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…well, we still have a few cosmetic fix-ups, and then we need to decorate, put furniture in, re-landscape, etc. but the major construction is over. We should have our final green light and walk-through in not more than two weeks (we hope), which means no more lock box and surprise visits by random workers. We are obviously looking forward to it, and while we will have more work to do, we figured it would be nice to post some pictures of the basically finished house.

The entrance needs some rugs and plants but out new mailbox is in. We also had to replace our garage door, that decided to break down completely last December. It does looks nicer with windows in it.

We also finally got our adjustable awning put in, so our plants can recover from the scorching the suffered when the trellis went down. I like the warm glow it gives to the office and to Keegan’s room.

The bathroom upstairs needs curtains, towels (and final tiles sealing) but all the cabinets and hardware are in. And the bidet works. (-:

The stairs need a couple of steps replaced but they turned out nice.

We moved the guest room (Asian Room) upstairs…oh that was fun!

Now Keegan can finally have a room to call his own, with a new bed, a new chair and a lot more space. He loves his swivel chair:he likes to hide in there. We all know, though, that the chair purchase was mainly small compensation for me: since I can’t afford a real egg chair or bubble chair for myself, I got the IKEA chair for Keegan.

As for the bed, despite some request for a “car bed”, immediately vetoed, we bought a convertible KURA bed from IKEA. It is a tween size, so it can last for a while, but what I liked the most is the fact you can flip it over to convert it in a bunk bed.

The new bed in Keegan’s room

Despite being so excited about his new tent bed, the new sheets and blankets, he actually slept in it great, without waking up once. This is the only picture I have in which he does not seem constipated…it is now impossible to take a picture of him without him trying to “smile”: closing his yes, and clinching his teeth like he really, REALLY, has to go, right now!

With all the problems we had with the city, the chance of updating and remodeling our master bath in the near future are basically zero, so we gave it a small face lift, by changing the vanity, sink, faucet, mirror, adding some hardware and adding a nice new cabinet. And since we lost our window, we added a solaTube in both our bath and Keegan’s: what a difference it makes. Once again, IKEA to the rescue.

Of course, now I am still busy researching furniture, yard designs, window treatments, etc, so we are not really done, but it beats worrying about what the city will have to say. And by the end of it all, I am sure we could call IKEA and ask them to move their show room to our house: we will probably have at least 1 IKEA piece in every room. (-:

So, how do we feel about being at the end of the tunnel? I think Keegan’s face tells it all…Ecstatic!

So, comes late October, construction really shifted in high gear. We are really trying to get everything done by December. Of course this means we will still have plenty to do in January, as far as little touch up are concerned, but we are almost there.

For the past couple of weeks we really had a flurry of activity happening at the house. 2 or 3 trades working at the same time…and this is really what we want to see: painters, carpenters, plumbers, general workers, stucco guys, all working feverishly, even on Saturdays, towards the finish line.

The stucco have been laid down. It is almost weird to see the house all white again.

The living room/kitchen rooms upstairs have been painted: green for the guest room (future Keegan’s room), beige for Keegan’s play room, blue/gray for Matt’s office, blue/green for the bathroom. The closet doors have been installed (even if not painted yet).

The bathroom has a toilet and a bidet and a sink.

And the stairs are being completed. We decided to upgrade to hardwood stairs: yes, it was more expensive, but they are looking beautiful. Plus, I really don’t want to vacuum carpeted stairs. Now, if we only could leave them without a railing it would be great. Alas, is not possible, nor desirable with a little one. Plus, the city of San Diego would not give us its final approval.

So we at least tried to mix it up a little with a 3-2-3-pattern. The pickets will be painted white and the handrail will match the steps.

Now is probably the messiest time of the whole construction as we have workers everywhere, and the kitchen and living room are not spared anymore. But we all gladly put up with it: we are so ready to be done.

So, despite the uncooperative weather, and the other snags, construction continues. We are still hoping to be basically done by the end of the year, but let’s see. I am sure that, no matter what, there will still be lots of little details to be finished up in the new year.

At this point we have the security screen door installed, interior doors, shelves and rods inside closets, framing and baseboard basically finished, and the upstairs niche built up.

Looking at the screen door from the inside of the house

Keegan of course enjoys seeing all the changes and almost every day comes with me to inspect the work.

can I play with these cool power tools?

let me document the progress

this is so much fun!

But my favorite part at this point are the wall tile in the bathroom. I really love how they turned out, and I already know that that bathroom will become MY bathroom.

bathroom tiles in progress

Wall tiles finished

Detail

This week we will hopefully have the bathroom  floor installed, and then it will be time for the paint color selection, the stairs railing, the lighting and all the other details. Details that include, securing a permanent mortgage and dealing with two different banks. Blah.

So, I guess my hopes of seeing a LOT of progress after I returned from my trip were quickly dashed. Insulation had been blown in and a front door has been installed but that was about it.

We have a door again!

We also ordered a nice security door to increase protection to our glass door. We saw it in someone’s house, so I knocked on the door and found out where to get it. I guess I have no shame.

And this will be our security door.

There were some issues between the demo guys and our landscaper and we basically lost more than a week. However, we are trying to catch up, even if there are still some kind of external forces conjuring against us. When we finally got the landscaper to start, San Diego experienced a huge heat wave…not the best when you are trying to make new plants thrive. As soon as we were done with that, the weather turned bad,  just as we needed to add plaster to the exterior walls: we lost three day because of a rare three days storm (with thunderstorms) with plenty rain. It rained more on one of these days than on an average October.

So where are we at this point? Well, I guess the more important step is that the code compliance guy came in and basically approved all the demo stuff and gave us the green light to keep on building. Yeah!

The hill is regrades and replanted…

…but we still miss a railing instead of the lovely plywood wall

The guy was actually surprised that we did demo everything already. Hummm, we had NO CHOICE: we could not build anymore if we did not. He was also, according to my contractor, very apologetic and said he was sorry multiple times. Like it helped. Do you know what can  I do with your apologies, Mr. city guy??? If you felt so sorry, you should have written a different letter. Now, we only need the approval of the landscape inspector and we are golden, and we can wait till final inspection for that. We would rather get it done earlier, though, just in case there is something wrong.

We also passed the huge “lathe and drywall” inspection, and we are now texturing the interior walls to get them ready for paint and also plastering the exterior.

we are getting plastered

we got walls and they are all textured

the view from the hallway, as you get upstairs

At this point this is starting to look like a house again. The walls, especially made a huge difference. I can’t say I see the finish line, but I start thinking about furniture and decorating.

Next step will be tiles and paint colors. The bathroom is waiting for some concrete coating to go on the walls, and then is tile time! They better not ruin my Toto toilet and my Kholer tub.

Tiles have been a a little difficult, as I fell in love with some accent tiles I saw in one of the IKEA store, and it took me forever to find them.

No designer I talked to knew where to find them, and the stores I visited did not have what I wanted. I resorted to write to IKEA corporate, and, believe it or not, they answered me and gave me the exact name and location for the tiles. It turned out they are available at Home Depot…I can’t believe I missed them when I went.

I am excited to finally start on the design details: lighting, paint color, furniture. It has been a long time coming.

Week 2 of the demolition. Of course, summer and the heat wave arrived just in time for the demo. Poor guys. They brought in the heavy artillery, and in a few short days they were able to tear down what took months, over the course of years, to build. By now we have became the cautionary tale of the whole neighborhood and beyond:this brought us lots of sympathy from neighbors and workers alike, but it still does not change the situation.

So we are trying to smile about it…This month, our calendar shows the following page:

“Mistakes: it could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others”.

How appropriate is that? By the way, the calendar is from the awesome site despair.com. So, these are a few snapshots of what our demolition derby looked like these past two weeks.

pool walls stacked on the front yard

Miscellaneous pool elements, Keegan’s toys and walls wiring

pool demo: the beginning. Concrete chunks filling the pool and burying my plants

Today, they moved in the big trucks. Unfortunately Keegan missed the excitement, but they did leave one dirt mover parked on our property for the weekend.

The funny thing is that the head demo guy, the one that never does any work and supervise, today had the balls to ask me:”so, what do you think?”, with this proud tone. What do YOU think, YOU MORON! It sucks, and I am very bitter about it. And how do you expect me to feel good about you destroying my back yard??? Then again, this comes from the guy who gave me attitude when I asked him to keep the area safe for Keegan.

Fortunately, most of the stuff will be gone soon: we rented a storage container, and we hope to fill it in this weekend. So, for a few months it will be out of sight out of mind.

On the positive side, construction continues: we have now wrapped the house, and once we have finished the demo we can start with the stucco. I have a long list of design decisions to make before my trip, and then I can “forget” about this for two full weeks.

Now, just for ending on a happy note, a couple of pictures of our little guy, goofing around.

It was Far West week at school, and all the kids were supposed to dress up as cowboys for a day. Of course the outfit lasted the time of the picture only, but it was still worth capturing. It was also the same week they had a real pony at school, and we will post the pictures soon.

Construction …and destruction continue. We are making progress, even if it is difficult to tell if we are on track or not. The good news is we see people working almost everyday, without having to call them. This is a nice change from some other contractors we worked with. It is also nice to notice that they try to keep everything as clean as possible, and to make it as easy as possible for us to live in a construction zone.

Two months in this is where we are:

• The basic framing is basically complete.
• We have a roof, almost completely shingled.

Keegan’s room

• We have windows, which is really weird, because we still don’t have walls, so they look like they are floating. Of course, the first day they installed the windows, it rained…in July! No biggie, as they are getting dirty anyway, but still.

• The house is starting to look like a real house, and we even have some compliments on the architectural details. They did made sure the addition would blend with existing house well.

• We also have most of the plumbing done, and the soaking tub installed. We decided to go with a full house tankless water heater, and it was installed, even if it is still not connected. it will be nice to get rid of that monster tank in the garage. And it is amazing how small the tankless is, and how stylish it looks.

• We have most of the electrical connections  in place and we have upgraded our electrical panel. We do have now recessed lighting in the living room. It is so amazing to be actually able to read at night!

We are now ordering our front door and passed one part of the huge inspection of all the plumbing, electrical and heating. This means we can soon start to wrap the house.

I guess, and I only speak for myself now, living in a construction zone has not been as horrible as I thought. maybe I am just relieved that we are actually building instead of waiting on the City, that I tolerate everything else better. Amazingly enough, the messy garage (which by now is our main entry) is what bothers me the most. Of course it will be great to be able to go from the kitchen to the bedroom using the hallway, but since we can use the kitchen, most of the living room, the sun room and all the bedrooms, construction is for the most part livable.

In the meantime, however, we started the demo of our backyard. We are still bitter and heartbroken, but mainly numb, and really want to get it over with. The deck has been truncated and the trellis has started coming down (and my plants are already suffering). The tiles stairs and the pool surround is a huge pile of concrete chunks. We have boards and debris everywhere outside. The pool is in pieces in our front yard. For the time being it will be in storage.

This definitely added some stress to the process, since we can’t really utilize the patio much, but we try to stay focused on the positive. Before my trip, we have to make many decisions (the fun kind, the design kind) so we can try to finish this project on time.

It will be interesting to see what progress will happen when I will be in Italy in September. I am sure Matt will keep me informed, but still, hopefully I will see a big change and I will be happily surprised.

We just wanted to post an update on our construction. We passed the first two inspections and we are now working on the framing. I think this is probably the more exciting stage, because this is when you really see something growing from nothing. Last week, the stairs were completed, and we can now go upstairs and check out how it will look like: the rooms are now set and we can look outside the “windows” and start imagining how it will be.

It is great to get home and see dramatic changes from one day to the next. It makes you forget about the noise, and dust, and dirt  and all the other inconveniences. The pictures were shot a few days ago, and while lot of work has been done since then, it still gives you a rough idea of how it will look.

we got stairs!

View from one of the canyon-view bedrooms

Of course, Keegan is fascinated by all the construction and loves to go up and down the stairs. He knows we are building HIS room, and he is very excited. Maybe a little too much: it is very difficult to get him going in the morning, because he wants to stick around and see what the workers are doing. Their schedule is great: they start early in the morning and they are usually gone by midafternoon, so generally, we have the house back to ourselves by the time Keegan gets home from preschool.

Inside the future “man cave”

You gotta love those stairs

Of course the curse has not been lifted yet: the pool and everything else, still will have to come down in a few short weeks and, we just found out, our inspector, the one our contractor knew well and that was mellow and easy going, just passed away, poor guy. This means that we are not sure who will inspect us now, but hopefully this will not cause too many delays or too many headheaches.

Anyway, we are trying to stay focused on and “enjoy” the progress…and let’s hope to be done by the end of the year.

We have briefly mentioned in some previous posts that we have been going through some stressful time lately trying to remodel our home. We are adding a second story to our home. Or at least trying to…if the city will ever let us.

We weighted a lot of pros and cons, and at the end we thought that in this economic climate, remodeling was the way to go.We really did not want to go through an exhausting search- it took us almost 6 months to find this house and I looked at over 100 houses – and assuming we could find a bigger house we could afford, we did not want to go through the hassle of moving. Plus we would have probably take a big hit as far as selling price. Moreover, we love the house and its canyon view and at this time, construction company are really looking for work, so materials and labor may be cheaper. The catch 22 of all of this, though, is that no banks are lending money: so it took us months to find one who did and to prep all the necessary paperwork. We started the exploratory process in march of last year, and we signed loan docs in December!

By the beginning of March, we thought we were on our way to start our huge project. Our contractor called at the end of February and said they wanted to start in a couple of days, because all the construction plans has been approved, and we were only waiting on a brush management plan, that should have been a formality!  So we had a hectic few days, trying to get everything boxed and moved, to rent a storage space, and get organized. We also went around talking to our neighbors, letting them know of our plans…and it was a good thing too, because jack hammering started bright and early.

We decided to build two small bedrooms (Keegan’s room and a playroom) and an office for Matt and a bathroom, adding about 600 sf. We are not sure how long it will take but we hope to be done by the end of summer. We will be building over the living room, kitchen and some of the garage, so our bedroom are intact. They also assured ous that they should be able to build above us, without ripping the ceiling, so most of the house should be somewhat usable, dust aside, for most of the time. The only drawback, is that we are not able to go directly from the kitchen to the bedroom, since this is where the new footings and the stairs will be built. Good thing we live in Southern California, so we can easily go around that by using our patio.

A nice plywood wall has been built in our living room, and two zippered plastic walls separate the kitchen from the bedroom. It has not been a big problem so far, and fortunately we are at work for most of the noisy part. Keegan seemed to be enjoying the diversion, and he was taking it as an adventure. Hopefully it will last even when the novelty factor wears off. And I guess I can say the same about us.

So, at first everything seemed to work out. Then, our luck turned. The city took a special interest in our project, and a whole series of rounds of discussions and meetings took place. I will spare you all the pitiful details, but this is what happened:

1) After our plans were basically approved, some wonderful person at the city decided that he needed to have a second look and found some violations. We were not called in to explain, nor he came over to the property to inspect.
2) The city called code compliance to record some alleged violations according to some obscure ordinance that applies to steep hills.
3) Their vacation schedule prevented us from having a specific answer about this violations for more than a month and a half
4) They sent us a complaints letter that made no sense at all
5) They set up a meeting with us — finally— to discuss the issue
6) They required a new plan to be submitted, and the removal of basically everything we have in the back yard, regardless if it has been there for more than 15 years. This includes the deck, the trellis, the spa and the pool.
7) During the whole time they held our permit hostage, and no work could be done till this is resolved

So, we have been living in a construction zone, with no construction going on. How fun! Keep in mind that our project has NOTHING to do with the back yard. They just require a brush management plan regardless of what work you do, as an overreaction to the recent fires. They are going overboard in the interpretation of the laws and regulations, so if you live in a canyon area (about 70% of San Diego is), you can’t do basically NOTHING to your own canyon land. And who said that California is the land of freedom?

As you can imagine this has been extremely stressful and disheartening: we were trying to make our house better, and we will end up taking away lots of his amenities. At this point we have no choice. Construction or not we have to take care of  this or face a fine. We only hope the extra space will make up for it.

So, after almost three months of delays, uncounted phone calls and emails from our contractor, a meeting, and multiple modifications and resubmitting of the plan (and guess who is paying for all this?), we are finally starting again. The final permit finally arrived about 10 days ago, so we immediately got and passed our first inspection, and we are moving along. Of course, we still will have to tear down our beloved “back yard”, pool, spa, deck, retaining walls, trellis and all…and let’s not forget the re-vegetation part!

We are however trying to focus on the positive, and simply wish a carload of bad karma to the nice, hardworking people at the city, that for some reason decided that our project needed to be used an an example.

It is now June, and we are hoping that the “curse” that has been dogging us for the past 3 months — starting with the hit and run damage on my parked car — is finally over. We will keep you updated with more photos as we move along.

Here’s to a happier second half of 2010.