Mike and Jeff's New House

We were on vacation from Feb. 18-27......We spent 2 days in New Orleans prior to departing from there on a Caribbean cruise......That city is a party hot-spot.......We were on best behavior, although not all of the guys in our group can say the same....you know the saying... `What happens on Bourbon Street (in front of hundreds of drunk people) stays on Bourbon Street.' :) The cruise was fun, but we will not be sailing on Norwegian Cruise Lines again.....It's a largely boring story of unfullfilled expectations that is not worth getting into here.... Going on a cruise? Check out Royal Caribbean or Princess Lines.

Who would have thought that it was so hard to find a surveyor? We need to find the official property lines and mark the exact corners of the new house so that the foundation guy can start putting up forms for the concrete. Our pre-construction estimate for the surveying work was $1,500.... We've called 8 companies, two have responded with bids... One was for $4,500, the other was for $5,000.... Perhaps a career in the fast-paced world of land surveying is something to look at?

Yesterday the City Utilities Dept. sent out the guy that is Mr. Sewer for all of East Sac....He had an old map of our part of town that showed the water and sewer lines running diagonally across our lot!!! After one quick look at the manhole in the front of the lot and the manhole in the alley, it was easy to see that the sewer line ran parallel and well within the 20 foot easement....excellent, but what about water? Today the Utilities Department sent out the guy that is Mr. Water for all of East Sac...he had one of those retro 1970's-esq Fu Man Chu mustaches, not that I noticed.... Anyway, he brought all sorts of fancy pipe detection equipment and in no time at all he found the water pipe....It was also well within the easement and does not run under house site....phew... Pat at the City Utilities Department just called, she had that perky and cheerful voice that most people get when they can tell you that a problem has been averted, she used that voice when she told me ...

Looking at the pics below you will notice that this lot is very narrow....it's worse than it looks.. Our neighborhood has 50 foot wide lots, unfortunately our empty lot is only 40 feet wide. When highway 50 was built in the late 1960's they moved the house that used to be on this lot and the state bought the 10 feet closest to the freeway for the right-of-way. Oh, and then there is the issue of a 20 foot utility easement on the side of the lot closest to the freeway...running the entire length of the lot are gas, water, and sewer lines for our local utilities. And don't forget the side yard set-back on the south side of the lot, (5 feet). We spent several months going through the zoning variance process to get a 2 foot reduction in the side yard set-back.... For those of you without a calculator, that means we have a 17 foot wide buildable space. Our house will have exterior dimension of 17 feet wide by 71 feet long and 3 stories high. In essense, a tr...

If you are considering building a new house or doing a renovation we encourage you to check out the Owner Builder Center here in Sacramento. They teach two day classes that help one to understand the process of acting as a general contractor. Even if you hire a G.C. to manage the project, the Owner Builder Center classes will really help you to understand the start to finish process of home construction and renovation.... UPDATE: July 23. We have only used one of the contractors that the Owner Builder Center recommends on their website. It has been a horrible experience and we would be recommend extra caution before hiring anyone from their list of `pre-qualified' contractors....Do your homework and buyer beware! www.ownerbuildercenter.com

Our loan has funded! This week we will pull the first of our loan funds to pay the Sacramento City School District fees, once that is done we will be able to pull our building permit..... We have selected the foundation contractor and the framer. This week we'll decide on the plumbing, electrical and HVAC subcontractors and hopefully get contracts out to all of them...

This shot was taken this morning from the east end of our lot right next to the alley. When I snapped the shot I was standing right where the grapefruit tree used to be. :( In about a year this will be the driveway that goes from the alley into our garage.

After almost 3 years of planning and designing on paper, today we took the first steps on the site of our new house. We cut down and carted away our fruit cocktail tree (a grafted fruit tree that had branches of nectarine, peach, plum, and apricot), 2 grape vines, a grafted Asian pear tree that had 4 varieties of pear, a grapefruit tree, a lemon tree, and an orange tree. It was sad to see them go, but it was exciting to think of what is to come.

Hopefully there will be a new house on this lot in a year.