Some ground rules...

It's Monday; it's raining; still no permit. The sum total of "addition work" accomplished today - some of the bricks got picked up. Given this break in the action, I figured I'd better lay down some ground rules for all of you people in blogdom before things get totally out of hand (yeah, we're teetering on the brink now... Chaos, mayhem!)

RULE 1) Your comments are encouraged. Comments such as; "Hey, way to go!"; "Looks real good!"; or "You guys are sure working hard!" - these are allowed. You don't necessarily have to use those exact words but feel free to use the above suggested comments as templates. Such comments will be rewarded with a comment response from yours truly along the lines of "Hey, way to follow RULE 1!"

RULE 2) Advice about how to do stuff that we've already done is strongly discouraged. Considering that by the time you see this stuff it's already finished - what's the point? So don't post remarks such as; "I see you did X in this particular way; you should have done it this way." When you build your own addition feel free to do it your way; we've already done it our way (dumb as our way may have been.) Also forbidden under this rule are comments such as "That picture shows you doing something kind of unsafely." When viewing pictures of us working on the addition always remember the following: The camera not only adds ten pounds but it increases any danger (real or imagined) by a factor of five. Comments which violate this rule will probably still be published (unless they are not) but you will be reprimanded along the following lines, "Hey buddy, maybe you should reread RULE 2!"

RULE 3) No comments pertaining to even the slightest change of the agreed upon design of the addition will be tolerated. The design, simple though it is, is the result of (literally) years of painstaking, agonizing deliberation by my better half. I participated in the process by agreeing with everything she proposed. Yeah, don't even bother trying to sneak in a comment that violates RULE 3. Ain't gonna happen.

RULE 4) If there is ever a post in which something like the following is put forth - "I wonder how we do this next part" - feel free to immediately post comments which outline in great detail how to do that particular thing in an extremely easy and economical way. In the event that your advice is taken and it actually works, we will be forever in your debt. (We'll be forever in your debt because we aren't going to pay you anything.) Seriously though, you will be rewarded with a comment along the following lines, "That's a great idea; thank you so very much. Why don't you come over a show us how to do that in a little more detail? We will feed you and give you beer."

RULE 5) I reserve the right to suspend any of the above rules at any time if I feel like it. I'm not taking them very seriously so I don't really see why anyone else should (with the exception of RULE 3).

Day 1: About those bricks...

Note, if you will, that there is a chimney on the side of the house. If we left this chimney up it would be right in the doorway of our new bedroom. We decided to dismantle the chimney.

I bought a new mini-sledge hammer and a cold chisel at Lowes, leaned our extension ladder against the house and began chipping away.

Things were going quite well. The bricks were coming apart without too much effort. There were not too many pieces flying into my face.

Once I got to the spot where the chimney met the roof, I had to work from the ground which was not necessarily easier - just different.

You can't really tell from the picture but there is about a 1.5 inch gap between the chimney and the exterior siding. Apparently that is more than enough room for a bat....

I was taking down bricks without a care in the world when suddenly a little brown bat was snarling at me. It was about six inches from my face. I screamed like a little girl, which brought the whole family and our three dogs running to see whether I had finally fallen off a ladder. They were only mildly disappointed to see that I hadn't toppled off a ladder. Their disappointment was tempered by the news about the bat. The whole "dismantling of the chimney" project ground to a halt while we caught the bat.

Long story short, we caught the bat. They're pretty cool little animals. Nasty looking though.

The chimney is down. I didn't find anymore bats - just the remains of one unfortunate starling. Now we just have to wait some more....

By the way, we let the bat go earlier this evening. They are so cool to watch in flight!

Day 1: Prep work

See those black lines? Soon(?) they will be the walls of our new addition. (The bricks are another story which I will get to shortly.)

Where to begin.... Five years ago, our family moved into a house that was truthfully far too small for us. Not only was it small but it was something of a "handy man's special". Well, for five years, we've been renovating, replacing, rewiring, re-everything-ing; and now we're going to try to add on.

We are going to build a 16x20 addition. It will be a master bedroom with a bathroom and walk-in closet. It seems to be a fairly modest undertaking and given the experience that my wife and I have accumulated over the past years; I'm sure we can do it.

That's not to say that we won't be faced with some challenges.

First of all, I labeled this post "Day 1" but in reality we've been at this for a long time already. We've actually had plans drawn up for a few years and even got so far as to apply for a building permit; but for whatever reason, we decided to put the project on hold at that time.

Now our plans have been resubmitted. We've made numerous trips to our county's Buildings & Plans Dept. and we are waiting....

A few days ago we got a letter from Buildings & Plans. We were excited! We were sure that our permit had arrived! We were wrong. B&P informed us that we lived in an area of "international cultural and historical significance". They told us that before the permit process could continue we would have to have an "archeological assessment" done and then several tribes and committees would have to review the findings. We called one of the approved archeologists and he came, dug two 4 inch by 4 inch holes, found nothing, presented us with a bill, and left... You can't see them in the picture because they are covered by bricks but there are two small dirt patches in the black rectangle - each filled in hole is about $350. I'm going to encourage my kids to become archeologists!

I'll get to the pile of bricks in the next post.