I have been so stressed following this flip! What a relief that setbacks are being resolved at long last. You certainly have a high stress threshold. I would have had a nervous breakdown if I were in your shoes, CB.
I’m having a glass of wine to celebrate your successful day.
I am convinced that sitting there Every Day for a week finally got something done. If I had waited politely for a response to my email request or voice messages (politely asking for a recheck appt) I’d still be waiting. It’s very difficult when you have no control over your own destiny but you are bleeding money daily. Very very stressful
As my grandpa used to say, when dealing with red tape, every piece of paper needs a pair of legs! Kudos to CB’s major arse-kicking legs. 
PERMIT COSTS
I just finished catching up on my accounting for the last couple of weeks. Here are the final costs to pull permits
Electrical Permit - new 200 amp main and rewire existing house. This permit was probably not really needed because it could of been rolled into the big addition permit. But, the wiring in house was very unsafe and we needed to pull it out and get some new outlets into the house for power tools and lighting. Didn’t want to do the work without a permit because I knew we were getting permits later and building inspectors would be in the house. No city parking fees or drawings associated with this permit because I was able to go into a regional office and pull the permit over the counter.
No Plan Permit Fee $419
Window Permit - we pulled this permit solely because we needed to push something through the system to determine if the house was going to be deemed ‘Historical’ by the City. We needed to know that before we could make decision on 2nd story and it’s design. The cost of this permit is ridiculous. I cannot imagine that anyone would want to spend this amount of money to replace windows. The cost was $179 per window to get a permit.
Land Survey $550
Drawings $400
Records and Copies $64.63
City Parking $30
Title 24 Review 175
Permit Fee $1609
Addition Permit
Drafting $200
Drafting and Engineering $8000
Title 24 Review $315
City Parking $62
Plan Copies $112.18
Permit Fees $4661
School District Fee $3824
Recycling Bond $1000
TOTAL SPENT TO DATE ON PERMITS $21,421.81
OMG. And that does not include your carrying costs!!!
Holy moley
I get that some of the $8K of “drafting and engineering” was permit-related, but weren’t you going to have the 2nd floor addition engineered anyway? Or would you have tried to do that on your own?
Those permit costs are insane! Holy moley is right!
I’m late to the thread, but congrats on slogging through and getting the permits. Now the fun can begin.
The engineering $8,000 includes the drafting and prep of the plans for submission and all corrections made.
^^^^ LOT cheaper than building a new house. In my project, the water connections are limited/allotted and no longer being granted by the city, you need to buy/bid water connections on the open market from whoever has it. Each connection is costing $65,000 EACH on the open market and we have 42 to go.
Passed first major inspection!! He was mostly concerned that deck footings/deck cannot encroach into setback of 5’6" from western property line
Big concrete pour for deck footings, structural footings in old basement and garage and retaining wall on eastern side of new garage and driveway
cb, now that you’ve got the permit business nailed down ( =D> ), do you have any idea how long it’s going to take you to finish the house and get it on the market? Just wondering.
My best guess right now is
1 week deck and garage/ basement structural
4 weeks framing exterior walls, floors and ceiling joists and setting roof trusses
2 weeks interior framing, plumbing and electrical
2 weeks insulation and drywall
2 weeks flooring
4 weeks kitchen and finishes
If lucky…4 months. A lot of stuff can go simultaneously
Congratulations and a can of WD40 (for the squeaky wheel) to Coralbrook! I’m really looking forward to watching this house come to life with your vision.
Today was glorious! besides passing inspection, my carpenter put up the thick versalam beams and headers and opened up all the walls between front door and living room views. These are the entry wall, dining room wall and wall between dining room and living room (which was completely closed off)
Finally, the vision is getting clear. As you walk into the front door there is an unobstructed eyeball straight to the ocean view out the living room windows. I noticed that I no longer look straight ahead at the giant neighbor wall out the dining room window (which is now obscured with swaying palm fronds). Eye travels to the left immediately to the views out the windows.
And, we finished putting in all the fixtures in the hall bathroom and I pulled everything out and cleaned it really well. It is ready to show to potential buyers AND the women’s restroom now has running water to wash my hands!
I loaded up some photos to the Flickr group. The walls will look a little messy in the photos because they haven’t been cleaned up and we have to pass framing inspection before we can button them up with drywall. Unfortunately we had to tear out part of the beautiful coved ceilings to get the beams set up. But, we are becoming very good and repairing the coved ceilings
cb, where did you get that “Hall bath linen closet install”, in the third-to-the-last photo? I’m looking for something like that.
Looks great! I love the openness.
I had to make a choice on that. I was looking at full size kitchen cabinets to try to install in that little alcove. The cost was going to be about $800 to buy two kitchen cabinets and get them installed. Was going to stack two standard base cabinets on top of each other, but it would have required some carpentry, etc. Also, the width of the area is 27" and standard cabinets only come in 24" wide or 30" wide. It would have required a lot of trim on both sides to set them in there
I came across this linen cabinet on the Home Depot website. Hampton Bay Home Decorator’s collection for only $349 (and then applied one of my 10% coupons) and it was just the right width for the space. I thought it was a no brainer to just stick that in the hole. It comes like IKEA stuff in two heavy flat packages and some assembly required. After installing it I realized that it is way too shallow for the space, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now 
It’s not like there is any shortage of storage in this house.
Wow! It is really looking great!!
Slide it out from the wall 6" or so. No one will even notice and it will fill the space better.