Framing The 2nd Floor

View from the roof garden across to the new 2nd floor of main house

Ahhhh, now we're getting somewhere. I never thought I would have a 'second floor' when I was little. I grew up in Los Angeles in a Spanish style home with a front and back yard. We're talkin IN THE MIDDLE of town, not in the burbs. One floor. That was back when, I guess, there was still space for single-story homes in the center of town. My Dad still lives there. 

Originally, we planned to do 3 floors and put the kids on the third level (trap em in, I always say). But our architect Andreas Gritschke talked us out of it noting that this home is our dream home; translation: "the place we will never be able to afford to leave", We figured three floors doesn't mix well with hip replacements. 

So two floors it is.   

First Floor Framing

The house of cards begins on the first floor.

 I will try to take the photos from the same place every time so that you can see the progress. This is taken from the roof deck garden of my studio, which is above the garage. We rebuilt the garage-studio-rumpus room several years ago thinking we could live in it when we rebuilt the actual house. Well, two kids later that CLEARLY ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN. It's so weird to look down from this angle because the whole thing just looks 'detached'. Well, it IS detached, but I mean it in the way that one's whole life is scrambled and pulled apart and all the things you knew no longer appear to be what they were. And I try to constantly visualize the end result. Looking at the bones of a house in ex-ray is really pretty interesting. Here it looks like those card houses you make with deck cards when you're waiting for your food in a restaurant when you're little. What? You mean your Mom didn't have cards in her purse?

This is the first floor. Wow, that's a freakin whopper of a steal beam!  We did a reverse floor plan because I wanted to save our yard. We're one of the few homes in our neighborhood to actually have 5 blades of grass and unless it's hailing, we eat outside. But all the neighbors around us (we gracefully opted to let them go first in the renovation process) went up, thus sucking our sun with them. The German and I fought to the blood about a staircase versus a yard, and our brilliant architect came back with our plan. We put the bedrooms on the ground floor where light isn't an issue, and the living area is  a second floor loft style open floor plan. The ground level connects the old and new building; upstairs we have a courtyard in between. 

Foundation Outlines

Humble beginnings. Starting the foundation outlines.

Heartbreak And The Vintage Maple Floor

Yucky, small, and just plain gross as our little beach bungalow is, it's still our first house. It's sentimental. It holds the memories of our lives together before we were married (yes folks we lived in sin), it is where our future was planned, it's where we raised our babies, fought, made up, laughted, and cried.
There's nothing redeming about it, but I do want to save and recycle as much as I can. On principal if nothing else. My solid wood floor, it turns out, is an amazing vintage maple with fabulous holographic details and the perfect patina. Hey-I wanna save that! And my round window.
No one, not any of the contractors we interviewed were interested in my nostalgia except for Hank (our chosen contractor). He's willing, and I decided to find someone who specializes in vintage floors to take it out and re-install it in my studio where I alone can sniff old moldy wood and re-live my memories.
So, I found E & K Vintage Wood in Venice to do the job. The floor comes out just before the house is demolished.
It all seemed like a good idea at the time...