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!