I’m glad you had a sailing vacation. But wow, what a load of stressful things you need to juggle. Best wishes for a streamlined week, without any snags.
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I hope you had a wonderful time sailing. I’d love to hear about that as well!
I went sailing through the Sea of Cortez on a bareboat catamaran charter. The 5 day charter was actually a gift from the owners of the house I built in Ocean Beach. They are so in love with everything about their new home that they invited me over for dinner and gave me the free charter. He owns a catamaran charter company with bases in San Diego and Loreto, Baja California. Also spent 3 days in Loreto which I really loved. Cute quaint town with central plaza all lit up at night. Lots of musicians and artists and restaurants
I did not love the Sea of Cortez. It is dry desert landscapes and I prefer a tropical type of landscape. However the mountains and rocky points are beautiful and there were some anchorages with pretty clear blue water. The water was colder than I like, about 74 degrees. It did not invite just jumping in, swimming or snorkeling. I did not find any places to snorkel. We did see manta rays, dolphins, big fish and, unfortunately a lot of stingrays in the sand. I got barbed by a stingray Day 3 just standing in a stupid 1 ft of water. Unfortunately that got infected after I got back and I had to go on strong antibiotics which I had an allergic reaction. Have been to ER or Urgent Care 3 times because of that one bite. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Now I am on another week of steroids and cortisone treatment from massive Hive outbreak due to allergic reaction!
Yay for the sailing part, boo on the sting. I’m so sorry.
Grandma House Nbr 2
Background:
This house is located in a small area Fletcher Hills off 125 freeway (Navajo and Fletcher Parkway) near El Cajon and La Mesa. This house is actually located across the street from the last project (with the ungrateful and complaining young couple) and my agent sold the house, represented the buyers and referred the project. We are fully expecting the other young couple to come over every day and want us to go back over to their house because 'Something isn’t working". We have been called back there twice now and both times it was major operator error on their part. They literally forced my guy to pull out their toilet because the bathroom smelled like pee. They were convinced it was leaking from our install. It was bone dry. The smell is from all the rat pee still soaked in their walls and ceiling drywall which they chose not to replace for budget reasons.
These buyers of Grandma House 2 are a young couple, first time homebuyers, no money left to get things done. They are not married. He is a young lawyer, don’t know what she does.
Sellers were elderly couple that sold and moved to Texas. They had years and years of wallpaper layers, faux paint layers and themes throughout the house. Thick dirty carpet, including going up the bar counter!! There is an unpermitted addition on back that enclosed a patio. The permit situation was disclosed by Sellers. The floor still slopes like original patio, they did not level the floor! Also, the addition is about 1" lower than adjoining dining room so we will have to solve that issue with self leveling cement and grinding down so it is not a trip hazard.
Scope of Work - Budget about $25,000
Scrape all popcorn ceilings and skim coat
Remove all window coveriings, fans, lighting
Replace lighting
Remove wallpaper and prime out all faux painting
Paint entire interior including ceilings, walls, doors, trim
Change out cabinet and door handles
Remove paneling and tiki mat back addition. Insulate and drywall addition
Level floor in addition
Remove upper cabinet in kitchen and build new microwave cabinet in other location
New refrigerator and dishwasher installed
New electric panel
Fix bad wiring in back addition
Add circuit and wire to exterior for future Air Conditioning
Replace laundry plumbing and fix garage outlets
The house also has ancient cast iron plumbing so we are subcontracting to hydrojet pipes
Bathroom lights, mirrors, towel rods, toilet paper holders
New flooring throughout (owner insists they will put in baseboard later)
Recessed lighting added to living room / hallway
I have loaded listing photos to Flickr Group - CC Flip Grandma House 2
Hopefully you guys can find it. Otherwise we can provide a link via PM
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ADU Project
Just sharing some data from the little ADU project we are finishing up. I just feel bad for the elderly owner of this property. She bought the property April 2021 and there was a 1 bedroom ADU in back that she was counting on to collect rent to offset her costs. The main room, bathroom and sink/refrigerator were permitted in 1969. The prior owner added a 200 sq ft addition to the unit without permit. She was too scared to rent it out without permitting the bedroom.
It took 5 months for her to find a draftsman to do get the plans done for that bedroom. In addition she hired some guy that was ‘managing’ the project and he made an absolute mess of the plans. Adding all kinds of major structural overkill, taking it to an architect (who needs an architect for 200 sq ft bedroom???) and wasting all kinds of time. My agent suggested she call me last year and i volunteered to take over the project but she got bullied into staying with this guy who took another 5 months after that finally getting the plans done.
And then 4 months and $3,500 fees trying to get the permit through the City of La Mesa. They are a small building department that seems to close down at least one day a week.
But the most absurd part is the plans are requiring me to tear apart the whole place and rebuild the ceiling structure. The roof structure was absolutely fine with good trusses, structurally OK. But the stupid guy never opened up the ceiling drywall to look up there so they just made up something that had to be built up in there. By the time I opened up the ceiling it was just too late to try to start over with the plans and convince that guy everything was OK.
Then the City of La Mesa required that the front yard had to be dug up to install a backwater valve protection. This is CYA on their part and they force it onto anyone trying to pull a permit. The backwater valve stops clogged sewage from the City main from flowing back into the home. Totally CYA and they are pushing costs to the homeowners.
Bottom Line - $30,000 (including drafting, plan manager, City fees) to get this stupid 200 sq ft bedroom permitted!!! Ridiculous
It took a year before I even got involved and got started. And it’s been 6 weeks off and on waiting for the permit and another 3 weeks to finish.
What a lovely gift but oh no about the stingray sting!!!
Seems like a lot of work for that budget! You are a miracle worker with stretching the budget!
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You got rid of the chandelier? Thought you loved bling!
That fireplace/rotisserie setup is hilarious.
I give up. Somebody send me the link.
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I found it by going to an old flicker bookmark to get the main URL. Then put
CC Flip
into the search. I think I searched groups, but since it has been 5 minutes, I forgot if it was groups or photos. I don’t sign into flicker so I have ads and therefore need to scroll down past the ads to see the photos.
CC, so sorry about the sting. I got a jelly fish sting that left a tattoo on my arm for six months (itching the entire time despite antihistamine cream). As everyone else is saying DO NOT TALK to the “young couple of ****s”.
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That carpet going up the bar is something else!
Awww. I kind of love it. I’m thinking not so much Grandma as Fun Aunt.
And I’m 99% sure it’s okay to post that kind of link now. But if CB doesn’t want to chance it, I found it by going to one of the other photo groups and searching by her user name.
Hope it is ok; if not, moderators, please delete. Doesn’t post as a single link so am breaking it up into lines. Some assembly required (with no spaces).
https://
www.
flickr.
com/groups/14852713@N22/
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That’s a long list. Does the $25,000 budget cover both parts and labor?
Wow, we have that done in HI would cost multiple times the reasonable price listed. Just redoing our wiring is about $25k and we have a tiny home.
The owners purchased separately:
Counter depth refrigerator
Dishwasher
Lighting
Mirrors, towel bars
Cabinet handles
I think everything else is in that budget
We are becoming very skilled in quickly installing new electric panels and trying to rewire. Unfortunately, rewiring a house requires a lot of holes cut in the walls resulting in hours and hours of drywall patching, mudding, sanding, priming and painting. That is the part that is crazy, especially elapsed time required.
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Thank you Marilyn!
Looks like there is good potential!
Holy turquoise, Batman! I love the Betty Boop shower curtain!
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