Consolation, that’s a great house!
Success at the City!!!
Removing both decks from the plans won the battle! Yesterday afternoon I waited all afternoon to get my ‘change of scope’ entered into the system. I went early this morning and was able to walk through each review and get stamps on my plans. I have all disciplines signed off and approved. I now just have to sit patiently and wait for Historical Review to finish before I can pay an arm and a leg (School Fees !!!) to get the permit issued. But, as far as I’m concerned we can get started with some stuff - if we had any time to get started 
Now, I can focus back on my job as Purchasing Agent and start getting some stuff ordered like the windows, doors and the little garage door on front of house, oh and a million other things.
While sitting at the Planning Desk (which was a different guy) I explained my dilemma about the decks. He looked at the $3mil house and the other neighbors and researched… they didn’t have to go through all this nonsense to get that swimming pool, basketball court, entire regrading of slope. But, he said that if I can prove that the hill was graded by the original developer (in 1951) then I can do whatever I want on the slope.
I asked him… if a homeowner went to Home Depot and bought some plants and some of the low retaining blocks to create a garden…which does not require permits in any way, are they in trouble? Technically, yes. I asked… how are they supposed to know that the slope is ‘protected’? He said, they have no way of knowing… they have to come in and research. How many people go to the City and research something before they decide to do some gardening and paths??? Absolute nonsense
Wow. Planting a bush can lead to trouble - technically. Stuff you don’t know…
“There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know…”
Sounds like a permitting dept language
PROGRESS UPDATE
Roof still not complete - he still has a couple rows of shingles to finish. He could not finish on Sunday because a heavy downpour started
Tile installation in both bathrooms will be complete today. Hopefully I can take some pictures
Kitchen cabinet install complete. Spent a marathon amount of time at IKEA last night purchasing all the doors, panels, fillers, etc. We are going to hold off on installing all of those things until the floor gets installed
Countertop plywood installed so I can see a vision of the layout. I had the counter top guy scheduled to come measure for installation but realized… don’t have the quartz material picked out yet, don’t have a sink purchased yet for the cutout hole which he does in the shop, don’t have a cooktop yet for exact measurement of that run, AND I want a waterfall on both sides of the island and I realized that he cannot measure and cut for that without the new oak floors being installed. Also, cannot install all the cover panels and refrigerator side panel until floor gets in (I think). Ooops… it’s sounding like floor installation is becoming a huge priority.
But, it’s a chicken and egg thing. Cannot really install and finish the oak floors until we cut out the entire staircase area. Cannot cut out staircase area until we build the new concrete stem wall footing downstairs and get it inspected. And on and on and on
Meanwhile, I have two more plumbers coming for estimates on the sewage sump pump for downstairs bathroom because rough plumbing is one of the first things that have to be inspected.
I have another guy coming that I want to start leveling out some dirt in the back so that we can safely get some scaffolding up for exterior painting and replacing railing on upper deck
Finally, one of our flip CCers sent me a PM with a reference for a landscape designer. I contacted him and he is coming over later this week to give me an estimate on preparing a plan for the front of the house. He started explaining all these documents and blueprints he would create and I said… way too much, I just need a couple of drawings. It’s probably time to get the cage off the front of the house so we can start working on curb appeal design.
My agent wants me to hold off on ordering the expensive aluminum/frosted glass garage door for a bit. She thinks that $2,500 might be more than I should spend for the small garage door, and it may not be the right thing for the buyer market. So, that is on hold but I know that it is a 4-6 week lead time so I need to make up my mind pretty soon.
Thank you dfin2013 for the referral
Pretty cool, cb! Can’t wait for the pix of the tile work.
We just discovered Walter Anderson Nursery yesterday - what a delightful place to walk around! http://www.walterandersen.com/ Finally bought myself a Bird of Paradise plant, one of my San Diego goals. I noticed they have referrals for landscape designers that used to be on their staff when they did design services. Maybe they could do a less formal curb design proposal?
The landscape designer guy should have an opinion on the garage door.
Yes, I am going to wait for landscape designer to visit next week before I make a final decision on the garage door.
Exciting to hear that bath tile is almost done!
Hall bathroom tile complete and grouted. It looks kind of plain but I was shooting for bright and light and we got there. It is amazing how much light is coming into the bathroom with the Solar Tube.
Master bathroom tile complete and, of course, he is short one floor tile. Did he mention that yesterday when I asked him for the tenth time… “Have you got all the tile you need for everything?”. I have been back to the tile store at least 3 times to get just ‘five more pieces’. He texts me at 1:30pm while I was out somewhere… he needs 1 more piece of floor tile. Rush over to Lowe’s to get that one piece. Arrive at 2pm and he tells me “Oh, I made a bad cut, we are going to need one more piece”. Arggghhh!
So I told him my carpenter will get that final corner piece in, please just finish so it can get grouted.
I loaded a couple of poor quality pictures, and a picture of the kitchen installation and the giant island
Coralbrook, the Master Bath shower looks fantastic! I love the accent tile.
The other shower looks great also. Great progress!
I can envision someone hanging some long, thin striking object or artwork on the side of the post that faces the LR.
Love the tile work!
Very nice, cb!
When/If you have the house staged, tell your stagers to do this.
Looking good! I especially like the tile work in the master bath.
Today is another glamorous day.
We have been without a toilet in the hall bath for 3 days now. This involves ‘La Dona’ (that is what they call me, don’t know where it came from… means ‘lady of the ranch’) having to rush off to Home Depot or Jack in the Box to go to the bathroom!!! I don’t even ask where the guys go to the bathroom, I don’t want to know. Just as long as it’s not underneath the house Today we should be able to mount the toilet in hall bath.
It is inevitable. We have mounds of trash again, especially dozens of empty IKEA cabinet boxes. I am doomed to at least two trips to the dump today in my truck.
I put the old electric stove and dishwasher up on Craigslist for free. I was not successful at trying to sell the stove for $75 last week. Now I have at least 10 people calling and texting to come get stove, but for some reason no one wants the dishwasher, which is actually newer and nicer ??? Of course, the first people didn’t show up yesterday so I had to contact the next group of people. We will see if we can get that monster out of the garage today. May have to haul the dishwasher to the special appliance graveyard up in Miramar, cannot take it any other place. Then I have to pay $12 to dump it there. My carpenter just laughs and says I am wasting my time trying to manage all these people who want to come get these things - he says just take them to the dump. But, I cannot do that. They work fine and are very clean from prior owner getting them cleaned up to sell the house. Someone out there needs a stove and dishwasher!!
I have a young kid (well, they are young kids to me, college graduate with no work) coming and we are going to start taking off the cage around the house today
So today is finish the grout in master bath and a lot of basic cleaning up.
Coralbrook, you are planning to try and keep the panels of the cage intact so you can repurpose them as parts of a fence somewhere on steep driveway, correct? Good luck and I hope the work isn’t too onerous.
I actually think the cage is kind of cool looking. Will be interesting to see how it looks without it