Mike and Jeff's New House

Many of you have been to our home and have enjoyed the view of our garden from the kitchen window....Alas, like my size 32 waist, the garden is now just a fond memory from the past..... Here is the current view from our kitchen window.

Footings Dug - Check Forms Installed - Check Plumber - pipes under slab - Check Electrical - conduit under slab - Check Gas - Pipe under slab - Check Tie Downs - `Gee sorry guys, I was delayed' - (Welcome to the world of contractor drama.) First building inspection by city - `You have no Tie Downs installed' - try again next week. Monday April 25th was to be the day the footings were poured...That is now delayed.....

Who knew that foundation digging was so precise? Brian and John used a laser level to assure that the depth was correct....The plumber was here this AM to mark the places where he needs trenches dug...

Many of you are familiar with the Public Art installations by Christo and Jeanne Claude. We were inspired by their dramatic `The Gates' project in Manhattan and have started to install an homage to their vision....You can see the first phase below. http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/tg.html

You might notice that the intense yellow flowers of the Fremontedendron perfectly compliment the sky blue tones of the newly delivered Port-A-Potty....

The first floor is the heart of the entertaining zone....The front windows are ten feet tall. They open into a living room that is open to the second floor loft....There is a low concrete bench on the south side of the house..(We are getting one of those super efficient Danish stoves from Scan or Rais to sit on the bench.) The Dining Room will be flanked by french doors on the north and south side..The kitchen will also have windows on both the north and south side......Down the hallway you will find a half bath, the laundry area, a coat closet, and the garage.... We joke that the primary reason we are building this house is so that Jeff has a place to finally put together the 1960 Alfa Romeo Convertible that has been dis-assembled for the past 20 years.... He better, or Mike is going to start selling Alfa parts on E-Bay...

The second floor has a couple of cool features....The master bedroom is in the front of the house and it overlooks the living room below. The master bath will have a large glass enclosed double shower with a steam generator and a wall-hung toilet with an integrated bidet seat... In addition there will be a guest room and guest bath plus a large media room on the east end of the house.... Our current home has only one closet........The second floor of our new house will feature a wall of closets that is almost 40 feet long...

This floor will have STUNNING views of highway 50! It will have two 12x20 foot bedrooms that we will use for home offices and project rooms....It will also have a full bathroom that will primarily serve as a humid habitat for Mike's orchids. There will be two large skylights, one over the stairwell and one in the bathroom. Four toilets for two people?? Along with the previous residents of our nearly 80-year-old home, we have managed to survive quite nicely with only one toilet....Even though we designed the house to be very accomodating for guests, we still feel a bit indulgent....

The lot was scraped last week!! It sure was an odd feeling to come home and have 14 years of garden work all ripped out. Lots of the plants in the garden were dug up and moved to other gardens around town...

Our lot was finally surveyed on Saturday, March 26th..We found a man who works fulltime as a surveyor for the State of CA. He also does jobs on the side. Dave was prompt and efficient, and best of all, he kept us on budget...

We built this little structure next to our garage about ten years ago....We used it to keep our garbage cans out of view and to act as a trellis for a beautiful wisteria.......This past Saturday we started to take it apart...All that remains now are the corner posts and the brick floor, they will be removed this coming Saturday... In the background you can see the new house that was built within the past year, it is similarily narrow, but it is only 15 feet wide, ours will be 17 feet wide......

We planted our circle garden about ten years ago and it took us an entire weekend to install the benderboard that defined the edges. It took less than an hour to rip it all out of the ground....This coming weekend we have friends coming by to rescue some of the plants . Come on by if you want some Ballota or Teucrium for your garden. If they don't find a good home, they will be euthanized within a week....

We spoke with the concrete guy last night and we finally have our first signed contract.......Our very first on this project....Now, on to the framer.... The lot is soaking wet, hopefully it dries out by this weekend as we need to finish ripping out the circle garden so that we can get a grader in here next week.

A breakthrough in the hunt for a surveyor... We discovered that we were using the wrong words.... It turns out we don't really need a complete survey, we just need to have the corners set..... Sounds like the same thing to me, but it should cost around $1,500 vs. $4,500....

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...