The Walls are Up!

The sheet rockers are nearly finished. Above is a picture of the MIL apartment living room from the dining area.















Another picture of the downstairs living room and dining room, this time from the front door.














Above is a picture of the dining room and kitchen; the darker coloring in areas is because they haven't dried completely yet.














Upstairs dining room this time from the kitchen.

Insulation Pictures

Sam and I stopped by the house after work today to check out the sheetrock and siding, and it was very exciting. Looking like a real house! And a new house, to boot, rather than an old house with new stuff in it. Unfortunately, coming right from work, I didn't have my camera on me, so I can't share just yet. However, here are some insulation pix to whet your appetite.

Living room, in all its Pepto-Bismol glory:


Bonus room, really starting to feel like a room at this point:


Basement living room:


And finally, one of the MIL bedrooms, also showing the new windows that Ben cut out:

The Whole Story

I don't think Sam really did the whole ADU permit ordeal justice, so I'll try to fill in some details. Not too much, mind you, since I've been spending way too much time lately staring at a computer.

Basically, this whole issue starts way back before we even bought the house. In order for the bank to sign off on our loan, we had to provide a renovation permit. And in order for us to get a construction permit, we had to show Seattle's Dept. of Planning and Development our renovation plans. This meant drawing up the house layout as it was ("the original"), and how we planned to change it ("the renovation").

When Ben drew up the plans for the original, they very clearly showed that there was already a MIL apartment in the basement -- kitchen and all. And when he drew up plans for the renovation, that kitchen was still there. DPD permitted our renovation, allowing us to go through the rest of the loan process and start the laborious rehab project that you've had the pleasure of following here on The Bagley Project.

During our first framing inspection, however, Ben found out that we were short a few permits, including one for our Accessory Dwelling Unit (the MIL). If DPD had done their due diligence back in June when we were first requesting our renovation permit, they would've known back then that the previous owner never got the necessary permits for his MIL apartment. Then they would've informed us of the need for this permit. Then they would've looked over our permit application and informed us that the ADU couldn't be approved because we lacked off-street parking for the main house, let alone the ADU. Then they would've told us that that the ADU had to be converted back into a garage in order for the house to be in full compliance. Then we wouldn't have bought the house, and we wouldn't have dumped thousands and thousands of dollars into a renovation.

But they didn't. And they didn't. And they didn't. And they didn't. So we did, and we did.

So obviously we were NOT amused when DPD realized they made a mistake and tried to tell us -- $60K in -- that we would have to turn the MIL back into a garage.

I DON'T THINK SO.

So Ben and Sam told the lady at the DPD as nicely as possible that that just wasn't going to happen. That it was their oversight that led to this mess, and that we weren't about to throw $60K down the drain just because they don't double-check their work.

Apparently this woman at the DPD took the boys very, very seriously, and sent our case directly to the department's top lawyers. Who knows what happened then, but some time later -- as Sam mentioned -- we finally found out that the lawyers agreed we should be granted an exemption from the off-street parking rule. And there was great rejoicing.

Good thing the lawyers sided with us, because otherwise we would've had to hire some lawyers of our own, and honestly, who has the energy to deal with all that?

So that's pretty much the story. As Sam mentioned, insulation is all in now, and we have pix to prove it. I'll try to upload these tomorrow. Meanwhile, Ben reports that the sheetrockers were working until 9pm today, trying to finish the entire upstairs. Ben also reports that he's put up the siding on the front of the house and about half of one of the sides. I can't wait to get over there to take a gander.

Plans and Permit in Hand

You know that relieved feeling you have when you almost tip over (perhaps in a chair, or a ladder) then catch yourself? That's the sense I had last Thursday when the e-mail came in saying the Accessory Dwelling Unit permit was approved.

From then, it took a week before I finally had the permit and revised plans in hand, so just for that yesterday was a very good day. Beyond that, this week has seen some very impressive results. On Tuesday we passed the Electrical, Plumbing, and Natural Gas inspections. Wednesday we passed the Framing inspection and today we have the final insulation going in, yet have already passed the Insulation inspection. Next week: sheet rock and siding!

We'll try to get some pictures either today or tomorrow of the walls now that they're filled in with insulation.

Can You Spot the Difference?

Work continues on the city inspector's to-do list. Ben has already rebuilt the stairs, which look oddly like the stairs he built originally. See if you can tell what changed.

New stairs:


Original stairs:


Give up? The platform at the top is slightly smaller now, and the turn is a little more gracious on big feet.

Additionally, Sam and I went through the house and shot flame retardant foam into every little hole through every stud. Apparently this buys you a few extra minutes in the event of a fire. Apparently the "very sticky" warnings are also worth following; Sam and I both have a thin but rough layer of this stuff on our hands, which Ben says will stick around for at least a few days.


The last big thing on Ben's list is to finish digging out the basement windows. We finished moving the electrical wires, which used to run just below the bedroom windows. All of the wires connecting to the main floor now sit above the windows, while all of the wires that are strictly for the MIL apartment run a few feet below the windows.


Sam and Ben finished digging out the holes outside the windows this afternoon. As you can see, they basically take up the entire walkway leading to the backyard. We're thinking of rerouting the path to the other side of the porch to compensate.


Ben then rented a concrete saw from Home Depot and started cutting through the foundation. The windows are going to be huge -- 4' x 4' -- probably too big for the MIL bedrooms, but Seattle code necessitates this disproportion. Ben cut through the foundation as far as he could and then took a sledge hammer to it. He managed to get a little bit of the foundation out -- I guess enough to give hope that he's on the right track, but not enough to finish the job today. Ben's hoping he can finish the rest tomorrow, but I guess we'll just have to see how that goes.

Ben and Sam also installed our new front door last week. This wasn't on the inspector's to-do list, but it was time well spent. What a good looking door, eh?

Setback

Well, we've been thrown off track a bit after the city inspector came on Thursday and found that much of the work was up to Bellingham but not Seattle code. Some of the changes are relatively minor -- for example, we need to fill every hole in every stud with a flame retardant -- while others are a pretty big deal.

Sounds like the two biggest problems are the stairs to the loft and the windows in the MIL bedrooms. Ben needs to rip out the stairs and rebuild them because they are too narrow in parts (where the staircase turns a corner). He also needs to make the bedroom egress windows taller, which means taking out a chunk of the foundation. This, in turn, means moving a bunch of the electrical downstairs, since most of the wires are currently running just under those bedroom windows.

Of course, this pushes all of the other work back. We were planning on having the insulators come in Friday and the sheetrockers start next week. Hopefully these fixes won't set us back more than a week, but I must admit the news is quite daunting.

The Smallest Sink You've Ever Seen (and Other Fixtures)

Here's the sink we ordered for our half bathroom. Isn't it adorable?


Here's our jetted tub, at home in the master bathroom.


Take a gander:


And here's the tub and surround for the second upstairs bathroom:

More Electrical

We decided to put a second breaker box in the basement, and all the basement is wired through that. This way, if we decide in the future to separate out power bills from the renters', we can. The breaker box is in one of the bedrooms, next to the closet.

Window Pictures

Pictures of some of our new windows, which Ben and Sam spent an entire day installing last week.

Picture window next to the main entrance:


Picture window next to the MIL entrance:


The view from the second bedroom upstairs (looks into the backyard; you can see the shed out there):


And the view from the master bedroom (looks toward the townhomes):


The boys also got all the basement windows in, but I don't have any pictures of these yet. They will have pretty deep window sills, which should be nice.

More Basement Framing

It's kind of hard to see what's what when you're just looking at framing, but here's the basement, basically all framed out. You can see the entrance at the far end of the room (and the new picture window right next to the door). The bedrooms are on the left side of the picture. The closet for the closer bedroom juts out into the common living area because there wasn't quite enough room for it in the room itself.


Here's a picture of the entrance, which now has a little coat closet (on the right in the picture -- sorry, it's dark and blurry):


This picture looks into the doorways for the bathroom (on the left) and one of the bedrooms (on the right). Like I said, it's hard to make out what's what, but I promise it makes sense.

Black Lungs

It's been another not-so-relaxing weekend for The Bagley Project. Between work work and house work, Sam and I haven't had much time to just unwind. But hey, I suppose we can unwind in November, eh?

Things are really ramping up on the house, though Ben worries that we're a bit behind schedule. We were originally hoping to move in at the end of this month, but now it looks like I'll be keeping my apartment until the end of November. Between now and then, here's what needs to be done: (1) finish electrical (hopefully within the next few days -- almost there), (2) get a city inspector to come look at the plumbing/heating/electrical/framing, (3) insulation (sub-contractors are scheduled to come in next week), (4) get another inspection for insulation, (5) sheet rock (sub-contractors can hopefully start Friday, but that may be optimistic), (6) lots of other crap.

Sam and I spent much of the weekend cleaning the house and breathing in tons of dust. I feel like my nose and throat are coated with a fine layer of soot. We also had to move a lot of crap into the shed to make way for the sheetrockers. Apparently they won't work if there's anything on the floor because -- get this -- they walk around on stilts. Stilts! It's like a circus and a work site all in one. In any case, carrying around box upon box of nails really makes you realize how many stairs are in the house. Also makes you wonder how many boxes of nails one person really needs.

Sam also spent time banging metal plates into the studs so that the sheetrockers don't accidentally pierce our new electrical wires. That would indeed be a bad thing. Meanwhile, Ben is basically done with framing. In fact, I think BJ (the FHA inspector) qualified the framing as 100% done. I believe he also gave Ben the rest of the plumbing/heating money, and $ for the windows. Sorry I can't be more specific; I haven't really been involved in any of that. I honestly don't know what else Ben's been working on, but I'm sure it's something important.

Okay, I'm going to start a new post to get some pictures up, so that's all for now.

Rusted Pokey Things - 3; Sam - 0

It turns out that, if given the choice between driving a nail through the fleshy part of one's hand or doing the same with a screw, my recommendation would be the nail. This is likely a decision that I could have been able to come to a priori, but I can now - with little satisfaction in the knowing - say with first hand experience (I pause for the collective groan from the bad pun).

I took most of the day off today to work with Ben on the house. My first thought was that I would work this morning at Tully's, then meet Ben around noon to help around the house. After seeing the sunny weather this morning, and given the forecast called for rain, I chose to postpone the work work for house work.

Although we had fairly large plans for the day, we ended an 11 hour workday having installed all the windows both upstairs and down. They look very good. The amount of light that comes into the basement once you take all the boards off is quite amazing. The problem was that all of the holes were different measurements on the outside compared to the inside (in other words, in the 6-10 inches of wall the hole changed size). This caused Ben a lot of consternation and made both of us spend far too much time trying to place the windows. However, in the end we set 8 windows in the MIL basement apartment, 4 windows on the first floor (the others had already been finished), and the three windows at the loft height.

Tomorrow is back to more electrical. We have another draw inspection scheduled for Thursday, and hope to have most of the electrical completed by the end of this weekend.

My hand is in a little too much pain to continue typing, so I'm going to leave it there for the night...

Let There Be Dark - Updated with Pictures

Blog updates are not coming easily, as I've been finding it very difficult to stare at a computer all day at work only to come home and do it some more. So here's a rush description of what's been happening since I last wrote:

-- Wiring: Over the weekend we shut off the power and ripped out all the old wires and outlet boxes to make way for the new ones. This was much harder than I thought it would be. My stupid, weak forearms couldn't even cut through most of the wires, leaving Sam to do all this work and develop a big finger blister in the process. This weekend, we also got a lot of the new wires strung in the basement and in part of the main house, but there's still lots to do there. Lots and lots.

UPDATE: Got more wires out, put some home runs in. Most of the electrical in the basement is done now. Can lights are also in throughout the house. The pix below are about a week old, so things are already looking much different. I promise I will update as soon as I have more time!

Breaker box in the living room:


Wires running along basement wall:


Can lights in the loft:


-- Roof: The roof is finally done! Pictures to come for this and all the updates below. (Check back to this same post. I'll probably just put the pictures up here rather than starting a new post for them. Just don't have the patience to wait for them to upload right now.)

UPDATED WITH PICTURES:

View from below (from the loft):


View from above:


-- Plumbing/heating: These are also done! The poor sub-contractor, Martin, apparently thinks the house is cursed, as anything that could go wrong did. He had to make a bunch of extra trips out to the house -- no small feat, since he lives a couple hours away (up near Bellingham).

UPDATED WITH ONE MORE PICTURE:

Our furnace, which sits in the loft but will be behind a wall:


-- Windows: Our windows came in, and Ben and Sam started installing them on Friday. Unfortunately, part of the order was wrong -- a few windows were frosted when they shouldn't have been. Ben and Sam decided to install a frosted window in the living room, which I think looks odd. So it looks like that one's coming out and we'll have to wait for a new window to be made. A few of the windows -- for the dining and living rooms -- are huge. I didn't really appreciate how huge until I saw them sitting in the basement, waiting to be installed. Luckily, Sam's dad and Uncle Chris were both in town on Sunday and were able to help lift those windows into place. This was a much more laborious process than anyone anticipated because, as it turns out, all the old window frames are parallelograms instead of rectangles. Ben had to do quite a bit of improvising to get them in. But they're in and look great!

UPDATED WITH PICTURES:

One of our huge windows (this one's in the dining room):


Frosted window in the living room (picture quality isn't adequately conveying why I don't like this):


More windows lined up against the wall, waiting to be installed (including our beautiful picture window, at back, that will go at the front of the MIL apartment):


-- Lighting: We had a long discussion about the lights in the living room; because the ceiling is shallower than normal, we can't put in normal can lights. We're checking to see if we can get little LEDs instead. Additionally, we had to figure out where we wanted a TV so that we could figure out where to put sconce lights. Then there was another long discussion about where to put the switches for all those lights. Hard to keep it all straight. In the end, though, I think we decided that there would be seven LEDs lighting the living room and stairs, two sconces over the fireplace (those were there previously), a sconce between the large front window and the entry door, a sconce between the door and the stairs, and a fan/light in the ceiling.

-- Framing: Ben will probably finish framing everything this week. The basement looks like it's about halfway done.

UPDATE: I have a picture posted below, but the basement looks much, much different by now. Biggest change is that Ben has now framed out the two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms' closets will need to stick out into the living room a couple of feet because it wouldn't fit with a queen bed in the bedroom. We could either put in a tiny closet instead (three feet across?) or just steal a little room from the living room. Hope we made the right decision.

Framed out south wall of the MIL:


-- Final dumpster: We filled our fifth -- and hopefully last -- dumpster, which should be hauled off soon. On a somewhat related note, we decided to pull our garbage, yard waste and recycling bins up onto the porch for now, since rude people keep using our garbage cans for their overflow garbage. Not happy about that, but don't want to go into it right now.

Plumbing and Heating Pictures

UPDATE: Apparently those aren't hoses. They're flexible pipes, which is what all the fancy people are using these days. They expand better than rigid pipes, which means there's a smaller chance of having a pipe burst in the winter.

****

To be honest, I don't really understand all of what the plumbers and heat guys have been doing. Hopefully you've gotten some sense of the progress there from previous posts. This post is just to show you the pretty pictures.

Here's our water heater. It heats water for the entire house. See how tiny it is? I think I've seen burrito platters bigger than that. The water heater sits in the laundry closet upstairs. As you can see, we also have a heat vent going through that closet. This means we need to get a stackable washer and dryer if we want to maintain any storage space at all. Fortunately, it looks like you can get some pretty nice stackers over at Home Depot.


Ben showed us these hoses (is that even the right term?) to explain why we were going to have killer water pressure for our showers. Apparently the vertical hoses in the picture are bigger than normal, while the horizontal hoses coming out of them (and leading to the bathroom) are standard size. This creates a bottleneck of sorts, and increases the water pressure going into the bathroom.


There's really no point to this picture, except to say that it sure is nice to have shiny new things every once in a while.


And this picture isn't really about heating/plumbing, though you can see where we'll have a vent that helps in the whole process of pumping cool air from the basement and putting it into the main floor. (It's not quite air conditioning, but should be nice in the summers.) Instead, this picture is really about showing you our beautiful new stairs leading up to the bonus loft. I realized that I didn't have a very good picture posted of these yet.


Ah, what a feast for the eyes.

MIL Updates

Ben did most of the demo on the MIL apartment himself, while the rest of us were struggling upstairs. That's right. Sam + Cindy + Patrick + Craig + Sean + Elizabeth = 0.5(Ben). I don't know how to put in a less-than-or-equal-to sign, or that's what I would've used instead.

Picture below looks from the MIL entrance toward the back of the apartment. The living area still looks like one long room (and will remain so). On the right is where the bedrooms will be.


The kitchen (not completely demolished yet in this picture):


And the bathroom ...


Ben had to work quickly to fix up this bathroom, since he's legally required to provide such facilities for any sub-contractors. Plus, Ben needed a bathroom for himself while he's living/working in the unfinished house. We were hoping to use the original fixtures, but found them to be too damaged or stained to use. So we got a new toilet ...


... and a new tub. The sink is not new, but I think we're going to end up getting rid of that one. Originally we were thinking we'd transfer the pedestal sink to the half bathroom upstairs, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we needed to find something MUCH smaller for that space. I still want to get a sink with some storage underneath for the MIL bathroom, so I think it's bye bye pedestal.


There are still no walls around the bathroom. Just a sheet. Not ideal, but it works for now.

Other Main Floor Updates

The back of the house previously contained a second bedroom (though the walls didn't meet the ceiling, so I don't know if that technically counts as a bedroom), an open washer/dryer area and a big staircase.

Demolition in the second bedroom was a little tricky, as there were a lot of pipes in one of the walls (the wall that previously abutted the washer/dryer area), plus the ceiling is very high. On the plus side, the insulation was much newer and cleaner than in the front part of the house, which made it must less likely to rip apart during removal. Also much less likely to have disgusting crap in it.


We found another hidden window in this room, on the north wall. You can kind of see it through the doorway in the picture below. I thought it would be nice to put that window back in and get a cross-breeze going in the summers, but Ben says it's not framed properly and probably wouldn't pass inspection.


Below you can see the second bedroom after it's been framed out and cleaned up. The room will still have a high, sloped ceiling, and will still have a window opening up into the backyard.The framing on the left side of the picture separates the bedroom from the bathroom. We were originally going to put the bathroom entrance in the bedroom, creating another bed-bath suite. However, we thought it might be nice to make it a public bathroom entrance instead, in case we have company that is not staying in the second bedroom (i.e., staying in the loft instead). The only other shower on this floor is in the master suite.


So Ben created a little hallway in the back of the house, on your right as you're walking out of the kitchen. The picture below looks into the hallway. The bathroom entrance is on the left; the bedroom entrance is in the middle; and the washer/dryer/storage closet is on the right.


I don't have any great pictures of the stairs in the back right now. Below you can see the stairs in the middle of demolition. Most of the remaining drywall has since been removed as well.