Home sweet BIGGER home

MAT-SU -- When Theresa Coyle went house-hunting back in 1985 she was looking for something cozy.

"I wasn't married and I had no vision of children in my future," Coyle said. "I didn't think I'd be comfortable all by myself in a big house."

The 900-square-foot ranch home she wound up buying near Wasilla's Memory Lake seemed perfect for her. But one husband and two daughters later, Coyle found herself needing more space.

"We had three girls and one guy [sharing] one bathroom. It wasn't working," she said.

In the mid 1990s, she and her husband, George, began to think about buying a bigger home. But Coyle was reluctant. She had already seen property values in the Valley crash once: Within a year of buying her home for $75,000, the price of similar homes in her neighborhood had dropped to $35,000. Though property values in the Valley were on their way up, she worried that they were rising too fast. She says she feared another crash.

The Coyles considered expanding their existing home instead. Since the house sat on a hill, George thought they could dig into the hill and add a garage. They could then extend the front of the existing structure out over the new garage. But the $50,000 bid they received from an excavator, just to dig into the hill and pour a concrete foundation, soon had them looking for another alternative.

Coyle's idea: Instead of building out, why not build up?

"I said, 'Why don't we just raise the house? All we'd have to do is jack it up and put on four walls. It can't be that hard -- or that expensive,'" she said.

"Darrel Greenstreet, owner of Greenstreet General Contractors, said Coyle was right.

"It's by far the cheapest way to go -- raise it up and you've doubled your square footage," he said.

The Coyles began looking into the idea. They got a bid from Greenstreet to raise the house, and they estimated the cost of all the materials needed to complete the renovation. After adding up all the expenses, they realized they could complete the entire project for less than the excavator wanted to simply dig a hill and pour a foundation.

"Then we just kind of got the ball rolling," Coyle said.

They began the project in 1998. They hired Greenstreet to lift the house, and he gave the couple some tips on how to keep their costs down.

"The price goes by how much time we spend [on a project], not by the size of the building. The more prep work [homeowners] can do, the better the price they'll get," Greenstreet said. "Sometimes they'll already have the walls built, so all we have to do is lift the house, stand the walls up and set the house back down."

The Coyles took his advice and built the walls in advance. They had plenty of friends on hand to help stand the walls in place as soon as the house was raised. They placed 6-foot walls on top of the 4-foot foundation, creating a 10-foot daylight basement. Greenstreet says the couple could have opted to put floor joists across the existing foundation and add taller walls instead. That way they could have added a full story to the house and kept their crawlspace.

But the Coyles feared that option might make the house look too tall.

"We tried to do it as economically as we could, yet have it aesthetically pleasing," Coyle said.

With the new walls in place, the house was lowered the following day. In all, it took three days to raise and lower the house and reconnect the power and plumbing, which had to be disconnected at the start of the project.

Coyle says the view from her home's new perch left her with a strange feeling at first.

"It felt weird for a few weeks. It seemed so high when you looked out the windows," she said.

And it seemed higher still because the only way to access the house now was by way of a long ladder placed at the back-kitchen door. Since the home was now a split-level, it could no longer be accessed from the ground level. If the family wanted to keep the front door in the living room as it had been, they would need to climb a long flight of stairs to access it. Coyle says she worried about icy steps in the winter. They opted for a new foyer, or arctic entry, built at ground level in front of the building instead. They had an architect draw plans for the new entry, and they framed that in at the same time as they framed in the new, lower level. The couple insulated both spaces, and then they poured the concrete slab.

Though they consulted an architect for the design of the new foyer, the design of the new space was determined by the structure of the building itself, as well as the existing plumbing lines. Andy Simasko, an architect with Architects Alaska, says it's uncommon for homeowners in Alaska to consult an architect for renovations.

"It's part of the Alaska mindset. We're independent -- we want to do things our own way," he said. "People don't want to pay our fees. [An architect] is usually one of the first things that get cut [from a renovation budget]."

Simasko says he sees that as unfortunate. He says architects can look at how spaces are arranged and help homeowners make design choices that will make the most of a given area. But, while he concedes that an architectural consultation may be a luxury, Simasko says consulting with a structural engineer is a necessity anytime a homeowner makes a structural change to a home. He says homeowners who don't might inadvertently jeopardize the home's structural integrity.

Though Simasko considers a structural engineer vital to any major home-renovation project, Alaska law does not.

"If you are outside the city of Palmer, there is no code for residential construction," he said.

Arthur Whitmer, a structural engineer and owner of Arthur H. Whitmer, A Professional Corporation, in Palmer, says that while Alaska law doesn't mandate building codes or inspections for such projects, homeowners may find themselves in trouble when they go to sell their home, if the structural integrity of the building isn't sound. He says homeowners who knock out walls or raise buildings, as the Coyles did, may not recognize all the loads that need to be supported. In addition, he says, when walls are removed or large windows added homeowners may remove portions of the shear wall without realizing it. The shear wall helps protect a home from wind and earthquake damage, by transferring lateral loads from the various components of the building to the foundation.

"There are some contractors who are knowledgeable [about these things], but it's a stretch," Whitmer said.

He advises homeowners to, at the very least, choose general contractors who have a residential endorsement -- a state endorsement designed to help contractors understand the structural concerns in new construction or construction modification.

While the Coyles did consult an architect for the design of their new foyer, they did not consult a structural engineer for any portion of the project. Coyle says George is extremely knowledgeable about all phases of construction. The couple is confident the home is structurally sound, and they maintained a detailed-photographic record of each phase of the project. Whitmer says such a record is valuable, not only to the Coyles in the event they choose to make any further changes to their home, but also to future buyers and home inspectors as well.

With the home's structural integrity in mind, the Coyles designed the new area around a weight-bearing wall that runs through the center of the home. Though structure dictated the layout of area, memories of George's boyhood home in Ohio dictated much of the style. The 10-foot-high ceilings and white crown moldings that line the new rooms give the area an old-world feel. And the paint colors add warmth and charm to the space -- a sunny yellow in the family room, baby blue in 11-year-old Lily's room and a soft green in the master bedroom.

In all, it took nearly three years to complete the home's new interior. Though the pace seemed slow at times, Coyle says it was worth the wait: they were able to pay cash for all their expenses as they went. The entire project -- including exterior improvements such as cedar-shake siding, a new deck and a terraced flower garden -- cost less than $40,000.

With the home's exterior and lower-level-interior renovation complete, Coyle grew anxious to revamp the upstairs as well. When interest rates dipped in the spring, she refinanced and, for the first time since the project began, borrowed a little extra for a new kitchen and laminate flooring. Even with the extra $10,000 added on, she was able to shave 10 years off her mortgage and cut her monthly payment by $200.

Jon Yancey with Residential Mortgage in Wasilla estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of the refinances his company has done in the past year are for people like Coyle. He said the boom in real estate and new-home construction in the Valley has created a shortage of sub-contractors, so he sees more people choosing to upgrade to larger homes or build new homes rather than renovating.

"The incentive is there. Rates are down, so people can upgrade and buy a lot more house for the same payments as they were making when rates were higher. The remodeling end hasn't come to an end, but it has slowed down considerably," Yancey said.

But the Coyles aren't worried about finding sub-contractors to finish their kitchen or to install their new flooring. As with most of the work they've done already, the couple plans to complete the project themselves.

And through a lot of hard work and ingenuity, the Coyles are now enjoying a 2,000-square-foot home in a comfortable neighborhood that -- including the original mortgage -- cost less than $120,000. While many consider this an ideal time to sell their old homes and start over, Coyle says it would be hard to walk away from all that with a mortgage balance of less than $50,000.

"My dream is just to pay the dang thing off," she said.