post christmas aftermath

WHEW!

well, we are finally through the holiday hurdle, now I get to relax a bit and revel in some good Church-work, as it were!

Some updates of the slow progress since my last post:

-The contractor we selected is Adam Snider, of Birdhouse Construction. He came highly recommended by two friends of mine (independently of one another) and just seemed to fit well within our needs for a builder, both in flexibility, availability, price and range of abilities.  We are stoked with his work so far! Walls and floors have been framed, bathrooms removed and the two spaces have finally been separated by a fire-wall.

-We are STILL waiting for our permit from the profoundly idiotic City Of Portland, and they have provided a couple of wrinkles in our plans thus far, mostly with expenses.  My overhead door was not approved. we filed an appeal (which cost us $200 to submit) because there are tons of precedents set in buildings all around us, and no apparent reason was given for the denial.  No clue yet if that was a total waste of money yet, because they still have not completed several reviews we need to have approved before we can go forward with anything else.  Another wrinkle: SDC’s as it turns out are going to cost nearly $17,000 big ones. That’s about triple what I’d expected.  This is a perfect example of the outrageous, dysfunctional and tragic state our city is in, what with first crippling the planning department by firing over half it’s staff several months ago (and thus the efficiency of all subsequent projects relying on them), and now raising all taxes and fees for builders and developers to exorbitant levels.  These are basically community development fees and range in purpose from Parks/recreation to Transportation, supposedly to offset the supposed increased impact a new development would have on a particular neighborhood.  Just for the Portland parks fee ALONE, we have to pay $6,000… and there isn’t a decent park within two miles.  we are actually reducing density and relieving parking congestion (among many other benefits) by converting it from a church to a home, but that doesn’t apparently matter.  Grrrrrr.

I did work today removing floor-joists (existing ones were both inappropriate in size and connection for an up-to-code ceiling and floor) and removing screws and nails from the north wall.  Awesome helper, Erin was with me, and we made fairly quick work of a not-so-fun job.

As for actual work I can do this week, that has shifted at this point from physical hands-on labor and demolition, to decision-making and research of things like heating systems, (gas furnace and wood stove are my top choices at the moment) and windows and doors.

Now we just have to wait for the City to get it’s proverbial thumb out of it’s ass and approve our permit, already!

here’s a little video from today: