8 months pregnant

I told myself this was going to be a good week. Apparently I didn't chant enough, because we have had some challenges....

First of all, I would like to say that I feel like I am 8 months pregnant.... no not because of how I look, rather, the feeling of when you are 8 months pregnant for the first time. Suddenly you realize the bliss of pregnancy is over and the baby HAS to come out, one way or another. The thought of a human being coming out of your body in the coming weeks is an overwhelming feeling..... and scary to boot. I feel that way with this project..... we are way to far into it to turn back- THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN..... which is a really scary and overwhelming feeling. Everything that you have heard about remodeling is true- the process really stinks.

On Wednesday, I got a call from the contractor saying that the engineer had signed off and he wanted to me with me on Thursday. We agreed to meet during my lunch break and we went over all of the changes etc. I signed off and then the next step is to bring the documents- drawings etc to the city of Bonney Lake.

Friday- the day actually started off well, because I went to Starbucks (normally this is a great start to the day anyway, but read on....) anyway, I pull up to the window and the lady in front of me had "paid it forward". What! I exclaimed!! I was so overwhelmed and caught up in the moment that i thanked the Starbucks person and drove off...... that's when I realized that I should have paid for the guy behind me!! By the time I realized my fa paux, it was too late and I spent the rest of the morning drinking a coffee that I felt guilty for having. FYI- if this happens to you, first, try not to be behind me in case I get that overwhelming feeling, and secondly- pay for the person behind you- be prepared- you will enjoy your coffee much more!! So, I plan to start my Monday morning with a cup of joe at Starbucks and will be paying for the person behind me, regardless of how many drinks they order!!

I had to say that , because the day did start off well. The contractor calls me at precisely noon and tells me he is just leaving the city building with our drawings..... this means nothing to me, so I say, is this good or bad? To which he says- that is very very bad....

I try to gather my wits about me so I can listen to what he is saying and try to retain a bit of it since I will have to transmit to Michael (I am also realizing at this time, why I always have to the bearer of the news...) Anyway, apparently we "get" the worst possible ogre of a person we can get at the city. The long and the short of it is since we are moving a load bearing wall, she needs some additional information about the trusses. Now the contractor was expecting this, but said that normally the information that she was asking for comes after the permits are submitted and during the inspection period. She also hands him a 30 page document that needs to be completed for the city.... a new 2008 requirement we find out.

Remember the tree that fell last weekend..... well, since it would have hit our house if we had the addition, we wanted to have the rest removed--- we have had many trees fall. So, doing our due diligence, we decide to remove them before the next one falls. That was today. So, the tree guy is half way up the first of 4 trees, when the contractor calls me and blurts......" the city requires a permit for any tree you want to remove on your property that is over 6 feet high". Oh my gosh- are you kidding me?? We quickly get the guy down, apologize profusely and tell him we will straighten it all out.
We call the city, explain the situation and learn that we can have an exemption because we are in immanent danger since we have had so many trees fall..... so Michael runs over to the city and gets an exemption permit and now the trees can come down. I know you are asking- why get the city involved? How are they going to know. Normally, I would brush aside the rule following person in me and think- ah they will never know.... except that, since we will be having so many inspectors here over the course of the next few months, I didn't want to take any chances in having to answer where all the large 100 foot trees have gone....... and I know the city will ask, because when the contractor told them that the deck had been removed (it is listed as removed on the drawings) that they wanted to see the wood! Totally serious.

I know what you are thinking- how could we have not known this information. Well, unfortunately, this is part of the process. The city/county/state etc, are not the easiest people to get information from. And this is also the stressful part- you just don't know what the city will want until you ask them, and you can't ask them what they want until you have a ton of detailed information for them. Seems kinda cyclical, doesn't it??

Seriously, ANOTHER tree.....

So I was putting the children to bed, when all of a sudden, Michael says, "what was THAT??!!" I said, "uh- I don't know, what was what?" he proceeded to tell me it sounded like some cars crashed in our backyard..... looked out the window to see, the above tree in the middle of our yard...... AGAIN! This is at least the 4 or 5th tree (we stopped counting) to fall in our yard..... this one did not hit the house, it is about 4 feet away from the house and 4 feet away from the fence. So far, only one has hit the house. Iyayaya..... this is not what we need right now!! What a mess.......

Sledding

We took the kids sledding yesterday. Most of us had fun... Chase stopped having fun when I pushed him. Now, let me explain-- I think that pushing is part of sledding, he apparently does not. So we went up the hill and he was all ready, so I thought, then I GENTLY pushed him..... he completely misunderstood and thought I PUSHED him, which I didn't. However, there was no changing his mind! Even this morning, when I asked him if he had a good time sledding, he said "No", when I asked why, he said, "because YOU pushed me"! Later I found I out that I pushed him when he wasn't ready..... again, I thought he was ready..... it's all a matter of perspective!!

By the way, I am not really good at this blogging stuff. As you can see I can't seem to figure out how to get the photos to the right off of here. Any ideas??

The Politician

A few people have told me that my blog is sorda boring..... not that I am boring, just that the blog itself is boring and they added that I should post things about my children. So, although I do have an update on the house thing, I thought I'd first start with why we believe Sophie will be a politician some day. For those that only know Sophie by her pictures and have not had the pleasure to meet her and interact with her, here is your warning to never ever vote for in her for any office, because if you did, she would be the stereotypical politician who does not listen to her constituents, namely her parents, AND she is a really great debater! So there is your fair warning- she will never listen to you if you vote for her!!!

Last night we meet with our contractor, who by the way is growing on me as the days go by. We went over line by line (yes, tediously, line by line) everything they will be doing..... it took SEVERAL hours. Anyway, one of the things we were able to do is save money- my favorite thing of course! We saved money by deciding what things WE want to do. This includes things like removing the baseboard, installing the insulation in the walls, taking out cabinets, etc. Most of this stuff is easy enough for us, but most importantly, it saves us some money that we can use elsewhere!! I keep reminding Michael that this whole thing started with me wanting to redo the kitchen and so it is only fair that all the left over money go directly to my kitchen area!

This is going to be a great week (if you say it enough times, you actually start to believe it!!) Anyway, the engineer is suppose to be done by Wednesday of this week, which means we can submit our plans to the city for our permits- which will really signify the beginning of the project!!

I have to say, I am a bit overwhelmed by this whole process. So far it has all been on paper, so we have been relatively removed from the whole thing. In about 3-4 weeks, I will have a "crew" in my backyard, digging and building........ that might be a little stressful for me.

Well, we'll keep you posted!

Engineer

I have been meaning to get you up to speed on our process.... sorry for the lag time here!! So last Friday as I was leaving work, I noticed that the contractor has been trying to reach me.... so I call him and he says he has the final drawings completed and needs to have us/me/one of us sign off on the project..... okay I suppose I can do that. So we meet at Krispy Kreme's- got a few donuts for the children while I was there. I was really nervous to sign off on this without Michael, but we had talked and in the interest of time, we decided that I COULD DO THIS!! So, despite the fact that I really don't know what I am looking at with these drawings that are as large as my kitchen table, I signed off. So now, the drawings are with the engineer. Once the engineer signs off, then we can submit to the city for our permits. So we are moving along. The contractor hopes to start by mid February or so.

By the way, I think I have a taker for all my wood- sweet!!

Everyone is interested......

Seems that everyone is interested in our project..... like the city, the homeowners association, etc! Don't get me wrong, I am glad they are interested, but it sure seems we need alot of approvals! Today we met with the architect. We have actually met with him before, he and his crew were here a few weeks ago measuring (everything- even things they aren't going to touch). Once the preliminary drawings are completed, we are allowed up to 3 revisions. A revision includes as little as one line being drawn up to a complete re drawing..... so it is in our best interest (as well as our budgets) to get all of the revisions in one fell swoop. Our contractor is good with this, he has helped us to avoid many ongoing revisions. So, today was the last of our revisions. We left there with the architect only needing to do a few minor things on the inside- like moving my extra large island over a few feet. I am concerned the island will be too large--- this keeps me up at night. I digress..... once these revisions are completed, then we will have the final drawings and then will be ready to submit our plans and drawings to the city. In our area it is taking about 2-3 weeks to get the permits to when we can start the demolition/building.

The other people who are interested are the homeowners association. I have to be honest, I am more afraid the HOA will say no to our project than I am with the city not approving our project. The funny thing is that Michael and our contractor have complete faith in the HOA, but are more concerned with running into issues with the city! Luckily I had submitted our intentions of our remodel to our HOA several months ago. I tracked down the gal who is in charge of the "architectural committee"- she happens to live around the corner. When I got a hold of her tonight to let her know we know have a complete set of drawings for the outside, she said "if you can get them to me tonight- we are having an architectural meeting tomorrow and I can get you approved by tomorrow"!! WAHOO- so I quickly ran them over to her house and as we chatted, I explained the "scope of our project" ( our contractor uses this term all of the time and I am cracking myself up that I just used it!! could also be the Tylenol kicking in- I have a really bad cold.....) anyway- she said that it sounded fine and that I can consider ourselves approved by tomorrow afternoon!! WOW- that was WAY easier than I thought!!

The next step is the city- certainly it will not be as easy as Sky Island's Architectural Committee!!!

The Children

Here are a few pictures of the children :)) Sophie and Chase are in the same preschool class and were in a play. Chase was a shepherd and Sophie was a star. I thought they were pretty cute. My mom made both of their costumes- good thing she is around otherwise my kids would look nothing like they are supposed to for their school plays and other things. I also added a picture from Christmas morning...... these are my kids waiting for mommy to wake up....... I thought they displayed an amazing amount of self discipline!!! Poor kids...... and then the last one is of Sophie putting "make up" on her face..... nice huh?? She is so naughty.

More tomorrow- we meet with the architect tomorrow.

How we got here

How exactly we got to this point of remodeling our house, is probably like most people. We really like where we live, we wanted more space and upgrade in the kitchen, and move some things around. We did look at buying another house for quite some time, but we just couldn't settle on anything. And plus, the price of houses these days are pretty darn expensive! So, we decided that remodeling was the way to go. Essentially we are taking the roof off of part of the house, adding another room upstairs, extending our lower living area out by several feet and doing a major kitchen renovation..... should be fun.

Right now, we are in the design and permit phase. Our contractor (which b the way- the choosing of a contractor is a post in itself- for another day), anyway- he says, we will likely be permitted by the end of the month and then the labor work starts. We have actually been working on this for several months - we decided to remodel in the summer and then slowly started deciding what we wanted, and soon realized it was more than just a kitchen remodel!

Anyway, since this is an expensive project, we are trying to cut costs as much as possible. Michael and his brothers and nephews recently took out our back deck- the first of many demolitions! Here are some photos of that!