Category Archives: doggy dreamhouse?

Framing a house is cool. BIG chunks are done daily and the changes are amazing.

This is the kitchen. Miss Carol hasn’t seen it nor the view yet.

Last weekend when the house was just a banded plywood floor on top of pilings Miss Carol slowly inched her way up the ladder and peered tortoise-like over the top and swore she saw something maybe approximating a view and was happily satisfied enough to scurry back down the ladder to safety.

I’m thinkin’ that this weekend I’ll get her to come all the way up and check it out. Maybe I’ll follow her up the ladder with my face in her butt and my arms around her thighs and when we get close to the top I’ll just push her up and over.

I’m pretty sure she’ll appreciate it.

Have you ever met someone who just totally enjoys his life? Whose day to day ever enviable enjoyment is so completely and overwhelmingly infectious that you just know his crew would probably cheerfully kill for him?

Meet Phil of Phil Pfeufer Construction.

Phil’s the guy whose gonna turn my amateurishly first-grader looking grid-paper penciled floor plan into something that might just maybe resemble a house.

And he does it all with such an easy laid-back-we’ll-get-it-done-whatever-it-takes confidence that makes building a house fun.

I mean check this out. We started the morning with our home looking like this-

Phil and I went over a coupla things and then I had to go to work. Phil was hoping to get everything laid out and maybe get the girders up.

I was all like, girders is good.

When I got back I was flippin’ amazed. Not only did they have the girders up, they had most of the floor joists in and were banding.

But what was really cool was watching Phil and Nick (his son) and Sideshow and Johnny and Crockett work. All of ’em have been together for so long that they all know what everyone else is doing, their choreographed moves syncopated by blaring music and carefully orchestrated by Phil cheerfully yelling.

And ya know what? Honestly? I needed this. After all of the permitting process and then the first contractor guy spreading fill and then disappearing and then the pile-driver guy bitching and moaning about having to drive 8×8’s (but doing a HELLUVA GREAT job) I was, quite frankly, not into it anymore.

I was, like, why’d I start this?

But.

But, then there’re days like today.

Thanks Phil, I’d have your children dude but we’re both too old.

Sweet, sweet, progress.

After months and months of permit process and weeks and weeks of contractor confusion we’re finally seeing a hint of a barely imagined beginning to something remotely resembling the start of what may, one day, if the stars all align and the gods smile benignly, actually become a house.

True to their word, the new contractor began driving pilings on Thursday. By Friday, when I brought them lunch, I was excited because they’d driven about a third of the pilings.

But all is not rivers of frothy malted beverage just yet. When I timidly asked the new piling contractor when he thought he’d be done so I can schedule material delivery and start date for the framing contractor, he snarled- this is the LAST Carolina house I’m doing.

uh oh. THAT doesn’t sound like warm puppie happiness.

Turns out pile driving is normally a fairly simple and sloppy way to make lots of money. At $100 a piling he can usually drive telephone pole pilings in fairly close to where they’re supposed to be leaving the framing contractor to compensate for the sloppiness by cantilevering the house girders out from the piling line.

Not so in Carolina. In Carolina the pilings are 8×8’s that have to be precisely installed plum, level, and true, because they ARE the outside corners of the house. It’s a lot more work and a LOT more attention to detail.

I’m installing ONE piling an HOUR. YOU do the math, he hissed at me.

So I counted on my fingers and figured if he worked all weekend, he’d be done Monday.

But I didn’t tell HIM that.

Miss Carol and me were walking the beach this morning trying to keep Cutter and Tug in sight so’s maybe they wouldn’t run off and get lost and I was trying to keep our constructionless little house that’s currently not getting built in some kinda perspective.

Yesterday I drove down to the island to see if Mr. Dickhead Contractor had done any work at all in the THREE weeks since last we spoke ’cause I can’t get him to return my calls.

And he hadn’t.

I’m not quite sure what it is that Mr. Dickhead is doing. And I like Mr. Dickhead. The recent economic unpleasantness- which I think is gonna be MUCH more unpleasant and lifestyle-changing than any of us know- has cost Mr. Dickhead his business, his home, and at least one of his cars.

You’d think he’d be hungry. My buddy Mr. Dickhead’s a good ‘ole Carolina boy who’s done work for us in the past and since he’s had such a hard time of it I gave him the site work, pilings, and septic without even soliciting any other bids. Twelve grand is far from life-changing but it’s still 12,000 one dollar bills. Hell, I thought I was helping the guy out.

I don’t know.

Did I mention I like Mr. Dickhead? But three weeks of unanswered voicemail messages were enough for me. So when I drove down yesterday, I stuck a huge note on the windshield of his bulldozer thingy telling him not to do anything more until we talk.

Because.

I’ve decided to kick him to the curb. I’ve lined up someone else to drive the pilings and gotten a quote from another company on the septic. Both are cheaper than my buddy Mr. Dickhead and both are ready to get the work done immediately.

So I should be happy, right?

So why do I feel like a turd?

There are times when you’re stretched, when you’re wonderin’ just what it is you started, when you’re thinkin’- what the hell were you thinkin’?.

This was one of those weeks.

After we had the Freak Global Warming Snowstorm that dumped 14,  no wait, FOURTEEN FUCKING INCHES of snow on us, I was all, like I get it. Nobody wants to work in the muddy mess of a Global Warming Snowstorm.

So we lost the week between Christmas and New Years.

But then, this week has been perfect. No Global Warming Storms, no nothing- just pretty weather beckoning with outstretched arms, pleading.

So what happened?

Nothing. Nada.

I can’t get a hold of the contractor doing the site work, he won’t answer his cell phone and I filled up his voicemail with messages begging for an update.

This is why people get killed- it’s just sooooo blindingly frustrating it makes you wanna strangle puppies and stomp on kittens.

Whew.

So lets look at babes instead. Breathe in, breathe out, baby.

The last coupla days have been a wild ride. After days and weeks and months of stymied do-nothingness, all the sudden we’re riding a riptide of shit happenin’.

This is what went down. Last week Miss Carol and me finalized the floor plans AGAIN for, like, the FINAL TIME? and handed them off to the framer and all the other contractors that need to know where to put stuff.

Attentive readers will notice that I flipped the bedrooms ’cause Miss Carol wanted a hallway and closet and the rest of us will yawn and rub our eyes and say let’s just do this thing already.

Then, last Friday, Wesley, the contractor who’s doing the site work and driving the pilings and installing our much beloved, super expensive septic system got started pushing dirt.

So far we’ve had thirty truckloads of fill sand delivered and spread where it’s supposed to be and I’ve ordered the 31- 22′ 8×8 pilings which are gonna be delivered today and the piling inspection is due tomorrow and I’m meeting Wesley on Monday morning to lay it all out and we should have pilings washed down next week if the weather holds and the construction gods smile fondly on our feeble wantings.

And I know it looks like pretty much what it is- which is a bunch of dirt being pushed around in the middle of a big open field- but it smells like progress.

Things are burgeoning.

I can feel it.

Well, shit.

We’re fifteen days into construction and there is absolutely NOTHING going on. After months of permit process and hot on the heels of years of amateur design work and even more amateurish dreams I just can’t seem to push this baby off the cliff and make her fly.

The contractor that’s gonna do the site work promised he’d start on the 6th, or maybe on the 7th at the very latest. When neither happened, I called him repeatedly but cell phones with caller ID are fun things and pretty much guarantee contractors are gonna talk to you when they’re damn good and ready.

And that’s what’s happenin’

Mr. Site Work finally returned my plaintive calls last Friday promising he’d be there toiling away on Monday the 13th. Tuesday latest.

Again nothing. So. More plaintive pleas, more unanswered calls and he finally called me this morning to say that he’d DEFINITELY be on-site tomorrow, machines and dump trucks humming. Boy Scout’s honor.

You know, unless it snows.

And, ya baby, you guessed it- it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.

So now I’m thinkin’ Mr. Shithead Site Work Dude won’t start this week and then next week is Christmas and gosh golly can’t be starting anything THEN and after that it’s New Year’s and holy cow give me a break and then before we know it, it’s January.

And I’ve lost another month and, you know, maybe I’m just one step closer to homicide.

Effin’ unbelieveably, we’ve somehow, some kinda way, run the beast to ground and trussed it up and made it give us what we want.

201001382. My new tattoo.

This is what went down.

On Monday while I was working I was working with Jason, my new best buddy NC building inspector, trying to work through the exposed rafter thingie. Finally we worked it out that if I supported my goofy rafters with an additional beam, he’d sign off on it and issue the permit.

I flew to Office Max that evening to fax the updated drawings to my new best buddy Jason, feeling close to a beginning.

Then.

That night I proudly showed Miss Carol what I’d done, how I’d rescued her exposed rafter ceiling.

She looked at the revised plans for a minute, sniffing the air, and then pointed imperiously at them and shouted WHAT ARE THESE?

um. they’re posts that’ll support the beam that’ll support the exposed rafters. I said.

NO, NO, NO fucking way. she said. POSTS in MY living room? she said. WHAT IS the matter with you? she screeched.

I’d thought they’d be kinda cool. um, guess not?

CAN’T WE JUST GET THIS DONE WITHOUT ALL THIS BULLSHIT? she cried.

So anyway.

I called my new best buddy Jason The Inspector early Tuesday morning so’s he wouldn’t spend any time inspecting the drawings I’d faxed the night before and I told him I’m over it, that I’d fought the good fight, that I’d gone down swinging and cursing and that I was just gonna build the house to  NC IRC code and give up on all the other stuff.

When he called back, I could almost hear him smile. Can you come in tomorrow? he said.

Yup, and I did, and we hashed it out and I paid more people more money and I got it. The Building Permit is officially MINE.

And as I cradled it, rocking back and forth softly and chucking it’s cute little laminated chin, Jason snorted and told me I needed to man-up and stormed out of his office leaving me alone with my Permit.

Whatever, baby.

Bring it on.

When last we left my quest for the Holy Building Permit, I really thought that I’d put the hard part behind me, that all I had to do was wait patiently for the NC bureaucracies’ wheels to slowly grind out its grudging acquiescence to build a house.

I was wrong.

It’s nearly three weeks later and I’m still without a permit. And the thing is, it’s such a little fly-in-the-ointment, burr-in-the-saddle, sand-in-the-bikini thingie that’s holding everything up that I’d be tempted to let it go if it weren’t important.

But it is.

What it boils down to is this- we want to have exposed rafters in the ceiling. Period. Originally I had drawn the house with a simple A-frame cathedral ceiling utilizing 4×6 lumber as rafters. Nope. Can’t do it. NC code dictates R-30 insulation in the ceiling. (Or actually, supposedly it’s R-30 overall but nobody’s quite sure what that means or how to achieve it.) Whatever.

So I re-drew the plans (which means re-drawing all 5 pages because you have to show elevations and typicals and blah, blah, blah) with an attic space that’ll allow for the R-30 installation and duct work, which we were going to run exposed in the cathedral ceiling scenario. Nope. Sorry. NC code doesn’t recognize or even address 4×6 lumber.

And this is the sand-in-the-bikini thingie. By code you can span 15’6″ with a 2×6 (we’re spanning 14′) but because there is nothing in the regs about 4×6’s, the county wants me to shell out an additional thousand bucks to have an architect draw up the plans and have an engineer stamp them to ensure lumber that’s TWICE AS BIG AS SPEC is OK to use.

Can we say it together?- WTF???

I could just, and maybe I should just, give up and re-draw the plans using puny 2×6’s, or have an engineering firm bless the 4×6’s, but I can’t. I just can’t. It’s something we want and something whose underlying logic should be a foregone conclusion and something which, in my mind, brilliantly spotlights everything that is wrong with bureaucracies and their inability to cope with common sense.

So.

While I try and figure out a way around this latest obstacle and not succumb, time speeds by. I was planning to be coming out of the ground mid-October, now I’m hoping to get started by mid-December.

Is it possible that the permitting process will end up taking longer than the actual construction?

Holy mother jesus.

I don’t know what happened.

All the sudden it was almost too easy.

Maybe they were tired of seeing my mopey dejected, rejected, little ass hanging around, hands plunged deep into my pockets, looking like Miss Carol and the dogs had been hit by the train.

Maybe it was just my turn. Maybe officialdom has some unwritten, unseen agenda that counts down through the days and when it’s your turn, it’s YOUR turn.

Whatever it was, I won the lottery. I hit the home run with the bases loaded, I caught the touchdown pass with only seconds to spare, I sunk the impossibly long put, I tossed in the three-pointer at the buzzer, I gambled on my gas and squeaked over the finish line to win.

I did it.

Not only did I get the Land Disturbance Permit (just typing that makes me laugh fucking out loud), I got the Septic and the Well Permits AND successfully applied for the much sought after, but rarely seen, BUILDING PERMIT.

I think it might happen, chile.

And if it does, you better believe I’m gonna frame that sucker.