Raising the Stakes

Two weekends ago, Lori and Albert joined us on the property for a full day of cleaning up the site and trying to locate two distinct areas for construction:

(1) The "Toe of the Slope"

This is the line that designates the steep slope at the back of the property which we basically can't touch.

(2) The "Set Back"

This is a 15-foot buffer from the toe of the slope which we can landscape, but can't touch with heavy equipment in the construction process.

Today, Albert and Larry, plus Chris, and another worker named Zach arrived on site at 7am to more formally stake the property.  Over the following 3+ hours, we marked the (a) the north and south property borders, (b) the toe of the slope and set back, and (c) the corners of the home.

Larry and Chris prep the line on the North property border.

Afterwards, I introduced Larry and Albert to the Heartland Cafe...a great local breakfast joint.  I went with the veggie scramble, not knowing that it's apparently a faux pas to not order Steak and Eggs after working on a construction site.

Up next:
- Waiting on the Permit...any day now

Introduction

After over 20 months of parsing through tiny design details and praying for the city to approve our permit application, we're finally in the home stretch!

We didn't begin with the crazy idea of building a house. Even before we were engaged, we started looking around for a house to buy. After a few months of visiting houses in our price range (run-down old structures that would require investing double the sales price to make them liveable)John stumbled upon a vacant lot overlooking Alki Beach. As soon as we set foot on the blackberry choked property, we knew it was home.

It has 180 degree views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. Nestled in among houses built half a century ago, the property had countless failed sales on record and several building false starts mostly due to the oppressively high cost of ground work required to make it buildable. Lucky us, we happen to know one of the best contractors in the business--Mr. Albert Gabelein. After much scrutiny of the building restrictions placed on the property by the current owner (who lives above the property), we purchased the property on June 25, 2009.

As soon as the sale was final, we set to work finding an architect to draw up our dream house. We have a modest budget for the project so we decided to go with a planner (architect lite) to save money. This turned out to be House Building Wisdom #1 on our odyssey: Don't scrimp on the important things, especially the house design. Our planner designed the house on a per square foot basis and not an hourly basis. He estimated that the project would be quick and easy. However, half way through his work with the Seattle Department of Planning, he essentially gave up and walked away because he had miscalculated the actual price of our project. We spent months trying to track him down (to the point of stalking his office). We were left with house plans that needed hundreds of hours worth of corrections and no planner to do it. In the end, we had to find an architect to complete the project and spent twice the amount of money. Lesson learned.

We spend hours every week pouring over the plans. John's new hobby is making paper furniture for each room to visualize how everything will fit. The countdown to April 1 has began: First day of the "dry building season." Yes, we know that the wet season doesn't end until July in Seattle, but apparently the City of Seattle doesn't know this!