Thayer Reno
Brand-New ADU:
Fully functional for independent living
The original "ADU" was like one of those Russian nesting dolls, of just one horrible surprise after the other.
Permitted? Of course not.
Full of mold? Oh yeah.
Structurally sketchy? Indeed.
So we tore it down and started over from scratch -- doing things the CORRECT way, this time!
Fully-Functional &
Completely Brand New
The new guest house has:
- 1 full bedroom
- 1 full bath
- A complete kitchen, including:
- Fridge
- Dishwasher
- Oven / Microwave Oven
- Stacked washer/dryer
- A side note about the range in the kitchen:
- It turns out that new construction in LA isn't allowed to have gas for cooktops, so we had to go with an electric range. My first idea was to put an "induction" cooktop, but then I did some research and discovered that those scratch extremely easily, require special cookware, and can be hard to maintain?
- Since the most likely use-case for the ADU was as a place for my aging parents to live, the LAST thing I wanted was undue stress around "oh no did we use the wrong pan or scratch the surface?" So I ended up going with a standard electrical range
1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom
Full Kitchen
Washer / Dryer
Originally, we thought: "Maybe just make it a living space with a powder room", but then with aging parents, we thought we'd make it a full bath, full kitchen, and clothes washer/dryer to allow
for fully independent living.
We also changed out the gate at the top of our driveway to allow for a separate entrance.
I had the architect put the windows up high, to allow for privacy between the two homes: if the main house tenants are in the backyard, they won't be peering in on each other :)
Some pictures of the ADU renovation
What we thought was going to be a, say, 10k freshening up of the existing structure... (some new paint; a new sink...). NOPE. It became quickly obvious that a quick coat of paint had been slapped on to pieces of wood that were completely rotted through. The original structure was not structurally sound, and it was essentially uninhabitable :(
So after hiring an architect do do a deep dive and uncovering the full extent of the damage, it became pretty obvious that it was in such a deep state of damage that we'd need to tear the whole thing down and start over... :( It was never permitted so was never adhering to codes.
Madly in love with the result... but whew. Getting a design, permits (and then more permits, and then even more permits), hiring contractors, and the construction process... painful. It took forever and was really stressful... but now that I see the final result, it was worth it :) (a few pictures below to show some of the rot):
Like, dude. Some of the wood wasn't just "moldy" it was like rotted away, as in chunks of it didn't exist anymore?