The Deed is Done

It is a strange feeling to sit in a house and know that it will not be there the next day. A bit eery.

We pre-celebrated the demise of the house with a small barbeque for family and friends. The intermittent rain drove us into the living room, but brief breaks allowed forays into the yard for whiffle golf and croquet. (And no, we did not use the ladder the fire department pre-placed on the deck.)

Of course, we didn't get completely ready for the burn until the last possible minute. Waking up late, we scurried to get the last few items out of the house and garage before the fire fighters arrived.

And arrive they did - enmass - around 8 a.m. The fire trucks and volunteers' cars came pouring into our small neighborhood, comandeering the street and the yard in front of the trailer.

The crew was very organized. A half dozen individual scenarios were pre-set in the house. This means there were pallets and bales of straw set up in specific areas. Each area was lit on fire separately, with small teams of fire fighters assigned to put out each fire.

The more experienced guys (and yes, they were all guys) coached the newer volunteers. They started with a series of fires on the main floor, then did a rescue scenario using the smoke-filled daylight basement.

Then they were ready for the structural burn. This is where they let the beams and studs catch fire, eventually engulfing the house.

For this to go well, they had to manage the ventilation to direct the heat away from the neighbor's house and, to a lessor extent, the nearby trees. They broke out windows and cut holes in the roof and floors to assure good air flow.

By this time, there was lots of smoke and bystanders were starting to gather. It turned into quite a spectator sport, with neighbors, passersby and a few stalwart souls who came down from Seattle just to see the show.

I've got to say, these folks really know how to light a fire. The pictures speak for themselves.

Did I mention this process is extremely hot? The heat rolls out in tremendous waves.

The fire marshall made a point of talking to the kids in the crowd about what they were seeing.

He offered to walk kids up closer to the fire, circling the area so they got a sense of how intense the heat was and how the wind direction affected the temperature.

By 3 o'clock, the flames were dying down, people were starting to wander off and the fire fighters were packing up their hoses. By 4:30 we had the place to ourselves, in all its smoldering glory.

For the rest of the evening and through Sunday we had a steady stream of visitors.

Most people initially expressed concern about whether or not the burn was intentional. Once reassured, they asked about whether or not we were going to rebuild. Eventually I stationed the new house plans on a table next to the old foundation. It was fun to see people react to the new plans, and we received many, many good wishes for our building project.

Once the dust (and smoke) settles I'll post some portions of the new plans. In the meantime, stay safe out there.

From DINCs to DUNCs

It's official. Brian was laid off on Wednesday. We've gone from being a double-income-no-children household to being a double-unemployment-no-children household.

The good news is our overhead is quite low these days. Cable is probably our single biggest (non-building) expense, unless we splurge on something.

This did not come as a huge surprise and there are at least some relevant job postings in the area. I think Brian's going to take a day or two to go fishing, then look into the options.

In the meantime, we're forging ahead with the house plans. Had a GREAT meeting yesterday with the architects. We finally saw an exterior elevation of the house and I LOVE it. It's very modern and its shape directs your eye downriver in a peaceful way.

The main thing we're wrestling with now is windows - how many and where. We're not going with a giant wall of windows along the river side of the house and I have mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, I love the exterior look that mixes a corner full of windows with some uninterrupted walls. On the other hand, there's so much drama outside our door. We spend a lot of time tracking osprey across the sky as they fish and cross to their nest with food.

We'll find a solution. We're working well together, coming up with collaborative solutions and good dialogue. It's definitely fun to design a new space and think about how you'll live in it.

Now, it might seem a bit counterintuitive to continue with the house when we have no source of income. Hmmm. Seems that way to us too, a bit.

The plan right now is to forge ahead at least through to getting a building permit and clearing the site. We're not going to live in the house, so we might as well not pay Oregon property taxes on it.

After that, we'll take stock. Our current thinking is that we should go ahead and build. We're going to need to live somewhere, after all, and it really is a great time to build from a cost perspective.

Financing will be a bit interesting. It was looking nearly impossible to get an owner-builder construction loan. Throw in the no income thing and that door slams shut.

We have some options, from tapping into ROTHs to getting private financing to...I don't know what all. If we were both unemployed I suspect we'd end up doing a lot more of the physical work ourselves, with the help of our "construction coach," Leo. More about him later.

At the moment, we are trying to live in the now and not get too churned up about things we can't affect. Easier said than done at times.

For now, I'm inspired by the shape and look of our house-to-be. That's driving me forward. I guess in this case, hope actually is a plan.

And it always could be worse. I could be pregnant. (Which I'm not - just in case my mom is reading this and hyperventilating.) :-)

Demolition permits aka fun with bureaucracy

Today I ventured into the world of permitting.

Where we live, it turns out you can’t just tear your house down (let alone light it on fire) without a permit. Now, I tried to get a demolition permit before, but didn’t have enough paperwork with me to swing it. Today I am better prepared.

I brought with me:
One building permit application
That’s right – the permit you use to demolish a house is titled “Building Permit Application.” You can imagine the kinds of details that form calls for. It’s hard to fill out details on the “new dwelling area” when the goal is to tear out an existing dwelling.

A legal description of the property (which took us two days to find, since we still have belongings in three homes)

A plot map
The directions for creating the plot map are two pages long and rather daunting. I faked my way through this by sort of, ummm, making up the property elevations at various points. They seem to require an elevation survey ($500) in order to tear down the structure. I suspect this is solely due to the fact they’re using the building permit application, but it’s confusing nonetheless.

The county has a new “campus” of a jillion buildings. If you have a hybrid car, you can park right up where it’s convenient. Fascinating.


The Planning and Development office is in a large, open building full of light. The receptionists are very helpful, very well-caffeinated and you HAVE to talk to them before you can do anything else. They fill out a time-stamped routing card based on your situation, and tell you what “stations” to go to, in what order.

Me, I started at the Permit desk. The nice gal there got me started, verified that I had what I needed to proceed, and directed me to Planning. However, I decided to open a whole ‘nother can of worms with her instead.

Back when we first got the trailer, we worked with an electrician to install a temporary power pole on site. This is standard during a construction project, and it lets you plug into electricity while you’re working on things. The electrician did the standard submit-electrical-permit thing, assuming the permit would come through.


The county, however, declined to issue the permit. We could only get a permit for temporary power after getting a building permit. Since that’s likely to take until the end of August, this was not a good answer for us. Once the house is demolished, we’ll be dependent on the good will of our neighbors for electricity – not a situation to look forward to.


I’ve talked to several people in the construction trade who are shocked that we weren’t granted a temporary permit. “It’s never been a problem in the past” is a frequent comment.

So, I thought I’d plead my case for getting the temporary power pole permit approved.


It was pitiful, really. I threw myself on their mercy, explaining that it was a matter of public safety. After all, wouldn’t the fire fighters want lights on while they did their training? And we’d need lights to be able to properly observe the house after the burn, to make sure no one stumbled into the smoking crevasse. Not to mention how much easier it would make the demolition process itself. Come awwwwn, man!


No dice. I did inspire the woman at the desk to go to the back office and confer with someone more senior. Neither of them could make much sense of my case. The permit was declined with some sympathy. The explanation?


“Not that you would do this of course, but you’d be surprised at how many people will use temporary power to put an RV on their property and live there. That’s a violation of code and we just can’t have that. I’m really sorry.” Blink. Innocent look. "Really? Thank you for explaining," I responded.

So, I moved on to Planning. Their role involved disappearing into a back room for about five minutes, coming back to do something on the computer and initialing my form. Then I was sent to WES, which is something to do with water and the environment. I think they handle different sewer systems.


Trudging up two flights of stairs I arrived to find a note on the door: All WES employees will be in training from 1 – 2 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.


I looked at my watch. 1:07. Hmmm. That’s the perfect amount of time for not getting anything done at all. The department wasn’t locked so I took a seat and settled in for a nice, long wait with my book. Time went by. 1:30.


A woman emerged from the bowels of the cubicles, purposefully on her way to a late lunch. She stopped when she got to me. “Are you being helped?” she asked, noticing the complete absence of anyone helpful.


I explained the situation and she was appalled, nearly to the point of speechlessness. Once she got through muttering about unacceptable customer service she asked what I needed. In about 30 seconds she popped open my application on the computer and approved it. Wuh hoooo!


Now, back to the Permit desk. I mean, back to the queue for the Permit desk.

After some more (brief) waiting and $21, we are now the proud possessors of a demolition permit. Hallelujah.