Demolition...

  Demolition was awesome... I was up early that day and got everyone up as well!  by 7:30 the whole family, including the temporary dog (a stray Cristy picked up a few days before and we still hadn't found the owner yet), were all at the site, where we saw Santi, from MAK Builders, who was there on Miguel's behalf.  The smaller of the 2 trucks that were supposed to be there, was already there and the operator, who had an attitude and a chip on his shoulder, started with what he thought he would be able to with it (after an argument with Santi and throwing a hissy fit!)...which turned out not to be much!  A few swipes at the overhangs of the roof, and he had to stop.  He needed something with more BALLS, to tear down this structure!  It was a happy day from there on...  there were at least a couple of occasions where I had to wipe the tears of joy from my eyes!  This was quite a morning for the neighborhood!  Although we had already met all of the adjacent neighbors, this was a day to meet many others!  The kids will have lots of playmates around, including a couple of homeschooler's!  The dog was a great ice-breaker for the kids...  I spent the morning taking pictures and videos.  I wanted to stay til they finished, especially since I was nervous about the wall that needed to remain to maintain the non-compliant setback.  But Santi was there, so I felt ok when I had to leave to go the in-laws for whatever reason, I don't remember anymore.  I was glowing that day, though, and I showed off the pics and videos to just about anyone that stopped to talk to me for more than 2 seconds!  Have a look for yourself!

This is what the "House" looked like before DEMO.

 On our way to the site...

And so it begins...
A small back hoe, is never enough!
http://youtu.be/bgSWYRHEPIA

Time to bring in the heavy artillery!

Good thing Santi was there...

Even the kids got in on the action!

I just love this picture...the machine eating the building!

The events leading up to Demolition...

Once the permit was obtained, I was anxious to get started... I immediately called Miguel Kristaly, MAK Builders, to let him in on the good news...Miguel had recently gone thru the construction of his own house, too, so he could probably understand the excitement I had!  Anyway, we arranged for demolition to start, but I needed to FPL disconnect service to the house.  I spent the next couple days trying to get that done....But of course, dealing with any government agency (FPL isn't entirely a gov't agency, but so heavily subsidized that it operates the same way) that no one is responsible for mistakes or idiocracies...  First I contact them to have the power lines removed so we can do the demo, they tell me that the process takes 10 days, but if you request for it to be done quickly, it can be done in as little as 3 days.  Of course, I request that it be done in 3 days, but that takes an authority to approve it... Well, I got it.  So 12 days later, when I'm ready to demo, I drive by the property to find that the power lines are still connected!  I call to find out why...I ask for the person who authorized the 3 day timeframe....She doesn't work for the dept. anymore and didn't bother to have someone else take care of it!  So of course, with demo supposed to happen the next day, we had to re-schedule.  When I explained the sitch to the NEW guy at FPL, he says, he can't promise, but he'll put it on the calendar for the next day.  I figure, "let me give him the benefit of the doubt and schedule demo for 3 days later instead."  Following up every day, it was still not done!  I had to go in person to speak with a "Supervisor".  I said, "I don't mean to get anyone in trouble, but...." He said, in true gov't agency fashion, "no one ever gets in trouble here!"  I guess they're all lucky it's not a private company.
Anyway, finally, the demo gets scheduled for Saturday, December 17th.

The permit process...

Owning my own Architectural practice, I am always dealing with the permit process...but never for myself. I have done several projects for myself, but never with a permit! The Cobbler's children have no shoes, ya know!
This is the largest project I've done for myself, and working without a permit is not an option. Normally, a permit "expediter" takes the plans thru the City and deals with all the incompetency from the government workers, but I decided to "run" the permit myself and experience the process firsthand. I must admit, the permit process is not as bad as people say, but then again, plans produced by my office are not normally difficult to have approved. However, running the permit myself and running a business, I think I did pretty good by getting all the plans approved in less than 3 months. Could I have done it faster with an expediter? Maybe, but not by much. The process takes long because of the "drop off" process -- Drop off the plans and wait 3 weeks, then see the comments that the building dept made about the plans. Most of the comments pertain to the reviewers not having sufficient time to review them and see that their comments are actually already addressed on the plans. Not to say they aren't right sometimes and do actually have legitimate comments... I can appreciate it when that's the case. The best part about the entire permit process was when I went to pay for the permit... In the design of the project, we were planning on demolishing the existing house due to structural damage and the cost to repair... however, we maintained one of the existing walls so that we can grandfather a non-compliant setback. In other words, remove the existing wall and build it at the new setback regulation (10'), or maintain it intact, and keep it at the existing 6' setback... Well, the advantage of doing that is the Permit Fee, City/County Impact Fees and Future Taxes are MUCH LESS because (as ridiculous as it sounds) keeping 1 wall up constitutes an "ADDITION/REMODELING". Tearing it down would be considered "NEW CONSTRUCTION"!
So, I'm off to a good start... Saving money already!

 

The Design Process....

As Architects, a clean slate to do ANYTHING you want, is daunting... With soooo many ideas of what to do, it was amost necessary to give ourselves some boundaries. The best boundary for this site was to use the existing footprint, or at least close to it. Since the lot was a corner lot, there is technically, no REAR YARD. The 2 streets that front it are considered the PRIMARY FRONT and the SECONDARY FRONT. This means that with no REAR SETBACK REQUIREMENT, the house can be placed all the way to what would be considered the rear of the property and have a HUGE front yard... That was how the existing abandoned house was situated on the site, which after studying several design possibilities, was PERFECT!! We made the SIDE of the house, the FRONT, and the huge FRONT yard, the SIDE! Now that the siting was established, the design of the interior could begin... With all of our ideas of how we would live, and years of sketching ideas of what we would do if we were to ever be able to design our house, we began locating areas of the house in their ideal locations... Master bedroom with EAST facing windows, the LIVING area with large openings - facing NORTH, etc.
Eventually, we came up with what we have today... A contemporary, simple, geometric, volumetric and hopefully, affordable design! With the help of some VERY generous engineer's and close friends, Sudhir Gupta and Juan Fernandez, together we produced a set of construction documents, and submitted for permit on August 23, 2011.
I'm gonna live in THAT?! Awesome....

This is how it all started...

Driving around one day, while trying to get the kids to be dizzy enough to fall asleep, we stumbled upon an abandoned house, on a corner, with an alley! Cristy and I looked at each other, and we both kinda knew, this could be our lot!! There were no for sale signs, or anything for that matter, that would give is any inclination or who to contact or if it were even for sale...

So that night, on www.zillow.com we searched the property and were surprised to see that it WAS for sale! 125K. We thought it was a steal at that price, but thought we could do better, of course! We reached out to the our good friend, Melissa Delisle, a realtor. Before we knew it, we were in contact with the seller and found ourselves in a bidding war with, coincidentally, another architect for the property! The final price was 95K and after months of dealing with what was probably the shadiest group of brokers (who wanted us to close immediately with no attorney's and thought that by us hiring attorney's were being "paranoid" and "purposefully causing delays"!) Anyway, our attorney, Leslie Flores, was awesome and we finally did the closing, on our terms, on March 31, 2011.