Monthly Archives: December 2014

Building Permit – Civil Resubmittal

Posted in Permits by

Immediately after getting our Critical Areas Approved, I called and scheduled my appointment for the resubmittal for our Civil Review.  Luckily I was able to get in a week later on the 30th at 10am.  I felt like I was going to battle this morning though – the reviewer we had was known for being one of the most difficult at the County – lucky us.  I basically wanted to get in and out and just get our approval.

Far from it though – this reviewer didn’t agree with the Critical Areas Reviewer and called her in there and she rescinded her approval!!  What the heck!  She told us that we can’t do the small amount of regrading that we wanted to do on our property within the previously cleared buffer area.  Apparently she didn’t notice the regrading before and it was only when our civil reviewer pointed it out to her that she saw it.  So in order to get the Critical Areas Approved (again) I needed to revise our grading limits.  That’s fine with me though – it really not that big of a deal to adjust the grading.  So our #1 issues of Critical Areas seems to be easy to get approved again.

And our #2 issue was the small vs. large drainage review requirement.  The reviewer came in guns-a-blazin’ on this issue and it wasn’t until a drainage reviewer came in that he agreed with me and that we met the small drainage review requirement.  Phew!

So with a few more small plan changes, we’ll be able to resubmit our site plan for approval.

Building Permit – Critical Area Review Approved

Posted in Permits by

Today we heard from King County for on our permit submittal.  The Critical Area Reviewer emailed and let us know that our proposed site plan will require mitigation for work within the buffer area.  She said that our septic drainfield is within the buffer and will require wetland enhancements/buffer mitigation work to be able to put it there.  I explained the history of our property and how the property has a previously permitted clearing area.  Since that clearing, the buffer widths increased, and part of the area is now within the new buffer limits.  We kept our drainfield design to fit within that area though and it was our understanding that having in that area met King County’s requirements.  The Critical Areas Reviewer did some more research on our property and found the old clearing permit.  She agreed with us and our Critical Areas Review was APPROVED!  Score!

Now we can resubmit for our Civil Review…

Permit Approval - Critical Areas

All White Exterior Design

Posted in Exterior Design by

Last March our architect had the exterior of our house rendered, which included shingles and stonework.  Since then, we’ve completely changed our mind!  I’m so happy that we’ve had the time to think more about the exterior of our house and what we should do with it.  I recently saw this $2.1M brand new home in Bellevue online for sale, have driven by it a couple of times, and was completely inspired.  I showed one of our friends the pictures, she drove by the house too and she agreed that it was totally our style (even more so than our old rendering).

All white home in evening.

All white home in evening.

All white home during the day evening.

All white home during the day.

(via)

I love the coastal style and the crisp white exterior.  It’s definitely a lot more modern and current with clean lines but still maintains that classic Nantucket styling.  Joel and I both love it!  And of course I’ve been pinning all sorts of all-white houses on Pinterest to get more inspiration.  Here’s a quick idea of what our home would look like with the roof lines squared off, all white, and without the shingles.  Not sure yet if I’ll square off the top of the garage doors like I show, but I was just playing around to see what it would look like.

New sketch of our home without shingles & stonework.

New sketch of our home without shingles & stonework.

Here’s an updated sketch which shows what it would look like if the garage doors are arched…pretty sure I like this option better.  I think it ties in with the front entry and dining room window better than the first option.

Updated sketch to show arched garage doors.

Updated sketch to show arched garage doors.

Building Estimate Review Meeting #1

Posted in Budget & Estimate by

After work this evening we met with Matt Ruttan (our builder) to discuss our house estimate (finally)!  We’ve been waiting for a while for Matt to put together a true cost estimate to build our house.  To do this, Matt sent out copies of our plans (electronically) to different subcontractors that he would use to build our house.  In return, they sent him bids for what it would take to do the work.  He then compiled them in to what creates our estimate.  Although we could have done this any time, Matt thought it would be best for us to wait until when the subs are less busy which would give us better pricing (ie: when contractors are super busy they increase their price because their demand is so high).  Since we had the time to wait, Matt didn’t get bids until December which is typically a slower month for the construction industry.

Matt compiled our estimate and after adding in 95 different line items from all of the different subs we were over budget…by 25%!!  This was heart breaking!  The home of our dreams was completely unaffordable.

So, now the dirty work – why was it over budget, what made it so expensive, and how can we lower costs?  In my opinion, you need to ask a builder to put together a home bid in one of two ways:

  1. Bare bones. Have the builder tell you what’s the cheapest we can get this house built. Then if there’s extra room in the budget, you can ask the builder to add in more expensive things into the house.  Doing so, means that they either have to estimate how much those extras are going to cost, or the builder has to get new bids from his subs.
  2. Go for it. Tell the builder everything you could want in the house and then if the price is too expensive (as dreams usually are), the builder will take things out of the budget.

Luckily we chose Option #2 and had the builder go for it.  I say luckily because it gives us lots of areas that we can ‘cut’ from the home to be within our budget.  I had him do Option 2 because it still tells us how much those extras will cost us if/when we decide to put them in sometime in the future.  For example, we had him price out having a built-in buffet in the dining room. Obviously this is something we can live without and it doesn’t affect the overall quality of the home.  Although we’ll cut it now, it’ll be something we can add in later and now we know how much it will cost us!