You’re invited to stop by our featured home during the 2019 Olympia Master Builder’s Tour of Homes. Take a peek at our beautiful whole home remodel in East Olympia.

Saturday, September 21, 2019 • 10 am - 5 pm
  Sunday, September 22, 2019 • 10am - 4 pm
8823 Marie St SE  •  Olympia, WA 98501

This 1920’s home has an unusual history. It was moved to its current location in 1965 to make room for I-5 through Tumwater. At which time the home had an addition added which nearly doubled the size of the home to 1300sf. In 2002 there was a fire in one of the bedrooms and the home, mostly smoke damaged, was completely remodeled. 

When the current owners bought the home in 2011 it had cheap Berber carpet, chocolate chip mint green walls, a funky layout and cheap finishes throughout. The home was ready for some serious updating. The clients love of the modern farmhouse look was the inspiration for this project. The main goal was to join the detached garage with the home, have a designated laundry room, create a master suite with its own bath, enlarge the outdoor living space and spruce up all the finishes.  
 
The 6-month remodel included:  

1. Adding a 16’ x 23’ master bedroom/bath addition with sliding door to the new outdoor living space,
   
2. Rearranging interior walls to enlarge the kitchen and create a laundry room,
3. All new windows and 7 new skylights,
4. Flooring in the form of tile/Marmoleum/hardwoods,
5. New kitchen layout with sink facing the backyard,
6. Enclosing the breezeway and making a hall bath and mudroom in the new space.  
   

Interior features include:  
Radiant floor heat throughout the master bath with barrier-free walk-in shower, touch-screen lighted vanity mirrors, custom built-ins, quartz countertops, stacked-stone fireplace, and custom millwork.  
 
On the outside a 14’ x 50’ composite deck with new roof and skylights, Infratech patio heaters, hot tub, built-in BBQ counter with granite, professionally landscaped with irrigation & low volt lighting and new exterior paint in crisp white on white.

One of my favorite TV shows of all time was Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Mike Rowe, the main funny guy character, brought the nitty gritty details of the blue collar life into homes across the world. The premise of the show was to have a fearless guy apprentice himself to people who perform dangerous or disgusting jobs, ranging from rattlesnake catcher and zoo cleaner to road-kill collector. His  Dirty Jobs show aired years ago, so when I saw him on my Facebook feed recently  I was intrigued. Mike’s message? “That we will have 2 million unfilled trade jobs by 2025!” Also, “It’s time to start respecting blue collar jobs and not look down on them.” I couldn’t agree more. As a co-owner of a construction company I am worried. Before the recession we used to get job applicants knocking on our door on a pretty frequent interval. Now we’re lucky to get 1 or 2 a year. Our recent job posting for a lead carpenter only provided a small handful of applicants. There are two reasons for this: first, times are good and people are employed. The other reason is that fewer people are pursuing the trades.

Our trades are heading toward a crisis. Many of the 20-30 year olds that quit the trades during the recession either found work in another field or they went back to school to get retrained. For example: my insurance agent used to build custom homes, while one of our lead carpenters went back to school to become a nurse.

Our schools foster the belief that the only logical step after high school is college and that thinking has put our country in a bind. Schools do a great job of preparing students for college life, but what about the students that don’t want a college degree?  

Luckily some schools are starting to pay attention. Yelm schools are now integrating a Career and Technical Education program into their curriculum. New Market Skills Center in Tumwater offers a construction trades course along with other hands-on career options. Adam Shell, the construction trades teacher at New Market says, “There is $200M in sold contracts in the greater Seattle area waiting to be completed by union carpenters. With the labor shortage these projects may take a long time to see completion.” This slow awakening in our schools to provide training for our future tradespeople will eventually help our labor shortage, but I’m worried that it’s not happening fast enough.

Maybe it’s time to rethink our entire school system. In Italy they divide students by career paths in their junior year of high school. Students are either on the college path or the trades path. Students interested in the trades are paired up with schools that provide what they are interested in studying. We hosted an Italian student who was on the college path to become an electrical engineer. His younger brother studied at a culinary school his junior and senior years. With 25% of US high school freshmen failing to graduate from high school on time I thought, “What a genius idea Italy has for its youth…If only we could do that here.”  Our high schools need to bring back enthusiasm and interest in the trades if we are going to have any electricians, plumbers, welders, etc., in our country’s future.

We’ve seen the start of it. It’s called “stealing employees” from other companies. Just last year we were desperate for a lead carpenter and offered a job to one of our competitor’s lead carpenters. We were able to “steal” him away because we provided a generous hiring bonus and a handsome benefits package. With the labor force aging rapidly there will be fewer and fewer talented people to “steal” from our competitors.

One thought I’ve had is to pair younger, unskilled laborers, with our seasoned craftsmen. They could work in teams, side-by-side, and learn the skills necessary to become lead carpenters. We could keep our aging, skilled carpenters in the field longer if their role became mentors to our young apprentices. In theory this is a magnificent idea. In reality, this added field labor cost would have to be passed on to the consumer. With current material costs always on the rise, the idea of adding additional labor costs to every project just doesn’t seem feasible.

As part of my concern for our trades’ future I’ve planted a seed in my community. I’ve invited schools and the building community to start a discussion on how we can grow the next generation of skilled labor. My hope is that we can come up with a program to pair budding students with our community of trade professionals. By providing students job experience through informational interviews, job shadowing and mentoring we can help guide them to a career at which they will flourish. Wish me luck!

Why try to simulate tile? 
Some people love the look of tile but don't like the cold feel associated with it. 
This product is vinyl and is sitting on a wood underlayment , hence a warmer feel. 

Installation is a breeze as well!  
No special tile saws needed to cut this flooring. 
No messy thin set for installation.  You can also grout the same day.

We're pleased to announce our new blog for Lifespan Construction.  We've been working hard to create tools to better communicate with our audience. 

I love taking pictures on the job. Hopefully our clients aren't shy and I'll include pics of their lives from the job site.