Permit Granted

Today we got word that our plans have been approved (finally) after much work on behalf of Brian from Sustainable Design Group. He really deserves a big applause for all the hoop-jumping he did to secure the approval. It was not an easy or pleasant process (see the last post). But we made it through the process in about 5 weeks, which is remarkably fast, even with the many revisions that were required. So thank you, Arlington County, for being so speedy. At some point, we will be writing a letter to recommend some ways to make the process more efficient. I'm pretty sure I needlessly sprouted some grey hairs over this process....

Our contractor, Justin, is going out of town between Christmas and New Year's so it's unlikely that demolition will begin before Jan. 1. We're just thankful that all the ducks are now officially in a row and we can start the new year off with a bang...er...bulldozer?? If the project is completed on schedule (big IF), we should be done by May. The bank says we HAVE to be done by June 30 so we should be in our new house by the end of the summer. Now the real fun begins!

PS- We picked up the permit this morning and we'll let our readers guess how much an Arlington County building permit costs:

A) Ski weekend in West Virginia
B) A new macbook pro.
C) A 50 in. flat screen plasma TV.
D) A used car.

Good News/Bad News

Good news first: we are now the proud owners of a huge mortgage on a tiny, shabby, two-bedroom cottage in the highly-desirable suburb of Washington, DC: good ol' Arlington county (i.e. we closed the loan yesterday).

Bad news: Arlington county sucks. Ok, the schools are great, the taxes are manageable, the parks are many and near-between. But the plan reviewers? They, well, suck. We have been in to see the county at least four times now and revised our plans twice. Keep in mind that every person in the building profession who has seen our plans has said that are some of the best plans they have ever seen. The first rejection was warranted. Our plat needed updating and did not include the set backs or the sheds on the property. Fine. Though, did we really have to go to the county to pick up the plans, pay $30 to have 3 pages reprinted on 18 x 24 paper and be late to work (again) to resubmit them in person carefully removing the staples from all three sets of plans, inserting the corrected pages, and re-stapling them? The second rejection came with a list of items that needed fixing that didn't seem too serious (e.g. specify what kind of glass, tempered or otherwise, will be used in the windows). There were about six items. We gave the list to the architect. He made the changes, requiring 7 new pages to be printed (at a cost of $50 for 3 copies on 18 x 24 paper), we took an afternoon off work and went back to the county where confrontations with a staple ensued. The THIRD rejection came yesterday when the plan reviewer told me that none of the changes she requested had been made. "Huh?" I said. After a very confusing back and forth, she agreed to meet with the architect the next day and explain what she needs.

That meeting was this afternoon. The plan reviewer called afterwards and said that she had gone over the plans with the architect and he now understands the "major changes" that are necessary. Jes then left her desk and promptly consumed a Caribou dark chocolate hot chocolate. She is now breathing deeply and awaiting a call from the architect.

Moving Weekend and Progress Update

Whew! I did not have any concept of what exhausted felt like until this weekend. My boss graciously gave me Friday off and Jody took a half day. We spent the entirety of three whole days packing, moving to the in-laws, and hauling things into the storage unit (which is fixed now-thank you Mobile Mini!). The house is still not totally empty, but we have successfully cleared out the basement, kitchen, bathroom, Alex's room, dining room, and study. Our bedroom and the family room are nearly done, but still need some sorting and packing. We have determined that all of our furniture will not fit in the outside unit. So we'll have to wrap it up and store it in the rooms that are not being demolished. The only work in those room will be new windows and refinished floors, so it shouldn't be a hassle to have a few pieces of furniture to move around.

We gave away our old gas stove on Freecycle last night and are looking to give away the microwave hutch. Next we have to roll the fridge into the dining room where it will be stored during construction along with the new dishwasher and gas range.

The bank has officially approved our builder, Justin and our application has been submitting to underwriting for final approval. With any luck, we should be able to close Monday at 4p. After that, we'll sitting on our hand waiting for the county to approve our plans (we resubmitted them for the second time on Friday because of some minor details that had to be added by the structural engineer/architect) and issue the building permit.

I'm so glad we get to take a break from all of this uprooting and enjoy some down time with family and friends over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Hope you have a wonderful turkey day!

Storage Update

After a stern email complaint, our sales rep from Mobile Mini has promised to send out a repair guy to try and fix the door problem. He explained that if the unit is not on a completely flat surface, or if loading half the unit with heavy furniture causes it to become uneven, the doors can become...well...stuck. Awesome. So either the repair will fix them, or, here's the best part, we get to unpack all of the stuff we've loaded (including our couch, dining room furniture, and many, many, boxes) and put it into a brand new unit! Yay.

But I have to say the folks at Mobile Mini have been very responsive thus far.

A big shout out to our neighbor, Robert, for having his construction buddies fabricate a huge steel tube that we can now use to slide over the stuck handle and yank it open! THANKS ROBERT!

County Rejection and Storage Woes

Permitting

I wish I could blame the county for potentially delaying our project, but I can't. After clearing the first hurdle of the Arlington county permitting-zoning-we were rejected again by inspection services. Apparently, our plans are missing some relatively minor details about wind shear, leger board locations, etc. The architect's draftsman has graciously moved our plan revisions to the top of his list and I hope he can get them back to us before Wednesday so we at least have a chance of getting inspection services to review the plans before Thanksgiving. *Note to future Arlington renovators: be prepared to make no less than one trip a week to the county offices. They do virtually nothing online (except tell you if your plans have been rejected). You have to check out the hard copies of your plans with each rejection and resubmit them, in person, after waiting in line to be seen, with revised pages. Fingers crossed that these revisions will be the last!

Storage

As you may have guessed, this rather large renovation requires us to move nearly all of our possessions (and ourselves) out of the house during construction. We looked into renting a Pod or other household-name-brand onsite storage unit, but they are all small and relatively expensive. My parents had rented a repurposed steel shipping container (the kind you see stacked up in ports) when they renovated their kitchen. These things are huge-ours is 20 feet long x 8 feet wide x 10 feet tall. It seemed perfect for what we needed.

Well, turns out the space is great, accessing the space is another story. There are two doors at one end that swing open, each with two rods that lock at the top and bottom. There is one master handle in the middle that opens the unit. We had successfully, and with relatively little effort, opened the doors on two previous occasions-once to check it out and once to begin moving things into it. This past Sunday we had planned on spending many hours moving many boxes and bits of furniture into the unit. That was before we tried to get the unit open again. Let's just say it took both Jody and I throwing our backs out yanking on the main handle, and our neighbor with a steel mallet and a crow bar to get it open. And an hour and a half later, we were finally ready to move things in.

Take home message: do NOT rent a unit from Mobile Mini. Not only are their units unsuitable for frequent entry (as needed in a residential setting), but their customer service is terrible. I emailed our salesperson when I though the unit was leaky (turns out the wood floor was moist from the condensation of the grass it was sitting over), and he did not even have the courtesy to respond to my complaint. He only responded when I emailed him asking a question about our billing invoice (which confirms I had the correct email address on file).

This weekend is the big move to Jody's parents' house. Looks like we'll have a little bit of time to get the house totally cleared out after that. Stay tuned for permitting updates....

Green Financing

So our lender, Wells Fargo, announced today that it will cut its greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2008 levels by 2018. The bank says it plans to install solar arrays atop some retail banks, adopt more efficient building codes, and cut work-related air travel among its employees. We did not select Wells Fargo because of its new green commitment, but we hope others' choices are influenced by a company's action on global warming. Kudos Wells Fargo!

Rate Lock, Appliances, and "Before" Picts

After over six months of stressing about the interest rate for our renovation loan, we finally locked in at a very good rate of 5.375%. Mind you, our current rate for a regular ol' 30-fixed mortgage is 6.125%, so this really is an excellent rate. Renovation loans typically have higher rates than 30-year fixed mortgages because the bank bases the value of the collateral on the future value of the finished house, a risky proposition for them. We also learned that, unlike rates for fixed and adjustable rate mortgages, rates for renovation loans are not regulated by the government. Banks can set them wherever their investors decide to set them. Though, they are typically .25% higher than rates for conventional 30-year fixed mortgages. Long story short, we're very happy with our 5.375%.

In other exciting house news this weekend, we purchased a stainless steel gas range from Craigslist, my new favorite appliance store. It's a one-year old Kenmore, a basic model with a warming drawer and set us back a whole $350. They sell new for about $650. So far we've acquired a one-year old stainless steel fridge (Kenmore Elite) for $1000, a two-year old stainless steel (inside and out) Kitchen Aid dishwasher for $400, and the range, for a grand total of $1750. All we have left to buy is an over-the-range microwave, which I'm still confident we can find on Craigslist for less than $200. That would mean we bought a relatively new complete set of stainless steel appliances for less than $2000. Boo. Yah.

A few "before" pictures below. These are shots of the front, back, and one side of the house. I included the side shot to show where the old house and new house will meet. In the picture, just a foot or so to the left of the window marks where the new house will begin. Everything beyond that will go.

After over a year of design work, including a set of plans that were too expensive to build, today we signed a construction contract! Our builder is Justin Sullivan from Impact Construction, and he has been FABULOUS so far. He worked extremely hard to help us design an addition that could be built within our budget. And then he negotiated tirelessly with subcontractors to get us a very competitive bid.

Here are the construction documents from the architect, John Spears from Sustainable Design Group. You'll see the four rooms of the original cottage that we're keeping on the left hand side of the first floor drawing. The new basement will connect to the existing cellar via a doorway.

Now that the contract is signed, we will have 45 days before the loan closing (John Yanetti from Wells Fargo has also been fabulous to work with) in which we'll have to obtain the building permits. Justin will start as soon as the loan is closed. Oh yeah, and we have to pack up our entire house, rent a storage unit, and move into our in-laws' place across town (the in-laws are in Maine for the next couple months).

Welcome!

My husband and I have a 1925 bungalow cottage in Arlington, VA that is in dire need of repair and expansion. At 1,000 square feet, it is a cozy abode for us, Alex (my 10-year old stepson), our black lab, and our cat. With plans to expand our family, we need to expand the house. We'd like to make the renovation as "green" as possible, but have a tight budget to work with-$200,000. We have been working with an architect for about a year now trying to come up with a budget-friendly design that provides the space we'd like. The plan is to tear off the two most recent additions to the house and leave the original 1925 cottage, which is four rooms: bedroom, bath, living room, and dining room and a 5 foot-tall cellar. We would then add a three-story addition to the back of the cottage, which would include an unfinished basement, first floor with kitchen, laundry room, and family room, and second floor with three bedrooms and two baths.

I should mention that neither of us has any experience in the renovation/building/handyman field. So this project will be a tremendous learning opportunity. The blog will be a collection of our experiences as we navigate the home renovation process and try to balance the two most important goals of the project-building "green" and keeping costs down.

We hope the blog will be a resource for other young couples in the Northern Virginia area who want to "go green" without going bankrupt.