3/30
Well, the kitchen is all out. Someone responded to an ad I had placed about free stuff and took all the kitchen cabinets for me. Better than tossing them into the landfill. There is still a fridge and a range that need to go. Hopefully I can get a taker on those.
I started beating the plaster off of the walls in one of the rooms. It comes off pretty easy. Easier than I thought. It should go pretty quick. I’ll post some pics. I didn’t have the camera last night though.

3/28
I guess I should explain a few things in a little better detail. One, when I say modern, I don’t mean huge soaring glass walls and rooftop gardens, PV solar and an underground grey water return system. I mean something unique. Something a little out of the ordinary for the neighborhood. And the decision to follow one of the built green checklists (builtgreen.net) is going to add to the cost and the difficulty of the project, but as I said above, we aren’t going all out for a 4 star home with PV solar or a wind farm or anything crazy. -kk

PictureofWSeattleHouse

PictureofWSeattleHouse
Originally uploaded by porkfork.

3/23 pm
Here is a picture of the house as it looked when we bought it.

3/23/05
I haven’t been over to the house since Friday. There isn’t really much to do but get the plans in at this point. I did make a few calls yesterday and found out that the permits will cost about twice what they did for the last house we built 2-3 years ago. But the good news was, if the plans are fairly simple, and the house isn’t in a critical area, they can expedite them and get them out in about a week to 10 days. Otherwise it’s about 4-6 weeks. Ugh. And you need a permit just to tear the old one down (which is about $250 additional). So we wont be doing much for a few more weeks. This is the toughest part for me. I hate to wait around. I just want to get over there and get started. I guess I should enjoy the time now.I’ll try to post a picture or two tonight. The ‘before’ pictures, so to speak.

Here we go!

3/22/05
I figured I should probably try to keep some type of a journal of what’s going on with this house and since at this point we have owned it for about three months, now would be a fine time to start.
We bought the place in the middle of December ‘04 with every intention of remodeling it and adding a second story to the current structure. The house is built on a tiny lot and is pushed over to one side so far that it doesn’t conform to the setbacks. Hence, the plan to add on instead of tear it down. But as time has passed and plans have developed, I’m beginning to believe that it would be easier to just build from scratch then to try and salvage any of the existing structure. There are just too many hoops to jump through to keep the one wall and all for about 15o square feet of living space.
So the decision was made to tear down the existing structure and build conforming to the setbacks on both sides. However, we are on a tiny budget and it will require some tricky work to get it all figured out.
As the plans developed, the home changed shape a number of times. Now that we are getting close, we’ve decided to follow our hearts and replace the tiny bungalow with a more modern looking structure. It will be the first of its kind in a neighborhood of cute little craftsman homes. I’m excited about the prospect; I’ve wanted a more modern home now for years. But I’m also a little nervous because all of the neighbors have been so nice so far. It will be interesting to see how things develop when they see what we come up with.So here’s the plan: Build a modern home, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a little under 2000 square feet, and do it for around 100k (not including the cost of the lot). Also, build with Green Building standards in mind. I know it sounds crazy. But I also know its possible. So this one goes out to all of the Do-It-Yourselfers out there. I’m open to feedback, so tell your friends and follow along for the show…