn't have to do much structural work.



Here you can see the insulation that went in between the joists before the new subfloor was installed. We used the interlocking subfloor because it is far stronger than just using plywood.



This is what the interior of the addition looked like after the drywall was installed.



Here's the final product. You can see the original house on the left, and the addition on the right. The siding, trim and colors were matched exactly to provide continuity. We were extremely careful to make sure the new windows and doors lined up with the old.



Here's another view of the new entry door.



While we were working at the house, we finished several other small projects. The wood on the dock had become warped and was starting to rot, so we rebuilt the entire dock.



This is the new work room. We were able to incorporate environmentally-friendly cork flooring and solid birch countertops.



Here you can also see the awesome new Simpson wood door.



Here's the new bedroom. It feels much bigger because of how high the ceiling height towers over the bed.



We also added a new shower. The homeowner chose some amazing pebble mosiac tile for the floor, and white subway tile for the walls. It's a perfect combination for a house on the water.





The sitting room looks great. We had to match the new hardwood floors with the existing hardwood floors in the main house. It was difficult because the old floors had faded with age. However, we were able to match the color and install the exact same width flooring. Looks good as new!





Up to this point, our company has mostly focused on renovating our own projects. However, I'm now a licensed, bonded and insured general contractor, and I'm excited about growing Gorman Property Group, LLC into a full service building firm. Look out for more projects such as this addition in the near future.

1109 Holton Lane- Progress!

The project we have underway in Takoma Park is really coming along nicely. Over the last two weeks, we completed all the demo, replaced the roof, rebuilt the addition, and waterproofed the basement. Not bad for 12 days of work. This week, we're doing all of the rough-ins for the electric and plumbing. We're about three weeks into our eight week timeline for this rehab, and I'm pleased with the progress up to this point.

In this picture you can see the new roof shingles being installed. We went with a 30 year "architectural style" shingle, which really gives the house some great curb appeal. This picture was taken before the new windows were installed.



Here's the house after the new windows were put in. We got huge casement windows for the front and rear addition. These are nice for saving on energy bills during the spring and fall.



In the kitchen, we took out the wall dividing the living room from the kitchen. We're going to replace it with an eat-in breakfast bar made of cabinets. In order to support the weight of the ceiling joists, we had to run a new header across the ceiling. Also in this picture, you can see we opened up the brick where there was previously a window, and made it into a door to the rear sitting room. Finally, we tore up the subfloor to level the joists, and install joists in the back right corner because we're moving the basement steps from the corner of the kitchen to the rear addition.



In the basement, you can just make out where we installed the new drainage tile and sump pump. The basement wasn't particularily wet, but it is below grade and we are putting in bedrooms, so it made sense to waterproof the entire basement. We patched and sealed the walls, and then installed a drainage system in the floor. The electrical wires seem to be all over the place in this picture, but we're tearing them all out and running new ones this week.



Here's a great picture of the new roof in the rear and the rebuilt addition. I'm really pleased with the color of the new siding. We have two huge glass sliding doors from a previous project, and these will go in to the large spaces in the rear room. If we have time at the end of the project, I'd love to install a small deck along the rear of the house.



Here's the same room from the other angle. The roofline definitely flows more seamlessly now than the old flat roof on the addition.




Here you can see the new roo