ADU Before & After in Pasadena, CA
A rendering tells you what could be. A photo of the finished room tells you what actually happened. We keep a running record of every ADU, garage conversion, and home addition we build in Pasadena because we’ve learned that families make better decisions when they can see the awkward angles, the tight lot lines, and the way light moves through a space at 4 p.m. in late October. The projects below are real builds, photographed by our crew before the first hammer swing and after the final walkthrough.
Recent Transformations
Detached Backyard ADU off Colorado Boulevard
The backyard had a cracked concrete pad where a Tuff Shed stood for twenty years, and the family assumed the lot was too narrow for a real dwelling. It wasn’t. We removed the pad, poured a new foundation set back 9 feet from the rear property line, and built a one-bedroom unit with a bedroom window facing the mountains rather than the neighbor’s fence. The finished ADU rents for $2,400 a month and the homeowner’s mortgage offset now covers more than half the construction loan. On this job we worked with Abodu’s floor plans but customized the siding to match the main house’s Craftsman profile, so from the street it reads like a guest house that was always there.
Attached Garage Conversion in Bungalow Heaven
The garage had one functional outlet, a water heater that ate up 3 feet of the back wall, and a slab that sloped toward the driveway by almost an inch. We leveled the slab with a self-leveling underlayment, relocated the water heater to an exterior closet permitted by the city, and installed a full subpanel so the studio has its own circuits for a cooktop, mini-split, and laundry. Because the home sits in a historic district, our exterior changes were limited to a side door and two windows, both finished with trim that matches the existing 1920s window casings. The owners’ daughter moved in two weeks after we finished, and she’s paying below market rent for a Bungalow Heaven zip code while saving for a place of her own.
Home Addition Master Suite over a Sloped Backyard
The deck had been bolted to the back of the house sometime in the 1980s, and the ledger board was pulling away from the stucco. We deconstructed it, found termite damage in two rim joists, and replaced both before framing the addition. The owners wanted the suite to feel like part of the original home, so we matched the interior ceiling height to the existing house rather than going vaulted, and we ran the original oak flooring into the new space with a transition strip hidden under the closet door. The balcony was a late add-on the owners requested after seeing the framing, and because our pricing was already in writing, the change order was a single page with the new cost printed on it. Ben Ortega walked through the deck issue with the homeowners on day two, photos included, so the fix never became a surprise.
Garage-to-Two-Bedroom Conversion in Northwest Pasadena
The ridge beam had dropped nearly 2 inches in the center, and the garage door rails were rusted to the point where the door couldn’t open more than a third of the way. We reframed the roof with proper load paths, replaced the garage door opening with a wall and two windows, and split the interior into two bedrooms with a shared bath. The kitchen was designed around an L-shaped cabinet run that leaves 4 feet of clear floor space in front of the sink and range, which the city inspector flagged as a nice-to-have that became a must-have once we staged the unit with furniture. This is the kind of project where our clean-up photo matters: the crew removed a full dumpster of drywall and old shelving, and the photo showed the driveway swept and the neighbor’s fence unstained.
Prefab ADU Placement with Plant Prefab in the San Rafael Hills
The site had a 8 percent slope and no way to get a full concrete truck to the back of the property. We worked with Plant Prefab and the homeowner to select a unit that could be delivered in two modules and craned over the house, then poured a retaining wall and a compacted gravel access path wide enough for a small excavator. The install took five days from first crane pick to final bolting, but our crew spent four weeks on site prep: soil compaction, drainage swales, and a trench for utilities that followed the natural contour of the hill rather than cutting through it. The homeowners kept the existing oaks, and the ADU now sits under a canopy that made the unit 11 degrees cooler in the summer than a neighboring house with no tree cover.
Boxabl Studio as a Home Office in East Pasadena
The side yard was fenced off with a chain-link boundary and had become a place where leaves went to die. We removed the fence, reclaimed the space, and set a Boxabl unit on a gravel bed with four concrete piers at the corners. The family needed the office to be quiet enough for video calls, so we lined the interior with a continuous layer of denim insulation and separated the electrical circuit from the main panel. The corner is now a working studio with a desk that faces the driveway, which means the owner can see delivery trucks and the occasional coyote without leaving his chair. The whole project took nine working days from first hole to final walkthrough, and the kids still haven’t figured out where their dad disappeared to.
Want Results Like These?
The difference between a before photo and an after photo is usually a conversation. Call us at (626) 657-5461 and tell us what you’re working with: the garage that’s been full for ten years, the side yard with no purpose, the in-laws who need a closer landing spot. We’ll write down a price before anything starts, send background-checked and uniformed technicians, and honor the Cedarwell Care Promise on every visit: shoe covers, drop cloths, pet-safe products where there’s a choice, and a photo of the clean-up before the crew leaves. Ask for Ben Ortega. He’ll walk your lot the same way he walks his own.
Written by Ben Ortega, Owner at Seedling ADU Pasadena, serving Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley.
