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tortilla_flat

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My husband and I just bought a major fixer of a lil pre-fire house in San Francisco on a very steep slope! We won't be occupying it nor starting construction til March of 2017 (because San Francisco) but I wanted to bounce ideas off folks in the meantime as we imagine our projects. This'll be my fourth house, and his first. It's my biggest project yet, and my first on the west coast. Outside of the things larger than us (75' long retaining wall holding up house, entire lack of a foundation, those sorts of things...) we'd like to do much of its renovation ourselves.
 
Welcome sounds fun. Us right coasters might not be too much help out on the Left coast as I understand things go a little different out there.

Will look forward to seeing the pictures and your ideas when you are ready.

:welcome:
 
Thanks everyone!

Earthquake retrofits are among the first things we'll do; the retaining wall and the foundation should cover a lot of that.

Left coast certainly is different! I previously lived in Philadelphia and before that, outside of DC on the MD side. My Philadelphia house was built in 1830, and it was in far better shape than this one!

The house was estimated to have been built in 1900. As the city's records all burned in the fire of 1906, the initial building permit was re-written in 1908. I love old homes. :)
 
We have gone a little nuts on the earthquake stuff up here, I will be interested on what they want for retro fit.
 
We have gone a little nuts on the earthquake stuff up here, I will be interested on what they want for retro fit.

nealtw, I'm not sure how our cities' laws differ (though I can tell you that San Francisco has a crazy complex law about EVERYthing), but here, the city ordered mandatory seismic retrofits be done by owners of a certain subset of buildings - those over 5 units with a soft story (garage, etc.) at ground level, within the next 5 years. Mine does not fall within that category, however given the 25 percent grade of my street, the cracked and failing retaining wall holding the entire house up, and the complete and utter lack of any foundation (it's primarily beams... jammed straight into the dirt & bedrock) I think it's in my best interest to perform those upgrades ASAP so have hired a structural engineer to work with a TBD architect and contractor. Problem is, everyone in the city (because of the mandates) is scurrying to book the same contractors, so that'll be a challenge! I'm willing to let them take their sweet time on the project, stretching it all out over the course of several months if necessary. And again, I can't even start on all this til March of next year... just drawing up plans in the interim. :) The least fun of upgrades, for me!

What I am most looking forward to: opening up the floor plan, relocating the stairs, building the most amazing spiral staircase, and pouring my own concrete countertops. Building the upper open-face shelving myself, and perhaps even the lower cabinets. I'm designing the world's most spacious kitchen (for a modest house) because I love to cook giant, elaborate group meals for friends, and a separate cocktail bar in a different area of the main floor. And LIGHTING. I love designing lighting schemes. On my last house, I had excellent luck finding cheap and awesome lighting on amazon.com. In fact, the buyer told me it was the lighting and shelving in the "steampunk chic" powder room that we framed and built as a last-minute decision right before listing that sold him on the house. I was so proud that day!!

I have a basic projects list started, and am working on naming the house so I can register a domain and start a blog. :) We want to reference the name Tortilla Flat (my username!) referencing John Steinbeck's book and our love for cheap wine, but my husband shot down my first offering of Tortilla Flat (But You Can't Stay Here) and I shot down his Tortilla Slope. We are currently taking suggestions. :)

I can't wait to get in there and start taking pictures and bouncing ideas off of all of you. The next six months of waiting time are going to be THE WORST!
 
Looks like you are really close to the building next door, just bolt the house to that.:thbup::p
Wood framed structures can take a lot of shaking and I am sure it has been shaken a few times.
 
I don’t know a good name for the house, but as a working title I would go with “House of Cards”.
 
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