Licensed, bonded, and insured in Oregon. CCB 174033.
Vintage
WHAT ALAMEDA IS BUILT OF.
Alameda was platted around 1909 and built out over the following two decades, which puts it in the same generation as Laurelhurst and much of Northeast Portland's streetcar development. The housing is early-century, the lots are regular, and the street trees are old enough to be structural to how the place feels. Most of what we work on here went up between 1910 and 1930, and that date range tells you almost everything about what is behind the walls.
The Ridge
BUILDING ON A GRADE.
The Alameda ridge is a genuine landform, a gravel bar left behind by the Missoula floods, and houses on its face deal with grade in a way the flat streets above and below do not. That means retaining, drainage, and foundations stepping down a slope. It also means water coming off the hill has to go somewhere, and on a ridge lot managing that is usually a bigger question than the addition itself.
Architecture
CRAFTSMAN, TUDOR, ENGLISH COTTAGE.
Craftsman, Tudor, and English cottage dominate, with Colonial Revival scattered through. The detail that reads from the street is specific: bracket and eave treatment on the Craftsman houses, steep pitch and massing on the Tudors, and a cladding vocabulary that changes with each. An addition that copies the plan but not the proportion still looks wrong, which is why we work the elevation before the floor plan on houses like these.
Most Alameda houses have a basement and most of those basements were never meant to be lived in. Low headroom, a rubble or early concrete foundation, and moisture coming through the wall from the hill. Finishing one is entirely possible and rarely simple. Drainage and vapour control come first, headroom and egress decide whether it can be legal habitable space, and the finishes come last rather than first.
Kitchens And Baths
THE ROOMS THAT GET DONE FIRST.
Kitchens and baths get done first here because they are the rooms an early-century plan handles worst. The kitchen is small, closed, and at the back. The bathroom is often the only one and sits where the plumbing was easiest in 1918. Both can be fixed. Both usually mean moving services in a house where the services are still original, and that is the part of an estimate people underestimate.
Permitting
PERMITS THROUGH PORTLAND.
Portland permits building, plumbing, electrical, and mechanical separately, and anything structural triggers a plan review. On a house of Alameda's age, work that would be prescriptive in a newer home regularly needs an engineer's stamp instead. We schedule Portland review as longer than the suburbs because it generally is, and a schedule built on that assumption holds up better than one built on hope.
Can you finish a basement in an Alameda house?Usually, and rarely as simply as people hope. Headroom and egress decide whether it can be legal habitable space at all. Drainage and vapour control decide whether it stays dry once finished. We answer those two before talking about what the room will look like, because occasionally they answer the whole question.How do you handle drainage on the ridge?By taking it seriously before the addition rather than after. Water coming off the ridge has to be intercepted and routed somewhere legal, which can mean perimeter drainage, regrading, or a stormwater solution the city will accept. Unglamorous work, and the difference between a dry basement and a recurring problem.Do you match original exterior trim?Yes, and it is worth doing properly. Profiles from this era are not stock items, but they can be milled to match from an existing piece. Matching the profile and the reveal is what makes an addition disappear. Getting close is what makes it obvious.
