Oh, Happpy Day! Building Permit...FINALLY

[Jim Becker]

Yesterday was somewhat bleak as I had learned via email from my contractor, Michael, that the township had torpedoed our building permit application a second time and added another long list of rediculous demands. After the steam stopped coming out of my ears, I chalked it up to being Friday the 13th and made plans to go with Michael to the township next week when I was free to do so.

This morning (yea, it's Saturday morning already where I am...) I got a new email from Michael. Apparently "whatever he did" on Friday resulted in the permit being issued and we get the paper on Monday morning. Darn those torpedoes...he must have broken out the howitzers and shot back! Now Michael is a pretty cool and calm guy, but I know he was really, really, REALLY angry about these continued delays. He's had a crew ready to work for a long time and if it weren't for a good steady supply of smaller jobs, things would have been not too nice for he and his people.

So it looks like the "weed pit", as Professor Dr SWMBO refers to the area outside of our home where the addtion will go, will soon graduate to "mud hole" and then on to a two-story chunk of well-constructed and energy efficient building. Consequently, if anyone has a spare winning Power-Ball ticket, please feel free to forward it...the flow of money out the door commences shortly!

And as to that Friday the 13th thing...I was wrong since I forgot about the time zone differences. The axe fell on Thursday and the permit was rejuvinated on Friday. That makes Friday the 12th a very lucky day, indeed.

[Ed Falis]

Hey, congrats on finally getting over that hurdle. Keep them dogies rollin' ...

[John Shuk]

Best of luck Jim. It only gets more interesting as you go through the entire process. Interesting is an acronym for a bunch of other words I could use regarding my own homes construction process.

[Dennis Peacock]

Congrats Jim and best of luck with the rest of it.!!! May it go on time and within budget. ;)

[Dave Ray]

Congrats, Jim. Now all that noise you hear outside your window is progress on your dreams. Best of luck with the rest of it.

[Paul Greathouse]

Darn Jim, Your going to be missing out on all the fun by hiring a contractor. We are a couple of months into adding onto and remodeling my son's house. We are doing most of the work ourselves to save $$.

The 90 - 95 degree days with 85% humidity are making the job interesting (Did you detect the sarcastic acronym, John). Any construction work done in Louisiana in the summertime brings a new meaning to the term "Sweat Equity". I don't remember the work being this tiring 18 years ago when I built mine. Maybe it's because I wasn't 45 years old then.

Anyway, good luck with your project, Jim. I was going to keep a thread going about the progress on my son's house but there just isn't enough time in the day. Maybe you will have more free time to keep us posted on your addition since your hiring a contractor.

[Jim O'Dell]

I was just thinking that I hadn't seen a post from you in a day or 2. Guess you're on a business trip from your post.
Congrats on the permit! Now the headaches begin. :eek: :D :D Jim.

[Jim Becker]

Darn Jim, Your going to be missing out on all the fun by hiring a contractor. We are a couple of months into adding onto and remodeling my son's house. We are doing most of the work ourselves to save $$.

The contractor has been and will be worth every penny we pay him. Doing my kitchen in 2003 by myself was one thing, but I do not have the time to GC an 1850 sq ft two story addition, especially where we live. Between my business travel and family responsibilities...not to mention lack of knowledge on certain aspects of the job...I wouldn't consider doing it with out a general contractor.

That said, I am doing all the cabinetry... :D :D :D ...in my copious free time, of course... :o

[Jason Roehl]

Congrats, Jim!

Just make sure that you follow the rules here...you don't want citations from the pic police (it won't be me, though...I'm just part of the neighborhood watch :D ).

[Wes Bischel]

Congrats on getting through the bureaucracy. In many ways it's kinda sad that getting a piece of paper that says you can start to build is such a large accomplishment.:( But on the bright side, now the fun starts! It will be a great experience for the girls seeing how a building goes together. They may not be captivated by the process, but I suspect they are old enough that a lot of information will be absorbed.:)

Wes

PS Just wait until the inspections start - then the real value of a GC comes in to play! (i.e. a lot less stress!):D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congrats Jim! Looking forward to photographs of the progress in the near future!

[Matt Meiser]

Just make sure that you follow the rules here...you don't want citations from the pic police (it won't be me, though...I'm just part of the neighborhood watch :D ).

Now if that's not the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is! :D

Jim, congratulations on getting going. Are you going to be putting up a web cam like you talked about before? I've been having good luck with my DLink camera in my shop. It grabs a shot every day and FTP's it to one of my computers. You can set the capture interval to whatever you want. Its only 640x480, but thats good enough for the web.

[Bruce Page]

Congrats Jim!
Have you seen the movie "The Money Pit" starring a young Tom Hanks? I laugh every time I think about contractors!

[Wes Bischel]

Congrats Jim!
Have you seen the movie "The Money Pit" starring a young Tom Hanks? I laugh every time I think about contractors!

Oh, yeah, that's a good one. We just watched "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. "Hey Mr., you want them lintels rabbeted or not.":D :D It hit close to home on more than a few occasions.:eek:

Wes

[Karl Laustrup]

Congrats Jim!
Have you seen the movie "The Money Pit" starring a young Tom Hanks? I laugh every time I think about contractors!

Your GC is'nt one of the "Shirk Brothers" is it Jim? :eek: ;) :D

Just the other day I was thinking that I hadn't heard anything on your house expansion. So when do they actually start doing something and what's the time frame for the build?

Karl

[Jim Becker]

Congrats It will be a great experience for the girls seeing how a building goes together.

Yes, I agree...when we first started talking about this, they didn't speak any English of note and thought that the "new rooms" would just magically appear one morning. In fact, Nastia actually had a tantrum over the fact that we couldn't have them "tomorrow"...:o


Just make sure that you follow the rules here...you don't want citations from the pic police.

Oh, you know how loath I am to take and post pictures...:D (I've only taken 687 so far since last Saturday night)


Are you going to be putting up a web cam like you talked about before? I've been having good luck with my DLink camera in my shop. It grabs a shot every day and FTP's it to one of my computers. You can set the capture interval to whatever you want. Its only 640x480, but thats good enough for the web.

I want to, but haven't moved to do anything about it for a variety of reasons including time. I also would need to construct a weather-proof box to house the camera...still working on that idea. But if I can do this, it would insure that I have at least one picture per day without depending upon others to take it when I'm away on business from time to time. 640x480/426/350 is what I typically use for web display already. (the actual ratio depends upon which camera took the shot)


So when do they actually start doing something and what's the time frame for the build?

Start will hopefully be "immediate". Time frame for this job is at least 6 months or so based on the quality of work that Michael's crews do. They don't throw things together like so many contractors and do top shelf work. Sadly, because of the delays, their summer project is now becoming a multi-season project as I don't anticipate we'll have a CO until after new years 2008 at this point.