Lake Alto, Florida Residential Remodeling on Lakefront Property

Many area residents know exactly where Lake Alto is in proximity to Gainesville. For those that don’t, it has a Waldo address if that helps. It is north of town about twenty or thirty minutes depending on how heavy of a foot one has. The home that is featured today is one that has immense potential, but had seen better years.

The homeowner purchased this lovely lake front home with the vision of having it fixed up to its full potential. Upon arriving we immediately knew that the previous homeowners had neglected routing maintenance in many areas of the home and much work was going to be needed. Starting on the roof which had not been kept up and was in serious need of a repair.

The existing roof structure had been seriously neglected and needed to have a complete re-roof job done. The neglect of the previous occupants caused many leaks to go unfixed and most of the nails rusting that were in the old masonite shingles. The nails were so rusted that when the roof repair crew was working they mostly broke off. After the heads broke off this required all of the rusty busted up stubs to be pulled out by the thousand. The rusty nails were not the only problem caused by the leaky roof.

Also due to leaks, the plywood was rotted in about 70% of the roof very badly. The plywood was a foam backed 2″ foam with 1/2″ OSB on top that sat on top of 2×6 tongue and groove pine decking. The tongue and groove pine decking was attached to 36″ tall 14″ wide laminated pine beams. As the plywood rotted water leaked down to the 2×6 pine which also rotted (so bad in areas the boards had fallen off of the ceiling. Water being the pesky little molecule that it is then started running all down the beams and had fully rotted sections of the top of the beams. Also in some places sections 4″ deep all the way across 8-10 feet in length the beam was completely rotted. This was not only an unsightly problem, but a serious structural issue that needed immediate attention. Hence the start of a major residential remodeling for this house.

We had this all cut out and replaced, installed new 2×6 pine decking. The gorgeous pine decking was then sanded, stained and varnished. We varnished the beams and 2×6 tongue and groove pine to match all of the undamaged areas. We also took the opportunity to replace all of the sheathing in the areas that had rot damage. New flashing was installed from the roof to all of the side walls, and collar flashing around chimney. The siding of the exterior of the house was also deteriorating quite fast.

We used James Hardie building wrap to prep the areas that had to be replaced. The new siding being used is James Hardie Board Siding. The Hardie Board siding is a fibrous concrete mixture that is highly resistant to deterioration and weather. The trim that we used to finish off the areas of new siding was also James Hardie Trim. The siding also exposed just how bad the deck was that extended out over the kitchen.

We completely removed the deck from the flat roof over the kitchen and installed a pitch system to bring up to Florida Building Code. We finished the new rooftop area off with insulation board and installed rolled roofing.

The home is not complete as far as the renovation goes. We will likely revisit a great new project from this Lake Alto home.

• Remodeling