@dragonmom: I don’t take long in making decisions, it’s the husband who can’t make up his melon. If it looks classic and fits the house architecture, it’s fine with me. (My style is white shutters, white kitchen, Stiffle lamps, subtle wallpaper prints, etc.)
It took me all of two seconds to pick out a vanity style and color (grey with thin strips of red/green/blue hints of color (sounds weird, but it works)-at Lowe’s. He was wandering around, poking doors and cabinets. I had to pull him over and show him- “THIS”. Once he saw my choice, he liked it.
We are continuing with Not Sexy stuff for the OB build. This set of plans is the most complicated structural requirements ever (well, except I guess if you are building a skyscraper). There are over 30 hold downs for shear walls and we need to retrofit the entire original foundation for anchor bolts that did not exist. There is a hole drilled everywhere! I’m amazed the old foundation isn’t crumbling from so many holes.
This week over $10,000 worth of stuff got delivered and we had nowhere to put it. We ended up having to stack 26ft long beams and engineered ceiling joists and a ton of lumber inside the house and try to work around it. There is nowhere else to keep it dry and safe. Moved about $2,000 worth of straps, bolts, hold downs, post bases and caps into garage for safe keeping. One of the key issues for structural and cost is she wants to raise existing 8ft ceiling on bottom floor to 9ft ceilings. That’s a lot of heavy lumber that has to get stacked on the existing 8ft perimeter walls.
Permit finally made it through all the reviews on Monday. I had to scramble over to blueprint place because they wanted the Project Nbr added to each page of the plans and then re-submitted as ‘final plans’. Now we have to wait while they go around in their system and get the final plans ‘stamped’ by each discipline. That finally happened last night and now we had to send in an email to ‘request’ that the permit get issued. Automated reply last night that it will take them 3-5 days to ‘issue’ the permit. All they have to do is create an invoice for fees and it gets paid. I have no idea why that takes 5 days!!!
We are going ahead with the private ‘special inspection’ required to look at all our hold downs and anchor bolts into the existing foundation. That is a 3rd party paid inspection. Then I wait until I can call for the new concrete foundation inspection and I hand the City guy that piece of paper.
Wow. I feel better now with the little I have to contend with!
I have a vision of her looking at the future smoke alarm at 9 feet ceiling height wishing it was only 8 feet so it could be easily reached to change the battery. Or a lightbulb. (I swear it’s SO much easier to take care of my dad’s old house because I can get to stuff!)
After many months of the trials and tribulations of the City’s new ‘electronic’ permitting system, we finally have an approved and issued permit. BUT!!! There’s one snag. The new permit construction change is 53 sq ft larger than original permit. There is a requirement to go into the San Diego School District and pay the difference in ‘Developer Fees’. Previously, you had to go into the City Bldg Department, get an ‘approval letter’, drive to the School District to a trailer at their headquarters and stand at a counter (hoping the one person wasn’t sick, on vacation, at lunch or at break) and pay the fee. Then you drive back to the City and wait in line for hours to show them the receipt and get the permit issued.
That whole process has collapsed because the School District is closed. No ‘visitors’ allowed to the offices. Now the City Bldg Department issues the full permit, but puts a hold on calling for any inspections until the School District receipt is emailed into the Bldg Department.
The School District Developer Fee phone nbr is basically disconnected. Website has some vague instructions that you are supposed to email a copy of the Approval Letter to them and they will then email you an invoice. You are supposed to put a check in the mail to their office (which makes no sense because they are not in the office so who the heck processes this check?) and then they will email the receipt that goes back to the City Bldg Department.
Well, after 3 days of desperately trying to email the School District to get an invoice, I have no replies to my email. I cannot get the School Fees paid. I finally had to call in a favor to a friend who is the Inspection Supervisor at the City. He met with the inspector and authorized that we can get our Foundation Inspection while waiting for the School Fees.
Since the Developer Fee rate per sq ft is available, I am just going to have to write a check, attach a ton of documentation, mail it off and hope that they will accept the check and get my receipt issued. I cannot proceed to any other inspections until I get this resolved. I may just drive up to the trailer and slip the dang check under the door!
Good Morning
Still have not successfully paid the School Fees in order to release our inspections. Long saga but the fees ended up very high because there was a rate hike since prior permit was improved. So they charged new rate x added square feet minus previous payment and came up with $1,500 due. Final straw was when I went straight to Post Office, stood in line, paid $26 for guaranteed overnight delivery on Wednesday. And then, for reasons I cannot even fathom, it did not get delivered on Wednesday in same City. And now office is closed until Monday. Delivery failed on Friday. I am so lucky that we got the foundation inspection so we can keep moving.
Foundations are poured and we have finished all the plumbing and gas lines under the house. Back addition walls are up!! Today guys are crawling under the house to put in all the R19 insulation under the floors. Then front addition walls get built and we tear open the adjoining walls.
Big decision looming. We need to decide the exact day to tear off the roof and go fast to get the ceiling raised up to 9 ft and get upper floor on to protect from the elements a bit
Finally have the School Fees paid! From the day our permit was Issued and I sent the first email to School District asking for a ‘calculation’ to pay the fees it has been 13 business days. The check arrived to their location on Nov 25 and it still took them until Dec 3 to issue a receipt. Then receipt back to City but they released the inspections the very next day.
So, we had our 2nd inspection for underground plumbing and that is passed. Inspector is supposed to come back and check our floor nailing on all of the plywood we have to put back in. But he was really nice and said to just keep moving and he doesn’t need to come back and check.
I loaded some photos. We already have the front addition framed out at 9ft high ceilings and back addition floored and framed.
I just cannot get a break! We need our roof trusses to get the roof onto the back addition. The objective is to get that addition roofed and the waterproof paper onto the roof so that we have a place to put materials and tools before we tear the roof off the main house. They were scheduled to be delivered Friday. I called Thursday to confirm delivery and Of Course… the truss manufacturer has been shut down because of SDGE power outages due to our high winds and fire alert. They will not even be back open until next week. Ughhh
This week we are going to start the kitchen design. Mostly because she is worried about the lead time for the appliances. It is a long galley kitchen so it will not be able to look as beautiful as she wishes. She has a ton of pictures saved to her Houzz idea book. Not one of the kitchens is the same size and shape as her kitchen. They are giant dream kitchens with big islands.
Out of curiosity how long is the galley kitchen? As long as you have a proper work triangle and unbroken counter space a galley works great. Islands always make me think I’m on a hamster wheel. I’ve invested the dollar.
I don’t think I am allowed to post the link to the Flickr group. And, the worse part is I cannot figure out how to send a private message on the new forum??
OK, I found how to private message. But the interesting thing is CC now blocks the main web address for the photo sharing site in messaging. So, not only is it banned on the forum, but also banned in the private message. I received an error that message contained an illegal reference and it would not allow me to send message
Galley kitchen is about 20 ft long on exterior wall and 15 long on wall by hallway. It is about 9ft 3” wide which should leave a nice 5ft between countertops. There will be a little peninsula at the end for a 2 person bar. I’ll load the first draft later this week because we will need some peanut gallery help
I’ve just come back to CC after a long absence, and was so happy to see that you are working on TWO projects! My major problem is that so far I can’t figure out how to just post on a thread without “replying” to someone. Perhaps someone will enlighten me?
On the upside, I had no problem accessing the photo groups…
I hadn’t seen some of the pictures before the recent set. I find this all fascinating, even the “boring parts” and love following along on these projects
Welcome back, @Consolation! At the very bottom of the thread there is a blue box that says “reply”, at least on my iPad. I think “comment” might be a better label, but it is there. Scrolling down to the bottom is difficult on some devices but better than it was a week ago.
star for your brave and victorious fights with that wretched red tape.