The wait is over

Well, there it is. Grace picked up our building permit on Monday afternoon. You might have thought that I would have run to the computer right away and posted about it - but it's somewhat daunting. As I go through the thing it strikes me that I'm a bit like a dog that chases cars - once he catches one what's he gonna do with it? So we've got this permit, now what? For starters, I suppose we have to find somebody who knows something about excavation and footings and foundations. I'm pretty sure that Grace has some leads in that regard.

As I pore over the gibberish of the permit and try to decipher all of the illegible red ink stamps and decode the garish green stickers that our bureaucratic friends have liberally splattered all over our carefully drawn up plans I'm a little overwhelmed. At first glance it would seem that about 74 more layers of difficulty have been tacked on to our addition. We looked it over last night - it's mind boggling; especially if you're not used to doing this kind of stuff. But then we settled down, had a beer, and things began to make sense. Instead of looking at the whole thing in a jumble all at once - we began (somewhat) systematically picking through the thing. We matched up code reference numbers in red ink stamps and on green stickers to code numbers in the little code booklet that came with our package. I still don't understand it all but I'm almost certain that this is the way we've been making and remaking stuff all along. Apparently one of the first things I have to do is make an ugly sign with our house number on it. The numbers must be at least three inches tall and be easily readable from the road. I can do that...