The beat goes on at the 100-acre Eastern Washington property for which we designed a number of buildings. Currently under construction is a Theater Activity Building, with an Imax theater, a bowling alley, and a good number pinball machines, as well as a couple of motion simulators. This has been […] Read more »
Beam Far Too Small For The Load
This young man is quite proud of his house, which he purchased on a few months prior. You can see what he wanted repaired, and the sagging of the structural beam over the garage door is obvious. As it happens, the beam was far too small for the load it […] Read more »
Easy Fix For Seattle Home
When one purchases a home, it generally appears to be perfect in most ways. Then the blinders are removed from one’s eyes, and flaws begin to become apparent. Or perhaps the house is actually what we imagined, and it is the flaws that are mirages. I think this North Seattle […] Read more »
Wood Foundation
A certain number of older homes in Seattle are constructed on top of wood foundations rather than concrete. Often this was done to save construction cost, and often the homes were built in what were, at the time, outlying areas – so that the buildings were intended for use as […] Read more »
Enclosing Home Carport
This young man had just bought his first house, and it was small. Well, we all have to start somewhere. He wanted to increase his living space inexpensively by enclosing an existing carport. You can see how crowded the home is, even with a relatively small quantity of possessions. We […] Read more »
Sloping Garage Foundation
Steeply sloping sites often are problematic, and many hillsides tend to migrate downward over time. This is frequently the result of gravity combined with rain, sometimes with a dash of bad planning thrown in. In this project, a contractor was hired to rebuild the foundation of a garage which had, […] Read more »
Damage Done By Plumber
Plumbers are not known for their careful consideration of the structural implications of what they remove from a floor. By which I mean, some have a tendency (regardless of the effect on the safety of the mutilated floor joists) to hack away whatever gets in the way of the plumbing […] Read more »
Open Basement Space
My previous blog notwithstanding, many people like their homes to be perfect. I can respect that, and in fact much of my design work is intended to facilitate that desire. The gentleman who owns this neat suburban home was looking to improve and finish his basement to be used by […] Read more »
Earthquake Safety For Second Story Deck
Most of us love to barbeque on the deck on a warm summer evening, especially if the deck is high and the view is good. Modern decks are, in general, well constructed and safe, but even in newer homes, constructed to modern standards, there are decks which are just a […] Read more »
Poorly Located Deck Footings
This young couple recently bought a home, and wanted to stabilize an upper floor deck, which was sloping due to settlement of the supporting footings. The house is located adjacent to a fairly steep slope, and each time heavy rains occurred, the hillside supporting the footings shifted very slightly, so […] Read more »