Digging in the Dirt

More fun with dirt! Jim the Amazing Backhoe Guy was back on the lot today, clearing out the top soil from the building pad, and piling it at the side of the lot. Jim is an artist with that tractor of his!

We're now down to clay, and ready to start serious excavations and drilling the piers... except that my loan hasn't closed yet, and today I discovered that it may not close for another two weeks or more. So once again we're in a holding pattern - no more work on the lot until the loan funds.

A Day To Remember

Today, July 28th 2009, exactly 13 months since my mum passed away, I handed over checks totaling $17,000 to the City of Pacifica and in return, I finally received my building permits. Not a bargain by any means, but a very exciting development and now, providing my loan closes in the next day or two, I can actually start to build The Minnie House!

Not wishing to let the grass grow underneath my feet (literally!), I met with Jim the Backhoe Guy today and he spent three hours hacking out the stumps and removing the lovely luscious top soil, which we will be storing on site and using later to backfill.

As soon as the contract with the construction company is signed and the loan funds, the big guys will come in and excavate, and begin to drill the piers and build the foundations. I can't wait!

Remembering Mum

I don't know if these will last through the long, hot, foggy summer months, but today I planted a Strawberry and a Gooseberry Geranium Pelargonium to commemorate one year since my mum Mina passed away at the age of 83... or 84... or most likely 85. Somewhere around there, since her date of birth seemed to always keep moving around between 1924 and 1926. I miss my mum, and this house will (one day!) be my monument to her.

Next week I'm flying off to the Philippines for my summer vacation. When I get back to San Francisco in mid-July, I very much hope that I will be able to pick up my permits and begin excavation, foundations and, finally, construction. I've already arranged to start with clearing out all of the stumps with a backhoe service on July 16th.

In the meantime, here are some photos I took from the lot last night. Lovely!

No Comment

Guess what? Eleven more comments from the city - and that's just from the building department. Ugh. Got them on Friday, and now I'm trying to get everyone to help respond to them in a timely fashion. I don't think any of the comments represent major problems, but even if I get all of the responses together this week, it's still looking doubtful that I'll even get the permits before I leave for my vacation in the Philippines on July 3rd.

On a more positive note, after another long week of fun in the sun at the lot, the entire site is looking cleaner and cleaner. Today I had help from Steven, Queenie, Bill, Michael and Kofi, and with so many hands we got loads done. There's not actually that much more we can do now without equipment, so I think the next step will be to get a backhoe to get rid of all of the massive stumps and root systems that remain.

The IKEA kitchen and appliances are scheduled to arrive next Saturday afternoon. With any luck there will be enough room to store everything in my basement. Fingers crossed...

Meanwhile, in the photo below you can see the ramp to the front door in the foreground, and the driveway in the background.

"Just build the frickin' thing already!"

Of course, it didn't happen last Monday, but on Friday I was - finally! - able to resubmit my building permit application, after providing answers to all 45 building department comment questions, and four further questions from engineering. The process took four weeks, which was three weeks longer than I had hoped, but as they say back east, whaddya gonna do, huh? Fuggedabouddit.

In the meantime, much progress has been made on clearing the lot: cutting down shrubs, weeding, pulling up wild grass by the roots, and generally preparing the site for eventual excavation - you can see the current state of the building pad area in the photo (the two stakes at the top right show where the front door will be). I love working there, especially on beautiful days like last Sunday, and the neighbors always come over for a chat, which is a wonderful new experience for me. I'm a Londoner, and have never really been close with neighbors anywhere I've lived, either back home or here in San Francisco (where I've been living since 1992).

I'm also talking to general contractors to nail down budget proposals, and feel a lot of pressure to keep the process moving. If I can get someone under contract in the next two weeks or so, maybe some day soon I'll actually be able to break ground and follow my niece Madeleine's advice and "Just build the frickin' thing already!"

The King of Swamp Castle

Yes, I finally closed escrow yesterday, so now I'm the proud owner of huge... tracts of land on a picturesque hillside in the seaside town of Pacifica. Well, maybe not huge tracts exactly, more like seven thousand six hundred and fifty square feet of land, but still... it's another small step along the road to my Holy Grail.

And it's not the only small step - on Monday I expect to finally resubmit my amended plans to the City of Pacifica. Give them another two weeks or so for final review, and then with any luck I will be in possession of a building permit for my Minnie House...

The Song Remains The Same

Another week gone by, and I'm still waiting to resubmit my permit application to the city. I nearly have all of the amended sheets and all of the responses to the city's comments, but honestly, with two architects, one of whom is in Missouri, and two structural engineers, one of whom is in Indiana, not to mention a geotechnical engineer in Burlingame and a civil engineer in San Francisco, it's just like herding cats. Perhaps I'll be ready to re-file on Monday, if I can avoid getting scratched by any of the cats.

And in other news, I'm still trying to get quotes/budgets from general contractors, and get an acceptable quote for the foundations. I'm much closer to moving ahead on both fronts, but I still don't have anyone or anything under contract. The foundation quotes range from $93k to over $150k, and I have to choose between shotcrete, cast in place and Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs). Right now I'm leaning heavily towards the latter, which seems like the best combination of price/performance, and since the forms are insulated you save time and money later on as well.

Yesterday I signed all of the paperwork for the lot and wired the balance to the title company, so some time in the next two days I should officially close escrow and become the new owner of the beautiful little piece of land in Pacifica where I will build my dream house! That's some progress right there!

I have also been working hard at the lot, cutting back shrubbery, clearing the building area, and pulling up weeds and stinging nettles galore. Keeps me busy, and makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere. I even found a rose bush on the site last weekend that I hadn't noticed before...

Creepy crawly

Moving along, very slowly, like a creepy crawly. Still getting quotes for the foundations, and at last I may actually have a couple of options. I think in the end I'll have to choose between cast in place from one contractor, CMU above the basement slab from another, and sprayed shotcrete from a third. Hard to figure out what to do, especially without a GC to help.

I'm working on that, though, and would like to have a GC in place within the next week or so.

Also still assembling the amended plans for resubmission to the city. I wanted to resubmit this week, but t doesn't look like I'll get everything together in time, so perhaps next Tuesday?

And while everything else is constantly shifting forward in time, the same can be said for closing escrow, which was due to happen tomorrow, but is now awaiting a legal document from the seller, who lives in Colorado and is quite technologically challenged - no cell phone, no fax machine. Whaaa? It's 2009!!!

So everything is manana, manana, manana. Trying not to get frustrated, just keep moving the ball down field the hard way, a few yards at time, without turning it over! Every now and then it would be nice to just air one out towards the end zone, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

While all this is going on, I managed to get a great Craigslist deal on a couple of new Panasonic bathroom fans ($100.00 for the pair!), and I'm also spending many hours at the lot cutting down branches and shrubs, pulling up roots, and generally clearing the site. I can't believe how gorgeous it is almost every time I go down there! Roll on the day this is all finished and I can move to my new neighborhood!

Here's a lovely new movie to play with: this one has my own art work and photos on the walls, and the actual view, or something close to it, from the living room and bedroom. It also show the cypress tree through the side windows in the living room, and West Ham on the TV!

I'm a little closer to something, although I'm not sure what, exactly. I'm in discussion with several concrete contractors about foundations (that I can actually pay for!), and with several GCs about handling the whole project. I'm also close to closing escrow for the land but that is dependent upon getting the OK from the city to build the house.

I spoke to the city yesterday, and although they are not finished with my application yet - they still need to get comments from the engineering dept - they did agree to fax me the comments so far. And there are a lot of them, around 45, so I'll need to get together with all of the relevant parties (engineer and architects) to so that we can resubmit. Then it should only take another week or two to get the permits.

And then I can start... IF I have a contractor in place, and IF I have an acceptable bid for the foundations.

In the meantime, I actually bought my kitchen yesterday, because IKEA has a 20% sale on kitchens, and it ends this weekend. So I bought and paid for all of the kitchen cabinets and appliances. The cabinets are per Rocio's spec, high-gloss white Abstrakt panels on white Akurum cabinets. For those of you keeping score at home, the appliances consist of the Energisk B18 fridge/freezer, the Eldig cooktop, the Nutid dishwasher, and the Hovskar single lever kitchen faucet . If anyone wants to know why IKEA, well - $5K for the lot, including shipping. That's why!

Walkabout

Well now. Here's a very cool 3D walk through of The Minnie House, which I made using Live Interior 3D Pro for the Mac. Most of the furniture is mine, but I can't quite figure out how to import my own art work.

Now, if I can just find a way to actually build it...