Florida Cottage

BEXT's first single-family house project was found in Central Florida. We had given ourselves the challenge of finding the cheapest house in the state to renovate. The project couldn't be a condominium, mobile home, "tiny house", or new build on raw land. A house was found for $65,000 that was the perfect candidate. It had soaring ceilings due to "scissor" roof trusses that allowed for a peak ceiling height of 11' 6". The 1,200 square foot house looks average enough from the outside, but surprises everyone once you step inside.

The house was livable, but barely. The doors and single-pane wooden windows were rotted and falling apart and had no bug screens. The cedar siding was completely warped and full of holes, and there was no sheathing or house wrap at all between the siding and exterior walls. Frogs, geckos, and snakes would come inside whenever it struck their fancy. The roof was incorrectly installed (which we would learn a couple of months later during hurricane Irma in 2017) with nails instead of screws. The attic was completely unvented and very hot. The laundry was on the porch, and drained into the sand under the porch instead of the septic tank! And although there was a functioning hot water heater and HVAC system, the hot water heater took up too much valuable floor space and the HVAC system was from the 1990s and not very efficient. The porch stairs and railing were amateurly built and not up to code. The only thing in decent shape was the foundation, red oak flooring (although it needed patching and sanding) and most of the walls (which needed smoothing)!

A $90,000 renovation of the house was undertaken over the course of a year and a half. The exterior of the house now has a new roof, windows, siding, gable vents, sheathing and house wrap (using ZipBoard, just like the dome), insulation (Rockwool walls and blown-in cotton in the attic), doors, porch, and steps. Inside, a new kitchen was designed with the usual white cabinets and butcher-block countertop. The old 1"x6" trim boards were repurposed as backing boards for the kitchen peninsula. A new bathroom kept the original steel bathtub but incorporated a linear drain in the open shower area. The old HVAC equipment that was on its last legs was replaced by an efficient mini-split system. The hot water heater that took up too much floor space was replaced by a wall-hanging tankless electric unit.