So the Meriden house is just about done and thankfully, it has sold.  Sorry to all the other people who wanted it, you were not quick enough.  The pictures for the listing web site came out great and you can see everything at  702MERIDEN.COM

The landscape was designed by Lisa with Chicks Dig!  It was an inspired design and well executed and you can find out more about them at CHICKSDIGAUSTIN.COM

My wife and furniture maker, Sheri, has also updated her site with pics of the new sofa and chair line and many more great ottomans and benches.  Make sure you check it out also at  IRONTHREADDESIGN.COM

It has been raining off and on for the past week and a half and normally that would irritate me to a large degree. (It’s only a small degree now that the roof is on the Meriden house.)  I have been stopped from continuing to work by the city because of a McMansion tent incursion.  I had a very pleasant meeting with the West Austin Neighborhood Association last night where I laid out my case for the variance I am requesting next week.  The people there were nice and asked good questions and agreed not to oppose my request.  That was  topped off with me getting to take a fresh picked Meyers lemon home that someone brought in from their back yard.  It tasted great in the Dripping Springs vodka and tonic I had when I got home and relaxed.  Hopefully the Board of Adjustment hearing next Monday will go just as smoothly.

I had the pleasure of spending a fair amount of quality time at the City of Austin Permit center yesterday and today.  What an easy to navigate system.  I only had to spend a couple of hours waiting to see a planning reviewer.  But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.  First I had a visit about my electrical needs form, at the ONE STOP SHOP.  This sets the tone for all dealings with the city.  They have the audacity to advertise their ONE STOP SHOP for permits.  To get a residential building permit I must visit at least three different floors (signing in and waiting on each one) and possibly, like today, another building down the street.  That does not even include the trip to the county tax office for a tax certificate and possibly to the county court house if they deem your lot illegal. (never mind that is has been sold multiple times and “illegal” since the 1930″s.)

Thank goodness they upgraded to the ONE STOP SHOP.

The permit I needed was to convert an existing garage to living space and add a carport.  All single story and in total, less then 20% of the lot.  Did I leave with a permit?  Not for another three weeks.  Why?  Because the house is NEAR a flood plain.  Not IN it.  But less then 125 ft from the 100 year flood plain.  Wait, not even the house but the property is too close.  Never mind the roughly 25 vertical feet the water would have to rise to see the house.  When we get that kind of rain, issues like the Capitol floating away will take precedent over if the city erred in letting you build a carport.

It doesn’t end there.  I have to get a variance to build the last 10 feet of the carport because the garage was built into the current rear setback ( ten feet now, five feet when it was built).  That is understandable, they change the rules over time.  The catch is that for the all the City of Austin, the Board of Adjustments takes 16 cases a month.  That seems totally reasonable for a city of close to a million people and based on my wait at the permit office there is not much building going on.  Or it could be that the next available time for me to ask for the variance is in TWO MONTHS.  And I was lucky to get that spot.

Hopefully I will only have to visit the city two more times to complete this permit.  I am sure they will have the process smoothed out by the next job.  Or not.  Or maybe I’ll just find a different career.

The rant is over.  More on the Meriden house progress soon.

sweet tyvec suit

The house is very quiet now.  I love after the insulation is installed when it feels like your voice is sucked away as soon as you let it out.  All the walls and the roof deck got closed cell foam.  The floors got R-19 batts to save a little money but that gives me a complete envelope where the HVAC system is inside the conditioned space and does not have to work as hard.  The high efficiency system, 16 SEER and 90% furnace, get roughed in in the next few days.

whipped cream explosion

Now for the outside.  I am using a new product from James Hardie called Artisan siding.  It comes with trim boards to match for the windows and corners and really looks like the old clapboard siding you see more on the east coast.  It looks great installed and gives the house an appropriate bungalow feel.  It should be finished by the end of the week without threatening rain interruptions.

artisan on the front

Life has been pretty good lately so I haven’t been updating my blog.  My wife had her Launch party for the new Iron Thread Design furniture line at IF & D downtown. (ironthreaddesign.com to check out all the amazing pieces)  Food and drinks and about 300 very complimentary people made it a great time for Sheri.

round and long button bench and headboard

I also have the best kids in the world, or at least two out of my three are at any one time, but I have found something that is a close second.  A plumber.  A plumber that I don’t want to strangle at first sight.  A normal guy who just happens to be a plumber.  His name is J……, wait, I can’t give out his name because I want him all to myself.

So the house is plumbed and the electric is roughed in and now on to the insulation.

washer/dryer connection wall

waiting to stub the wires outside so nobody steals them

Dried in and rain.  It’s like good and evil.  With good winning.  I finished putting the peel and seal roofing under-layment on the new roof Friday afternoon.  Long and miserably hot work in 100 degree heat.  Friday evening it rained more than an inch in some parts of Austin.  My house stayed dry and I stopped cursing the rain, for now.  Friday also brought being a day away from the end of framing.  The stairs were finished, much to the delight of my youngest son, and the carport was completed.  All we have left for next week is any miscellaneous blocking and the closets and door frames for the upstairs.  With the braces out of the downstairs you can really get a sense of the space, even with the windows still covered with sheathing.  It has a nice cozy yet spacious feel.  Tall enough ceilings without going overboard and open space without feeling cavernous.  My job site desk will look great in the living room.

Carport and hip roof finished

Stairs and the powder bath door.

Today I said goodbye to half my framing team.  We got the house down in under two weeks like I promised the house lifters and the framers had another job they put off to help make mine happen.  I also relented and let them frame under the upstairs porch that had been flying out in space 8′ off the supporting wall.  It looked great sticking out there but wasn’t engineered to take a party from that front upstairs bedroom.  The roof also finished being decked with just the carport and front eave left to build.  Tomorrow should take care of that and hopefully be dried in in time for the rain Thursday night.  I had complained that I needed just a week when it rained last week so I can’t go back and revise that pleading.  Coming back from yet another Home Depot trip to find all the guys eating lunch and napping in the shade of the screen porch made the usefulness of that space jump out at me today.  A couple of ceiling fans for the summer and a propane heater for the winter and you got a real live outdoor room, Texas style.

Backside roof line and screen porch

New barge rafter tails cut to match originals

Now it's up

Now it's down.

This morning the house was gently lowered down the last inch and a half.  Now it just a house that happens to have a painted upstairs.  No more big steel beams holding  up the house and with potential space underneath.  There is a framed first story and half a stairwell open to the upstairs.  The house lined up perfectly with the  lower story.  Not really that hard since we built the first story off plumb lines from the original house in the air.

Big beam on bottom, new. Two little beams with bolts on top, old.

Once the house was down we moved on to getting the 40′, 2200 lb I-beams out.  Unfortunately, we had to cut them in half because of the proximity of the neighboring houses.  This does make them much more manageable for my yard art project they are destined for.  Just as that was finished without setting the house on fire, the crane arrived.  I love the crane.  Even with the beams cut in half they were a hand-full.  With a good crane operator and a sling, we had them on the ground in a stack in nothing flat.

Too bad we couldn't ride on them.

Now we can finally add some closets to the original house (the upstairs now) with it sitting in its rightful place.  There is framing to finish and a swing-set for my car to build with the leftover beams.  Oh, and all the finishes to pick out.  That will be some fun.  No honestly, it will.  Almost like picking up a house 15′ in the air.

First floor with Zip wall sheathing

Back side without the lower roof

So I ended Friday with the sheathing on the house and the trusses and beams set.  Almost everything ready for the lowering of the old house onto the new frame and then joining them together with a magical spell.  Or nails and wood.  Two of my kids came with me on Saturday to help clean up while I checked everything and made one temporary post to help put the last piece of steel in after the house is down.  They made a pretty big dent in the trash but it still looks like three days of frantic framing with no dumpster on site to catch the waste.

Monday morning should bring the last big spectacle for this house.  After the lowering and removal of the lifting beams and crib stacks, it will just look like another remodel.  Except that the upstairs is painted and finished looking from the outside but maybe passers-by will just think I’m an eccentric, out of order builder.

Tuesday there were finally all the concrete piers in place and the back yard looked like a mini lumber yard.  Wednesday the framers showed up and in a day the floor was framed and by the end of Thursday there were perimeter walls.  All it took was two days, six good framers, me standing around in the way answering questions, and about 12,000 nails.  It is great to see the space and I am happy with the layout and size of the rooms.  Monday the movers are coming to lower the house to make contact with the first floor frame so I should have the beams in place and sheathing on by the end of Friday.  Wish me luck.  And stop the rain.  What is it about me taking a roof off or starting to frame that can break any drought.  The last two nights we have had thunderstorms.  Couldn’t it have waited just one more week?

Piers and lumber ready for some labor

Almost done with the floor joists

Walls in front. Now the house does not look so high.

Back walls and less lumber.