Twelve years ago, Holly Freres and David Horning were renting a house by architect Dale Farr in the leafy neighborhood of Dunthorpe, in southwest Portland, Oregon. As designers themselves—she is owner of the firm JHL Design, where she oversees interiors and he runs the architecture side—they longed to create a home of their own, which would be a better long-term fit for themselves, their four children, and two hunting dogs.

They started searching in the neighborhood, and they eventually discovered an abandoned 1956 property listed as a “serious fixer”—which ultimately turned into more of a rebuild.

Holly and David met while working on an early LEED-certified project, and they were eager to experiment with sustainable building strategies while balancing splurges (like soaring windows and hydronic radiant floor heat) with more cost-effective construction measures (like having David act as general contractor).

The couple completed the project in phases, with yearslong breaks in between to build their budget back up. The first phase took a year and a half—seven months for demolition, planning, and permitting; and 10 months for building, ending in a 2014 move-in. In the next phase, they landscaped the three-quarter-acre lot, and in 2020 they built a backyard “casita” flex space for guests, an office, a home gym, and a sauna. Holly and David recount their decade-long experience below.

Before: Holly and David stand in front of the home during the deconstruction process. " layout="wide" credit="Courtesy of JHL Design" photoUserId=""/>

Finding the Property

Holly: There are very few empty lots in the neighborhood, and it’s pretty small. We were lucky enough to find a home that was in really bad disrepair.

David: The price point in this neighborhood was really high. One day I was looking at Zillow, and there was this property that popped up for $285,000, which was significantly less than anything else. We didn’t know where the road was; I couldn’t find it at first. The property was completely overgrown. There were trees blocking the driveway so that when you drove in, branches were hitting the top of the car. It was just a dump. And I looked at it, and I said: “Well, this is it. This is the place.”

Evaluating the Infrastructure

David: It was bad, but it was an opportunity because it had electrical and sewer connections, and a driveway. It was a way to do a ground-up project, but have a little bit of infrastructure already in place.

Holly: We knew we could control our costs a lot more with a new construction project, instead of renovating something. That was important for us. We also really wanted something that we could make our own. Buying something that was already done didn’t feel right for our family, or for David and I, because we knew we would want to make it our own aesthetic.

Saving the Foundation

Holly: The shape of it, and the footprint was very conducive to what we needed. There was a sufficient number of bathrooms and bedrooms, and the kitchen was in a good position on the property—it was centered in the home. We did decide to do a small addition to put the main bedroom on the ground floor.

Even though we took the original house down to the foundation, we kept the original footprint of the lower level. It worked out well because we didn’t have to move any big functional systems—plumbing, for example. This was a big cost saver. It was miraculous that it worked so well with the new design.

David: We decided to deconstruct the original house and save the foundation, to reduce the amount that was going to end up in the landfill. We had somebody come out and scan the walls and check to make sure it had adequate rebar. It didn’t look very pretty, but it was functional. So, we decided, “Hey, it’s fit—why not reuse it?”

Deconstruction and Reuse

Holly: We had the house deconstructed by hand: basically, how you would build it, but backwards. You take off the roof shingles, then the plywood, the siding, and the interior finishes. We reused all of the interior paneling and wood. The house had some beautiful fir ceilings, so we reused that for the entrance and the front of the garage.

David: It had tongue-and-groove decking. We pulled out all the nails and set up a little shop to plane all the boards, refinish them, and then put them in place.

Holly: We had two teenage boys living at home with us at the time, and that was their summer job.

General Contracting

David: I did the waterproofing on the basement walls, and put in the drains around the foundation. When we had the house framed, there were a lot of adjustments to the studs to get the walls all flat, and to do all the shimming. So, I did a lot of that busy work.

The rest of that process was just hiring subcontractors to do the work and then managing them. I didn’t do the concrete, but I was there while they were pouring it and overseeing that process. We had a friend that was a mechanical contractor and he came out and helped us with the radiant floor heat, and I laid the tubing on the weekend. We did everything we could to make the house as affordable as possible.

A Bright Idea

Holly: We call it the Idea House. That came about because we really wanted to build a home that was as affordable and sustainable as we could. This was 10 years ago, so there were a lot of new things that were coming out at that time—like rainwater retention, using graywater, composting toilets, and solar. We really looked at what we could afford to do, and what would really benefit this specific site. Recycling as much materials as we could was the biggest arm that we could flex.

We looked at using rainwater and the cost and the size of the containers was doable, but it was only going to give us like six weeks of water in the summer. So, it was like, do we really want to spend $9,000 digging, and putting these containers in?

David: We even excavated for the tanks. We took it that far. Then we decided it wasn’t really going to benefit us.

Holly: For solar, we don’t get enough solar gain. We had the roof analyzed and it’s a lot of roof, but because of the shade pattern and the way the trees are in the sun, we just wouldn’t get enough solar to even get tax credits for it.

Building for Energy Efficiency

David: We used an unvented attic assembly. Then we improved the R-value in the walls, and we used radiant floor heat throughout. The thermal mass of the concrete holds the heat and it’s a very efficient way to heat the home. It’s been such a great system.

The unvented attic assembly was a brand-new thing in the code. The insulation envelope is right up tight against the roof, and the mechanical equipment is up in the attic. You go up in the attic in the hottest summer day and it’s not hot. [There’s also a heat recovery ventilation system, which allows heat reuse from exhausted air, and introduces fresh air inside.] It’s been very successful, but it was an experiment.

Spending and Saving

Holly: We had to make some big choices on where to spend and where to save. All the floors are concrete. I initially wanted hardwood floors, but to treat the foundation they had to pour concrete anyway. To put hardwood on top of that would have doubled the price. It saved us about $50,000.

I really value the age and patina of natural stone, so I thought it was important to make room for it in the budget. There is so much more life and movement in natural stone vs the synthetic alternatives.

Since the house is streamlined and modern with just a handful of materials, lighting was so important. We used fixtures from Urban Electric, Allied Maker, and Mathew McCormick to add interest.

David: Phase Two [the casita] was a splurge, and we splurged on modified hemlock instead of cedar in the sauna.

Holly: A warm sauna is how we survive the wet, chilly Pacific Northwest winters.

Keeping It Simple

Holly: We wanted a really simple palette for our home because we have a lot of wonderful art pieces that are colorful and dynamic. Obviously, I am going to change the furniture a lot, and we have a lot of furniture and accessories from our travels.

We wanted a base layer that we could populate with color. And with four kids, there’s just so much going on that we needed a simple, streamlined palette.

More Construction Diary stories:

A Maine Designer Builds His Family’s Home Completely by Hand

This Architect’s “Fugly” Beach House Has the Most Exquisitely Crafted Kitchen

The Founder of a Cabin Rental Company Builds a Fire Island Retreat of His Own

Project Credits:

Builder: David Horning

Structural Engineer: CSE Engineering

Interior Design: JHL Design / @jhldesign

Landscape Design: JHL Design

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Construction Diary: It Took a Decade, But Their Experimental, DIY Home Was Worth the Wait