Category Archives: doggy dreamhouse?

“I can only think of my quest, I’ve not been satisfied being merely a tone, I’m making the choice to venture off”– Josh Groban.

Thanks Joshie baby.

I too am on a quest.

A seemingly endless quest for a building permit and I’m not satisfied being merely a tone either. Whatever a tone is.

So anyway. I spent two days swimming uphill in both directions, battling The County on my quest, my journey. Yesterday, after work I hauled ass down to The County wanting to get the CAMA permit going ’cause I’d read it took a minimum of 18 days to clear and I’m starting to get really worried about the timeline.

I arrived panting and panicked in the CAMA office with my files and drawings and spilled them all over the very nice CAMA woman’s desk and the very nice CAMA woman took one look and pointed one of her perfectly trimmed and painted nails at the plan and said-

You don’t need a CAMA permit, she said.

I fist bumped her ’cause Miss Carol doesn’t like me to be kissing other women and ran out into the rain to get my Soil Disturbance Permit- which I’m gonna need because I’m going to be disturbing a LOT of soil building a house.

The County is funny like that.

I sprinted over the courthouse lawn high-steppin’ the sprinklers and curbs and ran into the Health Department, sluicing rainwater and breathing hard. I pressed my face up to the bullet proof glass and asked where the Water Conservation Department was.

And the nice lady said pointing to her left- right there but they’re both gone for the day.

Both? As in TWO? I asked? And no one else can help me get the Soil Disturbance permit that’ll lead to the Septic Permit, that’ll lead to the Well Permit, that’ll lead to the bright shiny Building Permit??

No, she said.

Come back maybe tomorrow she said.

I found out a coupla days ago that we have to get a CAMA permit on top of everything else. CAMA addresses waterfront property and our shitty little addition to global warming, as near as I can tell.

I think it’s just another hand held out, sweatily grasping.

But it made me look at the whole project and try and get a handle on costs so far. I’d originally budgeted $55-$65 grand to build our tiny 1600 square foot get-out-town-doggy-dreamhouse.

And I was amazed and saddened-

Land Disturbance Permit- $150

Engineered topographical site plan- $1060

CAMA- $100

Health Evaluation- $225

Septic Permit- $225

Well Permit- $400

Fill required by the Health Evaluation- $10,800

Operator to push the fill around- $600

Dominion Power to bring electricity to the budding burgeoning little house- $5000

Total- $18,560 to have a site that we still need to add-

Septic- $3000

A well- $3500

And pilings- $4680

New total for a humpy landmass with sticks sticking out of the ground ready to build the doggy dreamhouse on- $29,740.

$29,740 dollars to get to the starting gate.

Dreams die a hard, ugly death. They don’t give up easily. They grasp at your arms and caress your face and soul and want to sit in your lap and smile up at you. They want to breathe the fresh air and gaze up at the sunny blue sky with you and stroke your hair and whisper in your ear.

But I don’t know.

I’m not so sure anymore.

After drawing our little home a bajillion times, I started drawing the floor plan into elevations and found out that windows were in really weird places and the the roof line was REALLY getting helter skelter.

I suck.

But at least it stopped me before we were left with the new house version of a red-headed step-child or negro spaceship. I tried moving things around to accommodate symmetry and shit just got worse and worse and looser and looser.

So I started all over again. Beach Box. Simple. Small. Condensed. Focused.

And this is what I came up with.

It matches all the criteria we need to meet, it’s simple and small and hopefully Miss Carol won’t find too many things to change.

We’re still waiting on the engineered drawings for our septic system that’ll allow us get the Soil Disturbance Permit, which’ll allow us to get the Septic Permit, and the Well Permit, and hopefully, at some distant point on the horizon, our personal Holy Grail- The BUILDING PERMIT.

Can it possibly ever be true?

Oh, and then shit, I just found out we may need a CAMA permit. Not quite sure what that one is yet, but I’m guessin’ it’s more folks wantin’ some money.

My head reels.

So on Saturday I went down and mowed the lot and I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering when, if ever, we would begin construction, thinking back to my overly optimistic summer prediction that we’d be under way by mid-October.

So I mowed, spittin’ grass, kinda pissed that the world wouldn’t adhere to my timetable, when all the sudden, a thought bubble burst -I wasn’t JUST mowing- I was doing preliminary SITE WORK.

The warm channels of my brain lit up and just like that I was back on track.

While the increasingly numerous permits wind themselves through the system that is North Carolina, seeking a goal, an end, I wait.

And while I wait, I’ll update, ummmK?

Dominion Power has cancelled the work order for construction temp service because they need to see the house coming out of the ground before they’ll extend primary service down the street and since primary would have to be constructed before temp service, it means I’ll hate them ’till I draw my last labored breath, but, HEY- at least I finally got a good explanation about the costs.

Get this- when lots are laid out, but no development is planned, the power company has to guarantee service at some kinda price, and since they can’t possibly extrapolate that cost over decades ’cause that would be silly, and knowing that feeding my house would eventually break the back of the company and millions would be left in the cold and dark they have to protect their profits.

So they put a number out there, a ridiculously silly number representing utility construction in the 40’s- and then contractually force the customer to pay the difference. I gnash and growl but unless I want to live by candlelight I have no choice. They are the monopoly and I’m the yearning. So WTF?

Kinda like the government- but don’t get me started.

Anyway.

Some details on our little house. If your eyes glaze over, um, come back tomorrow?

Over the years, I’ve probably drawn and re-drawn our doggy dreamhouse about a bajillion times. We’ve gone from 4000 sq ft to 900 sq ft and everything in between.

It was ridiculously time wasting fun. But when we finally, really started talking about what it was we REALLY wanted, what we REALLY needed, it turned out that it wasn’t that much, that it was much less the more we thought about it.

We wanted a view.

We wanted an open kitchen/living area.

And we only wanted two bedrooms and bathrooms ’cause  we’ve learned after decades and centuries of living at the beach that small is good. We love entertaining but really love being able to visit with the folks that come and stay with us. Too many bedrooms and you have a crowd, a horde, and you end up cooking and cleaning and not really being able to rub up against your guests.

And rubbing up against is good, right? ooh baby, baby.

Another reason for smallness is the funny thing about space- it’ll fill up before you know what’s happening and then you have a whole buncha stuff you gotta take care of. So we kept doggydreamville small.

Now if I can just get it built someday.

So come to find out, this is how it works.

At first you go to the Health Department so they can do soil samples and tell you what you need to do to improve your lot for septic, ’cause you don’t want turds floating around in your backyard and hey, I get it.

Then, when the Health Department comes back with their site evaluation-saying you’re gonna have to truck in 70 or 80 truckloads of sand and fill to make your home the turd-free place you want it to be and you say, shitmotherfucker- OK?-’cause you don’t have any choice, right?

So then you say- can I pay for my septic permit ($225) and well permit ($400) now? Please?

And they say-

NO.

And then they laugh their big hearty laughs- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

They say- first you have to go to the newly formed Soil Conservation Office, ’cause you’re, you know, adding soil and stuff, and so you go to the newly formed Soil Conservation Office and when you do, they tell you you’re gonna need one of their newly formed Land Disturbance Permits.

And so you ask- swallowing hard and choking back dirty words- ’cause you’re gonna have to work with these folks for the next several months, you say- umm, err, (trying to be respectful) what is it I need to do, to get a Land Disturbance Permit?

And the man, who I am sure was the previously unemployed half-brother or uncle or friend of the guy at the Health Department, says you gotta get an engineered site plan and submit it to me, the newly formed Soil Conservation Department, prior to getting the septic permit that’ll allow you to get the building permit that’ll allow you to actually BUILD something that, you know, looks like a HOUSE.

Whew.

And you wonder why there’re people in towers with rifles.

So anyway, that’s where we stand- or sit- on a bulldozer with the motor gently idling, a long line of sand-filled dump trucks stretching out to the horizon and wondering why they gotta make it so hard.

After months and months of trying and hoping for a little one, it was surprising how fast it happened.

It looks like we’re pregnant with a little bitty house.

On Friday, I found out that the 20-some odd windows we’d been given for free, that I’d designed the house around, didn’t have the required coastal DP rating so we can’t use them. So for the umpteenth bazillionth time, I redesigned our tiny touron hideway, and it’s DONE.

And this time I drew it in INK and I’m posting it so it’ll be harder for me to want to change it.

It sounds goofy but you guys need to thank your lucky stars I didn’t include all y’all in the endless iterations. Trust me. I make MYSELF crazy with the constant changes and endless indecision. It’s something I seem to do well.

Miss Carol can somehow just blow me and my vagaries off with a flip of the wrist and a toss of her hair, but most everybody else would be scratching their eyes out.

But this it. I SWEAR.

This is our little 1200-something square foot touron escape pod. Our bungalow of loooove.

And it’s a done deal. Really. Honestly. This is IT.

I’ve (OK, WE’VE) designed the house around nominal lumber sizes. Each square, if you care, represents two square feet. So if you’re really bored and still reading this and want to count, you’ll see that the rooms are built on 16’s and the walls are all 8′- hopefully minimizing waste, ’cause I’m green like that. And, ooh, so, cheap like that, too.

Hmmmm.

Am I becoming a turd? Is this ALREADY turning me into something I don’t want to be?

Anyway.

I’m hoping to hear from Dominion Power tomorrow that they won’t abort our little one ’cause I’m an optimist like that and then we can start building.

‘Cause building’s fun, right?

C’mon, let’s GO.

OK.

I knew going in that building a house, even a little itty bitty house, would be a challenge- I just didn’t think the challenges, and that’s what I’m gonna call ’em- would rear up this early.

I hadn’t heard from Dominion Power so I called today to see what was up. The very lovely I am sure Lauren, told me that she had been wrong and that Dominion Power  couldn’t just willy nilly install power poles and bring electricity to empty lots until they saw some movement, some construction goin’ on.

And I was like. OK, that’s cool.

So I asked the very lovely I am sure Lauren what Dominion Power needed to see from me to install electricity. Did they need to see a building permit? Backhoes digging and laying septic? What?

And the very lovely I am sure Lauren said that Dominion Power wanted to see construction taking place and then she squatted and laid the bomb.

And you’re gonna have to pay for it. She said.

PAY FOR TELEPHONE POLES TO BE INSTALLED TO BRING ELECTRICITY TO MY HOUSE? WTF? YOU’RE KIDDING ME, RIGHT?

And the very lovely I am sure Lauren said- YES.

When I came to, after I regained consciousness, and the paramedics had left I called and asked the very lovely I am sure Lauren just how much Dominion Power Trucks and Crews were gonna cost.

And the very lovely I am sure Lauren said she didn’t know and couldn’t possibly calculate the cost until she engineered what had to be done AFTER I started construction.

And I’m pretty positive the very lovely I am sure Lauren was surprised by my invective, because she said she’d have a ballpark figure for me next week.

In the meantime I’m going to the NC state utility commission to fight it.

THEN.

One of the reasons we were forging ahead with the build was that we were given about twenty new Crestline windows. I had designed our new little house using just about all of them.

Come to find out- they don’t have the coastal DP (design performance) rating required so we can’t use any of them which meant I spent a good part of the evening re-designing our little bitty house and the rest of the night knitting my  very lovely I am sure Lauren and Crestline Window dickhead dolls and poking pins in them.

Back to square one.

Building a house is tough.