A Machine For Living

While we wait for the return of sunshine and blue skies (which should arrive in the next couple of days) and an opportunity to take some more definitive photos, here's a little something to pass the time.

The Minnie House is a completely and utterly beautiful machine for living, perfectly suited in design and orientation to its spectacularly serene location; quite, warm, cosy and well thought out; shiny on the outside and calm on the inside. It's a wonderful living monument to my mum, Mina Rapport, and a credit to its architect, Rocio Romero; to its site architect, Ben Hidalgo; to its contractor, SEA Construction; and to each and every (mostly Latino) man whose labor and toil enabled this silver box to rise from this Pacifica hillside.

My criticisms notwithstanding, I'd like to thank my contractor, Steve Albert, and his project manager Rich Alfano (who has become a good friend over the course of construction), who went to bat for me when this project was at its shakiest, and shepherded it through the construction process while helping me to keep the budget from going through the roof, which is no mean achievement when building on a California ocean-side slope.

Many of the little remaining jobs are now thankfully complete, including the guardrail on the retaining wall and the handrail on the stairs. The leaking fire sprinkler line has been replaced with a new roll of copper pipe, and once it's flushed and hooked up I can once more invite the fire marshall on site for his final inspection. Once he signs off, Chai the City Inspector can come back and, hopefully, grant my certificate of occupancy.