Hi Everyone…

Well, first apologies for the rediculous amount of time since the last update.  Between our nearly three-week vacation to Portugal, a couple of conferences and other work-related intensiveness, and then the holidays, our anniversary and both of our birthdays, we’ve barely had time to do anything house related.  Architect and designer Craig Lennox, on the other hand, has had plenty of time and took care of a few things.

First of all, in redesigning the house to fit our needs we decided to do something novel: follow the zoning rules.  Turns out the city doesn’t put people through zoning approval hearing hell if you follow the zoning rules in the first place.  In our case, the big issue was the widening of the rear of the house from the original 12 1/2 feet to the actual almost 16′ that our lot accomodates.  Because the house, including the various additions added over the years, was built all the way back to the property line there was very little space on the lot that was open to the sky.  In our plan we actually take away a huge amount of building area and replace it with a nice, deep rear yard – bringing the house back into near-perfect compliance with the zoning rules that require that “open to the sky” space.  To make up for the space we lost on the first floor, we widened the house and built back on the third floor and have almost as much square footage as we started with.  Craig drew up zoning plans, filed for the zoning approval and, because we were building in compliance with the rules, it was granted.

Next up – the building permits.  Again, it took longer than I would have liked, but the permits finally arrived.  More detailed plans were required of course, but we needed those anyway to start constructing.  Everything seems to be in order according to our structural engineer and the first contacts with the local inspector went nicely.  The permits were granted (and darn expensive too), but it was the most wonderful $650-something check I’ve ever written.  Woo hoo.

More details on the work that’s underway, and info on the planned look of the back of the house, hopefully tonight when I get some time to sit down and write more… We’ve ordered some amazing windows and sliding glass door for the rear that I can’t wait to write about.  In the mean time, I’ll leave you with some pictures from the rear structure demolition that I took in the last two days.

Talk to you soon….

   

The pile of bricks from the old wall in the narrow portion of the house. The good bricks will be picked out of the pile and re-used in the back yard as pavers, bricks to cover up otherwise ugly adjacent walls and other decorative uses.

One of the workers, just before the wall was taken down.

A view looking forward (north) from the back of the house. This part is staying and the three-story addition will be tacked on to the back of this structure.

A chunk of wall dropping. If you look carefully you can see the pole the worker used to push it down after cutting it.

Looking towards the rear. A nice view of the place in the house, about 25′ in from the front of the house, where the house narrows (or used to).

Looking towards the rear of the house, the masonry demo crew removing the west wall where the house will be made wider.