For those joining late in the program, (or who are too exhausted to read the entire Cats page), a synopsis might be in order. Shortly after we started the project in November, the demolition guys knocked loose the crawl space cover, which allowed the nearly forty cats that the next door neighbor, Roberta, feeds and nurtures access to the crawl space under the house. I put the cover back on. She took it back off. We had words. I wrote my councilman. I described the situation, and specifically asked for an ordinance that would limit the number of cats a person could own. That's all I asked for. Nothing else.
Months went by and I heard nothing. I finally called councilman lingner's office and asked what was being done about my letter. It had been passed to Neighborhood Services. They called me. They had a lot of questions about odors. I in turn asked questions about ordinances regulating how many cats a person could have; they pled ignorance about ordinances.
An inspector came to Roberta's house and checked out the cat pen. She found that it stank, and told Roberta to clean it up. She did. The inspector called me and reported this development. Then another inspector went out. She called me to report that the pen was clean. During our conversation, she told me that she was there on the complaint about Roberta's carport: that it violated setback ordinances, and that she looked at the cat pen in conjunction with the setback complaint. The posts for the carport were on or near the property line, rather than the three feet back they should be. I asked her about this, and she said somebody must have complained, and that there would be a variance hearing.
I was stunned by this. Her carport on my property sounds like it was me that complained. Who else would complain about something like this? Who else is harmed? Me! WRONG. I absolutely hadn't complained. The carport was there when I bought the house. It was there when Gina and Charlie bought the house. Prior to demolishing my carport, my posts were also on the property line. Why should I complain? My only complaint was with the cats.
By the end of February, two inspectors had been at the house and the situation was under control, or so I thought. The smell was gone. The cat poop at the back of the yard was gone. Roberta and I were speaking again, and cordially.
Now it's Week Twenty. I pulled up in the alley Tuesday afternoon and immediately noticed something was amiss. Roberta's carport was gone.
I spoke with Chris, who told me that the "city made her tear it down."
I don't know what to say. (And that's quite an admission, for someone with 20 Megs of web space.)
I asked for the cats to go away, and instead the city makes her tear down her carport. This is idiocy. I don't know who's running against Lingner in the next election--it could be the love child of Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler--I'd vote for him/her instead of Lingner. [ed. note: spell check has no problems with S.H.'s name, but it chokes on "Adolf." I love microsoft. Oh, spell check also chokes on the fact that I didn't capitalize the name of bill gates' company!] Lingner is an idiot and deserves to be gone. I will post either the letter I send to Lingner's office or the abstract of our phone conversation. And if he sends me a letter back, which he won't, that'll be here, too.
Stunned. Amazed. Shock. Awe.
Flash back to February. The chick from Neighborhood Services told me Roberta would have to apply for a variance. Okay. The carport is on our joint property line. I would be the person from whom the variance is sought. I was never notified of anything. I just show up one day and the carport's gone.
Stupidity.
Do me a favor. Call Lingner's office and ask the question: "Why did you make Roberta tear down her carport, but you won't make the cats go away." Let me know what they say and I'll post it here.
Lingner's number: 602-262-7492
And if you don't feel like calling Lingner, call the baseball hall of fame and
ask them why they bagged the whole "Bull Durham" fifteenth anniversary
celebration, just because Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have opinions.
607-547-0215. You'll probably go straight to voice mail. I did.
The electricians have been working all week. Roofers are working. The HVAC guys are working.
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First things first. The inspector came back out and approved
the fact that we now had legible plans. I personally don't think he needed plans to
see that the Oriented Strand Board (OSB) was in place and ready for
stucco. The notice says that the windows need to be sealed and that we
need attic ventilation by the next inspection.
Mark thinks this guy's a knucklehead. I wouldn't put it past him to be the one who turned Roberta in. |
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Here's the attic ventilation, not yet installed. I had some pictures of the ventilation holes, but there wasn't enough perspective on where they were located, so they're not here, yet. I'll use the wide angle lens and get a shot and slam it up here. |
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The electricians were out, in force, this week. By Thursday,
the addition had been wired, and they were on their way into the old
house.
This is the Master Bath, downstairs. |
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These are half of the lights in the Master Bedroom. Bob, the
architect, described the lighting layout while he was designing it as the, "Feng
Shui circle of lights." It'll be hooked to a cute little romantic
dimmer switch. Bob also asked if the switch should be hooked to a stereo
that's pre-programmed to play Barry White.
"Ohhhh, love to love you, Baby." |
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And what will perfectly complement Barry White music and
mood lighting? A perfect glass of wine. I suggest Toasted Head
Chardonnay. Perfectly chilled in a little refrigerator.
We bought this fine Vinotemp refrigerator/cellar at Costco last weekend. It will be built into the wine cellar after we move in. We also bought a refrigerator for the barbeque island. (Not Pictured. It's still in the box, sitting by the front door. We were too lazy to move it into the garage.) Update: Mom and Dad called and said they're coming to visit tomorrow, so it's been moved into the garage. The Vinotemp was a cool toy, though, and had to be pulled out of the box immediately. |
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This is next to the side door, off the carport. This will be
our primary entry and exit point for the house. We have been talking about
getting an alarm system installed. This is where the keypad will go.
I met with guys from three different companies. The first seemed pretty reasonable and gave us a bid of about $1800 to wire the house for an alarm system. The second guy gave us a bid of about $700. The third guy gave us a bid of over $3000. "Three Grand!" As Evan Mecham once said, my "eyes got round" when that bid came off the fax. I looked at it later, though, and saw that the third guy included two years of monitoring in the installation price. Slide that out and he's only a few hundred buck higher than the first guy. I liked the third guy because he was the only one who recognized that the windows were double hung, and would have to be differently wired. Neither of us liked the second guy, so he's out by default. We have to make a decision after the electricians are done, but before the drywall guys come in. |
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I wandered into the kitchen and found this stub of a wall.
It has to go. I talked to Mark about it and he said the plans showed it.
The Plans. Two years ago, Bob came out and measured the house. I think that he had the same difficulty with the water heater closet that I had when attempting to measure for cabinets. It was hard to measure around and through it. Consequently, the measurements were off a bit, and this wall magically appeared on the plans, then into the kitchen. It's coming out, though, and soon. If it stays, we'll have about a twelve inch opening between the end of the peninsula counter and the wall. Twelve inches! I have back fat, and can't squeeze through an opening that small. This hint of a wall has to come out. And speaking of back fat, Leisa and I went to Gallagher's for a beer after we went to the tanning salon Thursday evening. (I know it's fruity, but Leisa wants me to look tan for photos in May.) Leisa noticed that the guy on the stool next to us had "neck fat." His head was shaved, and he had a roll of fat at the top of his neck. I'm going to move beyond back fat, gain seventy pounds, and have neck fat! And a cute little tan! |
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Okay, now we're totally changing locations.
Here's a shot of the attic. You can kind of see the openings where the dormer vents will go, off to the left. Mark knocked an access way into the old attic. The HVAC guys are taking advantage of it. |
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And since I'm up in the attic, let me provide pictures of
last week's plumbing adventure.
The rectangular framing at the bottom of the shot is where the attic staircase will go. Now direct your attention to the black plumbing fixture. It is ready to head straight across the stairway opening. |
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We're now looking in the other direction. See the hole drilled
in the wood? Top of the picture, center. That will receive the vent pipe blocking access to the
stairs.
The electricians recognized the staircase from the plans, and wired a light switch at the top of the stairs. (Blue box.) The plumber, on the other hand... I don't want to complain too much, though. The City might make someone else tear down their carport.
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This is a new shot. We haven't seen pictures of the roof
before. I heard guys up here, banging away, earlier in the week, so I
figured I should check out what they were doing.
The plans call for a foam roof, yet this looks like rolled asphalt. Hmmmmmm. As I said, after the cats, I'm afraid to mention anything. As long as it doesn't leak, I'm cool with asphalt. |
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Friday morning the guys had moved off the flat part and up
onto the scary steep part of the roof. This is an action shot of them
actually shingling the roof!
We were there to meet the chick from APS to talk about burying the electrical service coming into the house. She approved it. |
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Four months ago, there was a ten-foot high pile of dirt here. Nine months ago, there was a worthless tree here. I tried cutting it down and burning the stump. Here it is, popping up again, though. This will be dealt with in the landscaping phase of the project. Unless the power conduit goes through here, and it's churned up by the trencher. |
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This is a bizarre and unnerving shot. By the end of the
week, the furnace was gone. There was a hole between the kitchen and
living room. My mind has trouble processing it. I look at the space where
I'm used to seeing the furnace grill. My mind doesn't accept that there's a
hole in the wall, it thinks it's a mirror--what I'm seeing shouldn't be
there, so it must be behind me, instead.
I won't miss the furnace in the least. It kept the living room super hot, but the bedroom never rose above cool, at best. And I had two electric space heaters in the back room, which received no heat at all. The back room had a concrete floor, which meant that if I was barefoot, which I usually prefer to be, my feet froze while my upper body froze less. And every once in a while, two space heaters would trip the ancient circuit breaker. When the house was new, this furnace might have been bleeding edge technology. Over the years, though, it's less and less good. I don't understand how people can survive with no heat anywhere in the house but the living room. But these are the same hardy souls who used to hang wet sheets over the windows at night to make their own evaporative cooling. And who moved four people into a 700 square foot, two bedroom house. No wonder the marriage ended in divorce. I see what Justin and Brittany are like in an 1800 square foot house; what would they be like in a tiny place like the original house. |
| And since we're talking about Justin, how about a Justin
Report.
He's going to school, although not as much as he should. He's decided he wants to grow his hair out and needs to "train" it, so he's adopted a fruity looking piece of panty hose that he's wearing on his head. If he would pull it down to just above his lip, he'd look like the Tooth Fairy in "Manhunter." |
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| We had an interesting chat with Mark on Friday afternoon about a possible design change. It will be very cool if we do it. Watch this space. | |
