Window Tax

Having stripped the house, I think we have solved one of the lasting enigmas that had puzzled us since we bought it.  Downstairs in the living room we had early on discovered two large 4' windows that had been boarded up and plastered inside and stuccoed over on the outside. In the dining room, more obviously, was a similarly sealed picture window, much larger, which though plastered inside had been left framed on the exterior, its sill intact, a piece of plywood where the glass once lived.  We heard told that the picture window was removed by the last owners, and English family, to make room for the large family heirloom china closet they put on that wall. Ron, the old man who lived next door for 45 years,  told us this.

But we had never figured out the living room, resting with an assumption that the windows had been boarded when the house next door arose to present a view of a stuccoed garage wall.

Having stripped the plaster thoroughly, though, it now appears that the wood used to close all three windows is identical, leading us to now believe that the three windows were all boarded at the same time.

History supports this view. During the late 17th century in England, the King wanted to raise funds. Unable, or unwilling, to leverage an income tax on a landed aristocracy that found disclosing your income bad form, but wanting to draw revenue from the rapidly growing merchant class, they came up with the inventive progressive solution to impose a "glass tax." Working from the assumption that the richer you were, the larger house you could afford and the larger the house, the more windows it had, King William III instituted a tax on windows in under the Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money in 1696. The more windows you had, the more you paid.

The tax was unpopular, as all taxes are,and some by some as a tax on "light and air." Nevertheless, it persisted for 200 years or so, forging an indelible mark on both English architecture and culture. Anti-tax crusaders (the Republicans of their day no doubt), rather tan risk getting their heads chopped off or some other medieval grotesquery, simply bricked up their windows. Over time, people built fewer windows into their homes and got used to living in the dark.

Which brings us back to Casita Moreno. Our English predecessors, presumably attracted by the lack of rain but repulsed by the incessant beating of the glorious SoCal sun, simply boarded it up, removing any pretensions our little box had to sunny warmth and, coincidentally, destroying any flow-through ventilation the house ever had. Though the saying supposes that mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, perhaps it's because when you go out you can wear a hat and even Englishmen won't wear their bowlers around the house.

Our new casita will have glorious light and the wafting scent of night jasmine and mock orange blossoms on the cool night air. It will breathe once again.

The Amazing Floating House

When I began working on the house back in 1995, one of the first clues I got that I was in over my head was the amazing floating staircase. It was a split level stair, and the top return created a nook in the kitchen under which the stove and fridge tucked. When I stripped off the plaster, I discovered a rube goldbergian framing in which one thing was attached to another, but none seemed to attach to anything that descended to the ground to carry the weight. It just seemed to float.

At first, I attributed the confusion to my lack of experience, but one by one my construction savvy friends came to look and all went away scratching their heads in amazement.  One one header, scrawled in child's crayon, were the words "fix this Cornor," (sic) scribbled, no doubt, by a barely english literate Italian workman and heeded, seemingly, by no one.

In the end, i threw up my hands, figured it had been standing for 80 years and wasn't going to fall down now, strapped everything to everything else with flat metal plates, and closed the whole thing up like a bad family memory that you suppress and only recall at thanksgiving meals.

Over the years, I ran into other examples of framing that looked like it had been completed by a severely ADD limited nailer and the hand of God, but nothing as bad as the stairs. Until today.

Having removed the stairs completely, I was faced with the framing designed (and I use the term loosely) to hold up the entire upstairs bathroom and part of the roof, two 8' 2x12s sistered together supported where they met the wall by a single 2x4 and at the other end by...nothing. They were simply end nailed into a floor joist.  I know this because, after 80 years of supporting the 800 iron bathtub, all the  fixtures and walls of the bathroom, plus the trodding of countless humans, the joists had sunk a full 1/2" exposing the three slender nails holding the whole mousetrap together.

Now, to be fair, 1/2" sag over that time is remarkably little, but still, had I known that critical parts of the house were joined by little more than duct tape, I think those Thanksgiving dinners would have been even uglier than they were (Did I tell you about the 6 months staring up at the ceiling over our bed knowing that about 20,000 of clay tile and wood directly over our sleeping heads were being held in place by a ridge beam that had cracked in two places? No? Remind me someday.)

Perhaps the controlling metaphor for this reconstruction should be the joining well of that which was only loosely held in place, as if the years we spent keeping things going, scratching to get by, were just a house of cards that held long enough for us to build the strong internal bonds we would need to confront this project. Now, older, established, we have the opportunity to bind our home together with bonds as strong as the bonds of love with which we built our family, with which we survived tough times, infertility, the death of both of my parents, career transition, Charlie's adoption, successes and failures, with which we persevered one slow step at a time into the middle of our age like we were driving at night, seeing only as far as the headlights would shine but knowing we would get there nonetheless.

Now we get to make our small spot of earth as permanent as a person can, which is to say not very permanent, but perhaps, at least, well built.

Can you build in space with a hammer a reflection of the far more difficult -- and ephemeral -- construction that is your life? Should you try?

Weak #1

First week: not stellar. 

We have a hole (thanks Jose and Arturo!) for the footing that will support the new staircase and, incidentally, the center of the house. The old staircase is gone, as is the wall between the dining room and kitchen. the place seems larger, of course, and I'm sure a lot of ordering/planning/scheduling happened in the background, but we haven't had a crew more than 3 on the property yet and I'm hoping that changes soon.

We had so much pent up energy for the project we assumed the contracting crew did too. But I suppose it is more reasonable to understand that a project like this will ramp up. I kinda want to grab a hammer and get to it, but I'll keeping pounding on the keyboard trying to get this draft out. Perhaps the two are related. Wouldn't be the first time my work and life were moving on invisible but parallel tracks. In those cases, I only discovered after the fact, and perhaps that will be the case here as well.

Steve and I continue to go back and forth over the contract. The latest notion is that "I want my cake and to eat it to," which i confess I found a bit unfair, even if it might have been made in half jest ("kidding on the square," Al Franken calls it). I'm trying, perhaps futilely, to build a time plus materials/not to exceed contract that includes both an incentive fee for them to come in under budget, but also some enforceable control on overages. Steve's first draft basically said the budget was a guide only, and provided no guarantees. That seemed too much risk for me./ I want to share the risk and share the reward. He, justifiably, wants to protect himself. I believe we can find a middle ground, but in so doing, the number keeps going up. It's making my brain hurt, but I'm going to see it through. the annuls of construction are littered with the remains of unprotected homeowners. Mikey Holmes taught me that (;-))

Also, in a fit of I-don't-know-what, I bought a scooter on Saturday. Funny money impulse buy. I hope it doesn't kill me. If it does, this blog is done and everyone should know that Elicia and Charlie are the two most important, beautiful things that ever happened to my life (Just thought I'd put that down in print somewhere, in case).

The scooter's cool, though. Comes in this week.

a Holmes returns

yup, Mikey is back.
TLC just picked up Holmesy in... get this...HD!

Did I mention the fact that our cousin Pam is head of Legal and Business Affairs for TLC?

I SWEAR she had nothing to do with returning Mike to the US. I SWEAR. Really. 

the release:

TLC Premieres HOLMES ON HOMES
Hit Series Joins All-New Episodes of DATE MY HOUSE Beginning June 28

Los Angeles, CA – June 24, 2008 – The hit series HOLMES ON HOMES has found a new home on TLC beginning Saturday, June 28, it was announced today by the network.

HOLMES ON HOLMES, which most recently aired on sister network Discovery Home, follows construction and renovation expert Mike Holmes as he visits unlucky families who have been swindled or abandoned during their home improvement projects. Mike uncovers shoddy construction methods, improper techniques, and down right rip-offs, working to uncover and fix the problems, while explaining how homeowners can safeguard themselves from these unscrupulous builders and dishonest contractors. Viewers can learn valuable lessons for their own home renovation projects, such as the importance of a good contract, proper payment terms and what good craftsmanship should really look like.

“As more people focus on renovating the homes they have, instead of moving to new ones, it’s important to be informed and aware of the ‘right’ way to tackle any construction project,” explain Holmes. “Through the experiences and stories of the homeowners on the show, viewers can avoid unexpected disasters and big headaches. It’s great that HOLMES ON HOMES will find a new audience on TLC.”

the "news" part

When i went to the house to see the workmen, I found a delivered copy of the LA Times. We suspended service shortly after the fire, postponing it for the maximum 6 months allowable. It resumed today.

Jung would call this "synchronicity."

I postponed it another 6 months. I wonder what will happen then.

Groundbreaking News.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. -Anais Nin, (1903-1977)

In my mind, this was a momentous day. In my mind, the day workmen began rebuilding would be a flurry of activity, a cacophonous post-modern symphony of sloshing portapotties, grinding hydraulics, crashing metal dumpsters, screaming men's voices in Spanish and English, bleeping cell phones, attacking hammers and squealing crowbars as a dozen or more workers descended on Casita Moreno in a flurry of industry and creative destruction. In my mind, this day would be the release of all the pent up frustration, twisting worry, and force of will it took to get here, to keep family spirits high and emotional keels even, to wring sufficient dollars from reluctant Allstate (still in process), to believe that this day would come. In my mind, today the unstoppable force of man's desire to build would overwhelm the unmovable object of charred entropy on Moreno Drive and yield the beginnings of a shiny new life.

Instead, we got Jose and Alberto digging a hole. A modest hole, granted, perhaps even a sincere hole. In fact, as I consider it, a beautiful hole. But on this, the first day of new life for Casita Moreno, we got two guys with shovels.

They seem to have brought a white microwave oven which they have put beneath my house. This is a mystery I choose not to solve. I have done so poorly so far.

Evacuation

the portapottie is back. we're back in business.

Permit Me

Permit achieved.

[PICTURE OF PERMIT TO COME]

After a Kafaesque process, they signed. I went down to the city to view firsthand the machinations of this secret bureaucratic cabal in person. the office where all the decisions are made about what is built and how in the entire city of Los Angeles is an absolutely featureless room with 6 empty desks arranged in kneewall cubicles. Scotch-taped to the wall above each is a single sheet of white paper with a single number, handwritten, to denote each station. there is absolutely nothing else on the walls. Nothing. Rein. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Not a sign. Not a poster. Not a picture of a house.  Nothing. you could perform open heart surgery in this room.

Presumably, the sterility of decor removes all possible distraction for the plan checkers whose job it is to get endlessly lost in a repeating feedback loop of inane regulations and code requirements. If they had a touchstone to remind them of the real world outside this austere room, presumably, they would not be able to so completely, quickly, and repeatedly lose sight of the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish.

Each time they touch your plans, they immediately go down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass in a ribbon of linearity, going from point to point down some supernatural checklist that only they can navigate, until they hit a bump in the road, and no matter how many times you have explained, clarified, and agreed to the resolution to that bump, they stop dead as if frozen deer, panicking lest some lag bolt or flashing has been tragically misplace, dooming the entire project to imminent destruction.

At one point today, the über-boss was looking at our plans and describing how, because of current setback requirements, the "addition" to my house (which, I remind you, involves simply adding a wall to enclose already existing space within my already existing foundation footprint) would now have one wall that must angle five degrees in order to set it back 5" from the property line. This would be in the middle of my bedroom. And after ten minutes of explaining the reasons for this, and us trying to explain the inanity of this, he says that's the way it has to be "unless, of course, you have the signatures of your neighbors," which, of course, we had ten days ago and had shown them twice. Shown a third time, he says, "Oh, well why are we talking about this? I'll sign." and we are done.

Next up: Sweaty men on the property...if, of course, I can get my builder to draft a contract. but that's another story.

Gardener 2

Tiburcio, our mow-blow-and-go guy hit me up for "me checka" yesterday. Six months back wages.

So much for all that sweetness and light.

Oh well. the guy's got to pay the bills.

pause.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. -- John W. Gardner

the permit, she still has not come.

Hoops of fire

Last weekend, I spent 3 hours catching up with every neighbor whose property surrounds ours and walked them through our plans in order to gain their approval for our addition. Evidently, our proximity to our neighbors required a sign off for what the city called a "yard reduction."  Though we have no yard, per se, I thought this reasonable at the time because enclosing the rear sun porch, though it lies within our existing footing, steal 7 feet from the outside space, making it inhabitable.

then i read the form, which clarified that what i need to spend all that time on one of the hottest days of the year attaining was permission to reduce my yard from 2'6" to 2'1", a reduction of 5". Had I not received it, I would have had to move the back wall in the 5" along the 12' stretch of patio.

5".

10 days ago, I cajoled our new downhill neighbor to sign a city-mandated affidavit acknowledging that we shared a sewer line and if it broke, the county was not responsible. We had it notarized, on the paperwork provided us by the city.

Today, I got a call from Nancy the Industrious Architect. 

"Nelson, we have a problem."

Love a call that begins that way.

Turns out she went to file the doc and the county did not accept it.

"They no longer accept notarization on the form they provided," she said. "It must be notified on this page instead."

And she faxed me the doc, which contained the EXACT SAME VERBIAGE in a different font.

there is a point in the process of getting the final permit to go ahead and begin reconstruction when your spirit and rational mind is utterly shattered.  I may be there.

Numbly, I trudged off down the hill to the Korean notary to get him to duplicate his stamp on the new page provided. Nancy the Industrious Architect arrived at my door 20 minutes later to shuttle the corrected document to the county. $37.50 per hour for an errand girl.

I now jump through hoops of fire without complaint. At some point building will begin. But will I any longer care?

Party On, Dude.

Given the sustained lack of life in the shell of our home, we decided to do the most absurd thing we could think of: cater a cocktail party in the rubble of the front lawn. Large Marge Sustainables prepared the food. Here's the menu:

Mt Tam triple cream and Mission fig sandwiches with arugula on crostini

homemade ricotta, grilled radicchio and lemon zucchini on crostini

rustic herbed heirloom tomato tart with caramelized onions and olives

honey cumin picholine olives and almonds

crudite with Asian walnut dip, and basil and lemon mayonnaise

fresh strawberries and minted whipped cream on walnut cornmeal cookie

Yum.

Don't think I related the story of Large Marge. Large Marge is actually small meg. Meg appeared in our lives days after the fire at the beckoning of our good friend and neighborhood connector Cheryl Revkin, who procured Meg's services to make us a home cooked meal after the fire. So on the first night in our new (rented)house, with no furniture or personal possessions to be seen and only our plastic inflatable mattresses on which to sleep, Meg

 appeared bearing iron pots full of luscious victuals, which we consumed on her plates as a picnic on the empty, echoey living room floor. It was the first food made by a real person we had eaten for days and it

 was like penicillin.

A few months later, we decided to make a dinner for the firemen who had diligently saved both our homes and many of our precious belongings in what was truly extraordinary work (remind me to tell you the story some time). Meg was the obvious call (since we didn't, and don't, yet own a knife sharp enough to cut through a tomato). She appeared bearing racks of chickens, which we fed to the dozen or so hungry and charming firefolk who inhabit LAFD station 56 on the C shift. It was a wonderful evening,a nd the men seemed to appreciate the care. It was an opportunity to share our appreciation and gratitude, and for Charlie to connect with those who spend their lives in ther service of others (the ride in the ladder truck with the siren on didn't hurt either).

So now Meg is an integral part of our narrative, as inseparable from the journey as the flashlights I keep in my car so as to be able to enter the darkened house. once again, she did not disappoint.

I think about 40 people showed up, plus a pack of kids. The adults stood amid the crushed ash, singed goose down, and broken glass and drank gin and tonics, wine, and beer, laughed and shared stories, and toured the denuded shell while the kids played mad and endless games around the property. There was joy, and life, and a revivified sense of the deep connection we feel for our friends and neighbors. The builders were there as well, and the net result of the evening was to bring once again to that forlorn property the sound of laughter and the ambiance of society, to remind it, perhaps, that it was not forgotten, but rather hibernating before it's next life begins. i think even the Buddah, which sits guard over the property since the day after the fire when we bought and installed it there, smiled.

With luck, groundbreaking next week.

I forgot to take pics, but Chris sent along a few, following:

Holmes pt 2.

Holmes on Homes was cancelled this week, run off the US airwaves by a rebranding of the network on which it ran, no longer "Discovery Home," now "Planet Green."  Nothing Green about 'ol Holmsey. He was a one man waste creation system, and now he has seemingly been banished back to the snowy north from whence he came.

Is there some poetic symmetry here, that the show ends just as construction begins? I will miss my Holmes fix. He provided odd comfort in time of preparation purgatory. Watching him reassured me that somewhere, someone's home was being Made Right. That gave me hope that one day soon ours would be too. 

Perhaps the plumber's torch has been passed.

Now I will take the lessons he taught me ("Un-Acceptable! This has all got to go.") and guide the work on our hoose.

Bye Mike. See you on the other side, eh?

wakefulness

somehow got turned back around this weekend from the vampire hours I've been working on the book, and woke up Monday morning...dare I say it...happy. The first time I think I've felt this way in months. I had, without realizing it, slipped into a low level depression fueled by lack of sleep. Life had gotten gray and dolby-ed, little got through and if it did it was more often enervating than not. I was conducting myself in three hour blocks of productivity and sleep, working two jobs (building house, writing book), often the first to the detriment of the second.

Monday, I awoke rested to a perfect spring day and felt alive again.

A good reminder of better days to come.

We're Having a Party

On Friday the 13th. Go Figure.

Evite, June 8, 2008.
With your love, support, and, let's face it, seemingly endless patience with
our recent travails, we have made it to a major milestone. Sweaty men will
soon be crawling on our home to make it whole again. Construction begins
soon.
To mark this moment, and express our appreciation of how patient you will be
with us during the next six months of actual construction, we'd love it if
you could join us amid the rubble and broken glass of our front lawn for a
sunset cocktail party. Frozen blender drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be
served. Wear durable shoes.

Those of you interested can tour the house, now gutted to the studs and
subfloor, and see the plans of what is to come. Everyone else can just hang
out and celebrate with us the absurdity of life. When the idea of milling
about the front yard of an abandoned house loses its charm, we can retire
quietly to David & Marcelle's new backyard next door where at least it is
possible to sit down.

Stop by and booze it up. Life is short.
--
Men have become the tools of their tools. -- Henry David Thoreau