With the changes in home values over the past several years, more homeowners than ever have chosen to remodel rather than sell/buy. And that’s been good news for many construction companies here in West Seattle. Two of them, in fact, were winners in the recently announced 2013 REX Awards (REX = Remodeling Excellence): Ventana Construction (longtime WSB sponsor) and Weitzel Construction.

Ventana’s REX Award was in the category “Major Remodel Excellence: Residential Partial House/Addition $100,000 to $200,000.” They turned their client’s 200-foot sauna/hot tub/shower space into a powder room, laundry room, sitting room, and desk area – see the project here – the top photo is a wide “after” shot; next is a closeup of the “desk area”:

(P.S. If you missed it on TV, Ventana was featured on Channel 4 News a few nights ago – a wider followup on something noted here last month, newspapers found in the walls of a project in Ballard – see the story here, and see Ventana’s online story that featured not only the newspaper, but other unusual finds at some of their project sites.)

Weitzel’s REX Award was in the category “Rebuild Excellence: Residential Whole House/Rebuild – less than $300,000.”

Owner Dave Weitzel says, “I am very proud of my crew that turns out great work year after year. This was a challenging site (150 steps, 100’ drop in elevation on a 400=foot path) where much of the material was handled by a tug and barge at the start of the job, but there was just the one trip with that. Everything else went up and down the hill:

Despite the challenges, the project was a lot of fun because our great clients. One of them is a former interior designer, and they did a wonderful job in their selections and personal touches.”

Congratulations to Ventana and Weitzel (both of whom provided the photos shown in this story)!