For
The Oak Ridger
With
Photos
Contact: Kay Brookshire, 483-4644
All
the Polfus family members are at home wielding sledgehammers, saws, and
paintbrushes. Now in the midst of renovating a D house on Victoria Street in
Oak Ridge, Bill and Trish Polfus and their children have become rehabbers with
a mission – to update the World War II-vintage building and make it their home.
That
wasn’t exactly what the family had planned to be doing this summer and fall, but
unexpected events intervened. Bill, a manufacturing manager, was caught in a
job layoff last spring, and the family had some quick decisions to make. First,
they decided to stay in Oak Ridge. Trish wanted to stay so their daughter
Rebecca could finish her last two years at Oak Ridge High School.
Since
they didn’t know where Bill’s job search would take him, they first considered
downsizing and renting while Trish continued to work as an administrative
assistant for Clinical Specialty Services at Methodist Medical Center of Oak
Ridge. They didn’t know then that Bill would find a new job in Oak Ridge within
a few months.
“We looked at a rental on Victoria. It had recently been remodeled. It was fresh and clean and pretty. We walked out and saw one two doors down for sale. That started it,” Trish recalled. When they discovered they could pay less per month buying than renting, they decided to purchase and renovate the D home. The Polfuses, including Rebecca and three older children in college, Elizabeth, Nicole, and Ben, are doing most of the work themselves.
They
quickly sold their home in the west end of Oak Ridge by word of mouth, and left
their six-bedroom home for the three-bedroom D house in late June. The family
found original plans for their D house, built to house Oak Ridge workers during
World War II, in the library. And they took advantage of the free house plans
for 10 different types of Oak Ridge housing being offered by the City of Oak
Ridge.
The
plans, which are permit-ready drawings, offer a savings ranging from $500 to
$2,000 to those interested in renovating Oak Ridge’s original houses. The city
is offering the free house plans and waivers of most permit fees through its
housing design program to encourage homeowners to improve the aging housing
stock in the center of the city and to help make renovation of these older
homes more affordable.
The
plans are available at the city’s Community Development Department, in the
Muncipal Building at 200 South Tulane Avenue. Homeowners and potential
homebuyers have picked up close to 600 sets of house plans since the City of
Oak Ridge began offering the free plans in mid-2002. For more information about
the city’s house plans, call Monica Austin or Tim Ward at the Community
Development Department, 425-3531.
The Housing Development Corporation of the Clinch Valley, a non-profit organization advocating affordable housing, has been a partner with the City of Oak Ridge in the housing design program, assisting the city in marketing the program and in identifying homes representing the 10 housing types. House plans are available for housing types A, B, B1, C, D, U, 22, 24, East Village and West Village. The City of Oak Ridge hired Barge Waggoner Sumner & Cannon to develop three different renovation plans for each of the 10 housing types, for a total of 30 sets of plans.
The
housing design program has earned praise from many housing advocates, including
the Oak Ridge Housing Task Force, the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce Housing
Task Force, the Knoxville office of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and the Fannie Mae Tennessee Partnership Office.
The
Tennessee Municipal League recently recognized the program as one of several
achievements for the city of Oak Ridge, in presenting the city an award for
Excellence in Community and Economic Development. Oak Ridge was one of nine
cities honored by the TML in 2003.
Bill and Trish selected ideas from a plan (Scheme A for the D House) that involved moving walls inside the existing house to create updated living spaces, modifying it to suit their needs. Daughter Nicole, a college architecture student, helped with their design, and Bill started a notebook that’s become thicker by the month as each project is tackled. The whole family has pitched in on the renovation, learning from home improvement stores, building inspectors, and friends as their project progressed.
“I
came home from work one night and Ben and I sheetrocked the bathroom walls.
Another night I sanded drywall until I was a ghost,” said Trish, who also
enjoys swinging a sledgehammer to tear out walls. Bill, the crew chief for
electrical work, plumbing and painting, once spent hours diagramming a design
for installing new plastic plumbing pipes, then went to Home Depot where he and
an employee constructed the tower of pipes on a cart.
Rebecca and a friend ripped out wallpaper, and then Rebecca’s sister Elizabeth, a fine arts major, joined her in painting the bedroom with decorative touches. Ben, an engineering student, wired the bedrooms and learned a lot about electricity during the renovation. The family finished an enlarged master bath three weeks after they moved in June, and hope to have the entire project completed in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
As they admire their handiwork and rest their hammers and paintbrushes, they will give thanks for the friends who helped, the neighbors who welcomed them, and for Bill’s new job – with Oak Ridge Tool & Engineering – that will keep the family in Oak Ridge.