Down at the building department

R sweated it out at the BD today...  he took our drawings around for mechanical plan check, structural check, etc...

And although I won't do it justice, I'll attempt to share the very unexpected good things that happened down there.

R was in a fix with a plan checker who was complaining about a cutout we have in our deck to provide light and air to a window below.  The plan checker was calling for a larger cutout, which would have shifted our sliding glass door, and shortened a shear wall we needed for the structural calcs... definitely a problem.

But like a Fairy Godfather, a good friend of ours, who's an architect currently building his own house, appeared out of nowhere, stepped up, and started arguing in our favor with the plan checker!  So cool.

The story gets better: this plan checker came upon his break time.  As another plan checker stepped up, plan checker #1 asked him to take over.  PC#2 said no way - we'll have to start over.  He literally tore up PC#1's sheet of comments.  This sounds like bad news; however, PC#2 said nothing about the any requirements for a larger deck cutout, was more lenient on a foundation question; AND... (here's where it gets good) actually told R that we don't need the fixed fire-rated windows our architect specified in three places (YaHoo!).  And THEN he proceeded to tell us our deck could be closer to the property line than we thought.

Usually, a visit to the BD means reducing scope, taking things out, making accommodations you don't want to make.  Instead, things got a little simpler and a little better.  Now there are other comments we have to deal with that aren't necessarily good, but in the end this is way better than I had hoped!

R didn't walk out with a permit today, but things are moving along well, and we're feeling good about our progress.

Preparation details

Just ordered the storage containers from Door-to-Door Storage.  I've used them before, it'll be so nice to load everything once before the remodel and then unload everything once at the very end when we're done!

It'll cost roughly $1000 to store everything for six months.

Luckily we have a willing and able crew coming to help us fill up those boxes in a couple of weeks.  It's all starting to happen... we will soon go from planning to doing!!  Exciting and scary at the same time.

I've also arranged for a neighbor to keep my most sentimental piece of furniture (Grandma's china cabinet).  I'm so glad that one won't be going on the truck in the storage container.

I'm starting to list things on Craigslist, too - patio toys (slide, wagon, merry-go-round), patio furniture, unwanted inside furniture, an enormous tulip painting we ended up with at the school auction... We're also starting to give things away.  Our next door neighbor is slated to receive the patio pavers, hurray for re-use!

Little dramas

Both the architect and structural engineer dropped off the final stamped and signed drawings yesterday evening in preparation for R's trip to the building department today.  He's hoping to get the final permit in hand by the end of the day (fingers crossed!).  He's specially arranged to take most of the day off of work and planned on being at the door of the building department when they open at 8am.

When, at 8pm last night, R reviewed the drawings, he found an entire architectural sheet missing!  We tried emailing and calling the architect's mobile phone to no avail.  I remembered that R was friends with a friend of the architect (how we found him, in fact), so I suggested he call her.  She answered and was able to provide the architect's home number.  The wife sounded a little miffed that a client was calling the home line, but as soon as she heard he had omitted a sheet from our set, she promised a quick call back (he was reading their daughter a bedtime story).

The architect showed up at 7:15am this morning just in time to hand the sheet to R before he headed downtown.  Phew!

Door styles

We'll need to put in our door and window orders when the foundation work starts in mid-September, so right now I need to start getting quotes.  Our architect recommended this simple single panel door for our mid-century modern house - what do you think?  All of our doors and trim will be white.

Downsizing

We need to order some storage containers for our Sept 10 moving day, but first we need to know how much storage to get... But to know how much storage to get, we need to know what is staying and what is going... Thus my pic above of the one bedroom apartment the front of our house is about to become. Should be cozy!

Remodel start date pushed back, again

Our first target start date was August 15, 2011...

Which got pushed back to September 1, 2011...

And last night, when we met with the contractor to go over details, he asked us to push it back again, to September 15, 2011.  (He squeezed in another job.  For my friend's sister.)

UGH.  I am getting really worried about the weather.  We are going to have the roof off of the back part of the house in early November, should have been early October!  Praying for perfect timing...

Finally got the site permit!

Official date of site permit approval - August 19, 2011.  Hurray!!!!  Gee, it only took 6 MONTHS.

Now we just need to get the building permit... hoping to grab it by the end of the week.  Now we are getting somewhere!

Backyard - Before Pics

Downstairs Bathroom - Before Pic

Our Bedroom - Before Pic

Kids' Room - Before Pics

Two years (probably more?) of consideration

Welcome to our remodel blog!  I thought this would be a fun way to chart our progress, show before-and-after photos, and maintain a history of the process.  

It's easy to feel like the beginning of our remodel will be the day that the first shovel goes into the ground... but of course, the reality is that we've been talking about this remodel for a couple of years.  We've always known the kids would need their own rooms at some point, being of different genders.  Among the things we considered:

• Turning the downstairs family room into a master (this was the plan when we bought the house; turns out there's not really enough room once we factor in the doors to the backyard and the garage)
• Moving out of SF to a suburb (the commute kills this idea every time)
• Buying a different house in SF (housing prices and property taxes eliminated this one)

So here we are, on the brink of tearing up our home.  Hopefully it will all be worth it in the end!