Small Miracles -- This Is A Tale Of Three Remodels - A Doll House, A Bungalow And A Houseboat

Drop into any neighborhood with older housing stock and you are sure to hear the thunk thunk of a staple gun or the piercing whine of a circular saw - sounds that signal yet another remodeling project. Because we all want to know what the neighbors are doing and how much they are spending, we are presenting portraits of three very different remodels.

THE DOLL HOUSE

Project: Renovate a Green Lake "doll house" on a limited budget.

Participants: Diane LoPriore, a Northwest Airlines flight attendant, her family and friends.

Cost: About $15,000 for a complete face lift of a dowdy old house's innards plus new landscaping for the large double lot.

Problem: Very slim budget.

Solution: Bartering among friends and family.

Background: Diane LoPriore bought this house a year and a half ago for $111,000. She had to sell her car to raise the necessary cash. The house is an old lakeside cottage that was moved up from the shore in the early 1900s. Its 690-square-foot main floor had never been expanded although there is a basement with about 200 square feet of space. The interior was last altered in the late 1940s: brown swirl carpeting, aquamarine living room, pink and yellow kitchen.

LoPriore comes from an Italian family with an eye for a dollar and a willingness to toil. Her dad, Joe LoPriore, ran a produce stand in the Pike Place Market for many years and now helps with his son's landscaping business. Being short of cash, daughter and father embarked on a series of "trades" with friends. The friends either helped with or took on the following: refinishing floors, redoing kitchen counters and installing a dishwasher. The LoPriores landscaped the yards of those workers. Another friend helped retile the shower, which cost about $900. Yet another helped install recessed lighting. Two firefighter friends pressure-washed the roof and installed flame-retardant coating.

Among materials acquired on the cheap or scavenged were a small deck that a landscaping client was about to throw out and old bricks from a fallen chimney that are now a patio. LoPriore wanted shutters. They were priced at $90, but she found louvered doors costing only $30 and cut them down.

As for the yard, her father relandscaped, including raised beds, transplanted rhodies and new window boxes made from scrap wood.

For this homeowner on a tight budget, friends and family proved to be the best resource of all.

THE KIT HOUSE

Project: Double the living space of a small Wallingford bungalow.

Participants: The homeowner and Mark Bohne, a contractor-carpenter.

Cost: About $50,000.

Problem: No footings to support a second story.

Solution: Go down instead of up.

Background: This Wallingford home was a two-bedroom one-bath "kit house," a house built at the turn of the century with a do-it-yourself building kit furnished by a local lumberyard.

The owner called in Bohne after getting a $78,000 estimate for adding a second story. The plan called for using the existing footings, the concrete blocks that anchor a house's frame, for support. "The problem was," said Bohne, "there weren't any footings." Essentially, the house was sitting on top of the dirt.

What ensued was a combination rehabilitation-remodeling project. Bohne went down instead of up, excavating the crawl space into a basement and using the earth to build raised flower beds on the home's west side. Bohne poured new foundations, reframed the basement walls and reinforced them with steel and concrete, a nerve-wracking process involving shoring up the existing walls while digging out space for the new foundation.

But the owner ended up with a downstairs that includes a 14-by-10 foot sitting area, a 10-by-14 foot living area, an office, a bathroom and laundry/utility room. The living area features set-in bookshelves and a bank of west windows that add light. The bathroom features tiled walls and a Jacuzzi.

The remodel added roughly 700 square feet to a 750-square-foot home. Bohne also rewired the old house.

Outside, he created raised, wheelchair-accessible flower beds on three sides for the homeowner, who says she wants to continue gardening when she's old and possibly disabled. Bohne also added a deck and six 60-gallon rain barrels and four 20-gallon barrels. They completely filled in the recent first good rain.

For this homeowner, being flexible and getting more than one bid paid off.

THE HOUSEBOAT

Project: Update a Lake Union houseboat of humble origin

Participants: Mike and Julie Weisbach, owners, and Jeff and Teresa Santerre, contractors (Prestige Custom Builders Inc.)

Cost: About $50,000.

Problem: Add space and light

Solution: Enclose porch, add windows and skylight

Background: Once, in what now seems the very murky past, houseboats on Lake Union were basically floating shacks for mill workers and in some cases, houses of ill repute for the neighborhood. It's hard to believe that the descendants of these homes are among the area's most desirable real estate, for their beginnings were very humble indeed. One such "floating home," to use current real estate parlance, was the houseboat the Weisbachs bought when they moved out of their Mount Baker colonial. Their kids had gone off to college and the Weisbachs wanted something different.

Their houseboat was actually three of the old worker cabins lashed together. Bringing such a house up to code and up to snuff was a challenge. "You can't use a level," said Jeff Santerre. "It's different from working on land - it's moving around all the time." The builders also faced the problem of creating light and space in a 900-square-foot living area.

They expanded usable space by enclosing a small, 4-foot-wide front porch that ran the length of the houseboat. Doing so created a laundry room and sleeping space. Another 4-foot-wide area provides another sleeping nook plus storage space.

One way light was brought in was by installing transom windows all along the top of the former porch, plus two large garden windows. Mirrors on the master bedroom closet doors contribute to the illusion of space. The tiny bathroom was a two-sinker: The contractor removed one to create counter space, installed new fixtures and a skylight. Among other improvements: Both Weisbachs have their own work areas in the master bedroom, thanks to a desk area with shelves and drawers that runs the length of the room. The house is rewired and has a new kitchen including recycling bins and a fold-out counter extension for serving buffet style. Exterior improvements include a new roof, and new siding has replaced the pastiche of a half-dozen kinds.