I used to write about architects and architecture fairly regularly when I covered land use and development issues for various pubs. (That was before I decided I wanted to kick our architect in the shins again and again and again ...) I'm still an architecture junkie though. I grew up in an architecturally significant city, we take vacations based on fabulous architecture ... hell, I even have the 800-plus piece Lego version of Fallingwater waiting to be built and red tagged.
Of the architects I've interviewed, my favorite was probably the late John Thodos, of Thodos AIA in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I wrote about the second home he designed and built in Carmel--the first was on the ocean and after he and his wife lived there for a time, they sold for it for an egregious amount of money and designed and built something smaller and a few blocks up from the water.
In any case, one of the best features about the Thodos' second home was the "wet room" that served as the master bath. Everything was tiled, there was no shower curtain, just a drain. "Cleaning up," John told me, "should be a pleasure. Bathing should be a pleasure." And when Chuck finishes tiling this room, and I never, ever have to see or speak to our contractor again (not that he ever responds to my emails) and the hot water heater is functional, I fully believe that cleaning up in this room will be a pleasure. (As an aside, Chuck says our contractor has really been quite fine in his dealings with us. I think Chuck is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, with a side of Tile Fatigue.)
During a break in the tiling action, when Chuck was slumped on the couch, he said to me, "You know, when we decided to do this, I asked the wrong question. I asked 'Can we do this?' I should have asked, 'How hard will it be to do this?'" As for me? I've come to the conclusion that the FHA 203K program is a program that can be gamed, only the home owners aren't the ones doing the gaming. And anyone who tries to do a major project in the city of Salinas more than once is an idiot. Call me "Exhibit A."
In the rest of the house, everything is painted. We went with Behr's "Frost" for the walls, and Behr's "Rocky Mountain Sky" for the master bath, the boy's bath, the half-bath downstairs, the studio apartment bath and the laundry room. (I'd link to the actual colors, but the Behr website is a pain in the ass.) We need to get the gas turned on in the main house, all of the outlets have to be wired and the floors are kind of a disaster, but we're planning on moving in to the top floor in the next two weeks or so. Our contractor will show up again when we are ready for the finish work to happen--and when I say finish, I mean, when he's ready to finish.
I've had a few people ask me, without really asking me, how we're affording this. I refer them to the economic collapse of 2008 that resulted in this house being completely gutted and never being finished, it reverting back to the bank in a foreclosure and the bank being desperate to get the loan off of their books. Chuck's also a geek and he paid attention in math class; between his full-time job and the house, he's also working his ass off, harder than any person I've seen.
More pictures here. And greetings to my readers from Raleigh, NC. That's kind of near Cary, isn't it?
Two words: proxy server.
Showing posts with label asshats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asshats. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, October 16, 2010
A Tempest in a Long Island Iced Tea Pot
I'm taking this post off the beaten track. But before I do, a quick update.
Yes, I still want to kill our architect, or at least kick him in the shins until he cries like a little girl. He neglected to put something on the second round of plans the city told him he needed after the first round; when Chuck told him he needed to get his act together, put a rush on it and that we wouldn't be paying for him to correct his own mistakes, he responded: "I don't work for you, I work for your contractor."
Oh yes he did.
Here's the thing: the city, the architect, the civil engineer and even Al the Contractor seem to exist in this alternate universe where time has no real meaning. What should take a week in the real world takes three weeks in Bizarro Building World. Chuck and I, on the other hand, live in Deadline World. He writes and implements code. If his code isn't perfect and the implementation flawless, portions of a Fortune 100 company stop functioning. I write news. If I don't, I lose my job.
Which leads me to the point of today's post, construction, the Blue Goose Bar & Grill and the Montessori Learning Center. Our youngest son is a student at Montessori. He's a 7th grader, a foot-and-a-half taller than his teacher, he's rocking the beginnings of a mustache and I know for certain he is the only student who walks to and from school. Shrug. When he lived in Berkeley, he took BART by himself and that was almost two years ago.
Montessori is kind of special snowflake land, but it works for us and has for 11 years. Both boys are Montessori kids.
The Montessori building, along with a former restaurant around the corner, are owned by the same guy, Chris Evans. I wouldn't know him if he stepped out in front of my Mini as I went screaming out of the parking lot at a high rate of speed. I don't know if he's a good guy, a bad guy or a neutral guy. No clue. But I know he is trying to open a new restaurant around the corner from the school and this means one thing for certain: he's got a masochistic streak a mile wide. Anyone who tries to get anything done in the city has a masochistic streak, but it's especially true if you're going into the food business.
Evans and his partners (I guy I do know and like quite a bit, Todd Fisher) are seeking a full liquor license for the place, which shares a parking lot with Montessori. The school is freaked out because they have visions of Blue Goose customers running down the little Sams and McKenzies and Ashleys and McKennas at Montessori. The Blue Goose is freaked out because they've already invested a shitload of money in trying to get this place open (tip: never, ever buy your equipment first) and Montessori is standing directly between the restaurant and those 300 percent markups on liquor sales.
The local newspapers have gone out of their way to get the story wrong, or at least forgotten a small thing like fact checking. The students aren't gone by 3 p.m., for example. Evans may have put $1 million into tenant improvements of the Montessori building, but that comes back to him in a little thing called rent, as another example. And neither story noted the stop work/permit violation notice plastered to the future Blue Goose door. For more on that, read on.
The school had to battle to get a restriction placed on the liquor license that says no hard liquor sales until 5:30 p.m. And don't let anyone fool you--it was a battle. I seriously doubt any of our kids are going to get run over by a produce salesman on an afternoon bender, and Chuck thinks this is mostly a tempest in a tea pot. But given that Evans already has a stop work/permit violation notice on his door, a sign he's willing to ignore the law when it suits him, I feel better having the restriction in writing. He owns both buildings, he has a right to run a business and the school has the right, in accordance to its lease and generally accepted practices of running a school, to keep its students alive.
It could be a win-win situation. With booze.
The way the city works, though, the poor shmoes might never get open. But if they do, I plan on being there on opening day, ordering one of Todd's burgers and a martini.
But only after 5:30 p.m.
Yes, I still want to kill our architect, or at least kick him in the shins until he cries like a little girl. He neglected to put something on the second round of plans the city told him he needed after the first round; when Chuck told him he needed to get his act together, put a rush on it and that we wouldn't be paying for him to correct his own mistakes, he responded: "I don't work for you, I work for your contractor."
Oh yes he did.
Here's the thing: the city, the architect, the civil engineer and even Al the Contractor seem to exist in this alternate universe where time has no real meaning. What should take a week in the real world takes three weeks in Bizarro Building World. Chuck and I, on the other hand, live in Deadline World. He writes and implements code. If his code isn't perfect and the implementation flawless, portions of a Fortune 100 company stop functioning. I write news. If I don't, I lose my job.
Which leads me to the point of today's post, construction, the Blue Goose Bar & Grill and the Montessori Learning Center. Our youngest son is a student at Montessori. He's a 7th grader, a foot-and-a-half taller than his teacher, he's rocking the beginnings of a mustache and I know for certain he is the only student who walks to and from school. Shrug. When he lived in Berkeley, he took BART by himself and that was almost two years ago.
Montessori is kind of special snowflake land, but it works for us and has for 11 years. Both boys are Montessori kids.
The Montessori building, along with a former restaurant around the corner, are owned by the same guy, Chris Evans. I wouldn't know him if he stepped out in front of my Mini as I went screaming out of the parking lot at a high rate of speed. I don't know if he's a good guy, a bad guy or a neutral guy. No clue. But I know he is trying to open a new restaurant around the corner from the school and this means one thing for certain: he's got a masochistic streak a mile wide. Anyone who tries to get anything done in the city has a masochistic streak, but it's especially true if you're going into the food business.
Evans and his partners (I guy I do know and like quite a bit, Todd Fisher) are seeking a full liquor license for the place, which shares a parking lot with Montessori. The school is freaked out because they have visions of Blue Goose customers running down the little Sams and McKenzies and Ashleys and McKennas at Montessori. The Blue Goose is freaked out because they've already invested a shitload of money in trying to get this place open (tip: never, ever buy your equipment first) and Montessori is standing directly between the restaurant and those 300 percent markups on liquor sales.
The local newspapers have gone out of their way to get the story wrong, or at least forgotten a small thing like fact checking. The students aren't gone by 3 p.m., for example. Evans may have put $1 million into tenant improvements of the Montessori building, but that comes back to him in a little thing called rent, as another example. And neither story noted the stop work/permit violation notice plastered to the future Blue Goose door. For more on that, read on.
The school had to battle to get a restriction placed on the liquor license that says no hard liquor sales until 5:30 p.m. And don't let anyone fool you--it was a battle. I seriously doubt any of our kids are going to get run over by a produce salesman on an afternoon bender, and Chuck thinks this is mostly a tempest in a tea pot. But given that Evans already has a stop work/permit violation notice on his door, a sign he's willing to ignore the law when it suits him, I feel better having the restriction in writing. He owns both buildings, he has a right to run a business and the school has the right, in accordance to its lease and generally accepted practices of running a school, to keep its students alive.
It could be a win-win situation. With booze.
The way the city works, though, the poor shmoes might never get open. But if they do, I plan on being there on opening day, ordering one of Todd's burgers and a martini.
But only after 5:30 p.m.
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