We're building a hillside house in Los Angeles on Crane Blvd in Mt. Washington.  We've never done this before and we want to take you along for the ride.  My goal is to give you a clear and transparent picture at what it takes to build a house today.

MEP is about 95 percent done.  MEP = Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing.  Some more framing to finish up -- blocking, random recesses, and then we'll be ready for windows.  This week they're framing out the floating stairs, and then I believe next week they will pour them.  Once those are good, we'll have all the windows and doors delievered.  They're huge -- so the installers need a safe and sturdy way to get them in the house.  Once they're installed, the builder is going to hand us the keys to the front door.  

We ended up getting THIS UNIT.  I bought a different one, and then at the last minute cancelled the order and purchased this one.  Why?  Because you want ECM motors, and you want a boost mode function.  This one checks all the boxes.   So I'm happy, and I can't wait to turn it on.  

We have floors.  They came and did this in half a day.  they used a 2x4 to scrim across the rooms.  Love watching pros at work. 

We got our window woes figured out.  We managed to get the cost of the windows down to about $45K -- roughly $20 more than we wanted to.  But we realized that to compromise on the windows in a way that would get us to our proposed budget, would have come at the cost to the original vision.  And if you took the stance of investment, the money we spend on the front end on windows will always add a great deal of value.  The view is a big part of what makes this house special, and the windows are what capture that view.  So we ended up getting to the one yard line on Fleetwood, only to find out that their lead times were 30 weeks!  The cascading financial reality that 30 weeks would have meant would have cost us thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.  Here's why: Each month we're paying money for porta potty, fence rental; rent in our apartment, and costly loan extensions every three months.  It just wasn't possible.  So at the very last minute, after weeks of negotiating and in person visits, we decided to go with another company that had half the lead time.  Western Windows.  

Soon after the structural steel phase was done, the contractor sat us down and we went over next steps.  He made it clear that we needed to get windows ordered ASAP.  So the next day I set up a meeting with a recommended window vendor.  Right off the bat he was talking Fleetwood.  If you aren't aware, Fleetwood is the Rolls Royce of windows.  Big, architecturally beautiful pieces of engineering that come with a huge price tag.  I tried to stop the salesman, telling him I thought we were more Milgard people because of the cost.  He assured me that on this type of project, with big window openings, he thought Fleetwood was the right call.  I said okay, told him to send a bid and we would go from there.

The next morning I had a Fleetwood bid in my inbox for $62,000.  About thirty thousand more than we were looking to pay.  From here, I was introduced to my favorite (or least favorite) word 2022: "Value engineering."  I won't bore you with the details, but about 200 emails later, we have finally settled on windows.  And astonishingly, it includes Fleetwood.  There are four window/door opening in our house.  Two bedroom windows that make up an entire side of the house, a balcony wall of glass that includes a sliding door, and the entrance to the house, which in itself is a wall of glass.  Looks like we're doing Western for the entry and balcony, and Fleetwood for the bedrooms.  All in, after taxes and shipping, the final tally is about $44,000.  A lot of money -- certainly more than we wanted to spend.  

In order to be the most helpful here to you -- because that's the entire point of this site, why did we go this route?  There were cheaper options.  For Milgard to do the entire house it was around $32K.  But with compromises.  Milgard windows could only go so big, so we would have lost a lot of the wow factor that was built into the design.  There are elements of the house we're going with "cheaper" options now knowing that we will upgrade later -- countertops, furniture, tile... but with the windows, it's a forever decision. 

So we're going for it.  The 401K will remain depleted -- savings, forget about it... but we'll have an amazing view enshrined in amazing aluminum glass frames.  We can live with that.

Walls and metal decking floor in.  The concrete floor will get poured on top of that decking.  Doesn't seem thick enough to hold all that weight.  This is where you have to trust math and the engineers.  

This was crazy exciting.  A logistical headache.  And a little scary.  In order to get the beams craned down to the structure, the structual steel team had to stage in front of my neighbors house and left the 1000+ pound beams over their house and then put them in place.  I did not sleep well the night before.  But they got it done.  It's incredible how much they can get done in just two days.

When building a house in Los Angeles, there comes a point where you resign yourself to the fact that this is going to take a heck of a lot longer than you anticipated.  There's the big delays, like when your contractor bails on you, and then there are the little three day/a week delays that add up.  There was a point back in late April where I thought for sure we would be where we are today in a just a few weeks.  This resigning I spoke of earlier, it took a long time for me to accept.  And even acceptance ebbed and flowed depending on the delay or the progress.  Before they poured the pillars, I had all but given up on an end of the year move-in date.  Now that I've actually seen them, I'm flooded with excitement (and hubris) that maybe end of the year is possible again.  Apparently, I learn nothing.

All that being said, the point of this post is to remember to acknowledge and celebrate milestones no matter when they happen.  If you let your mood and excitement over the construction be determined by your expectations to a timeline, you will be miserable when you shouldn't be.  We're done with the foundation.   That's a huge feat.  And I have the contractor to remind me -- he told me recently that this is the hardest project he's ever done.  I felt a little shimmy of mischevous pride when I heard it.  

I suppose it was inevitable that all the extra time drilling meant there would be additional costs.  Now that they are done with the first four holes, we received the invoice.  After all the concrete and 16 added hours of drilling, we have to fork over $6800 dollars in unforeseen foundation costs.  It's a bummer -- but you can't blame anyone.  There's just no way of knowing what's underneath the ground.  Two of the holes were done in a day, and the other wholes ate up about a week each.  

Now that the four holes are done, they will build the caisson cages, drop them in, dig the beams (2 feet deep) and pour the concrete.   Once that's done they will resume drilling for the remaining seven holes of the parking structure.  I'm not too worried about the parking structure -- they are much shallower than the four main caissons.  But you never know.  Fingers crossed.

So what's the solution?  We have to fill the expanded bottom portion of the hole with cement slurry, let it dry for a day, and then continue to drill.  That means ordering a cement truck and pump up the mountain.  Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but the small, hillside roads need to be blocked for about an hour while they pump.  The neighbors hate this.  We shall see.  According to the contractor it only holds us up for a day.  And by no means is it a deal breaker, thank god.  My mind wondered if we would need a bigger drill, which would be extremely difficult to get down the hillside.  Fingers crossed we're drilling by Firday or Monday.

Ever wonder how the hell they drill pile holes into a steep hillside?  Today's your lucky day!

The drill arrived yesterday afternoon and they got started moving it down the narrow switchbacks.  The geo tech was on site overseeing everything.  I didn't realize how much he would be involved during this process, but he's pretty much calling the shots.  Once the drill is in the ground, he is evaluating the dirt/bedrock that comes up and tells the drill operator how far down they have to go.  The first hole was 26 feet.  The second hole is 32 feet.  There's eleven holes total -- four for the house and seven for the parking structure.  The parking structure holes are not as deep, so should go quicker.  

A few days before we were set to start drilling, the driller got in touch with the contractor and said he's stuck on another job and won't be available for two to three weeks.  

It's disapointing for sure, but totally out of our hands.  It's not malicious -- the driller was originally scheduled for much earlier, but the Erosion Control Plan debacle delayed that.  He took another job -- totally understandable.  The contractor tried to replace him, but the new drill operator wanted to redo the dig work already done, which causes a much bigger headache.  So we wait.  

Moral of the day -- kill your expectations.  This process is it's own beast -- you are only along for the ride.

The Grade Inspector came back and we got our approval.

We can officially start preparing for drills.  Next step is a visit from the Drill Operator to tell the Contractor how to re-grade the land so he can safely bring the drill onto the hillside.  This means creating a sort of ramp/path.  

Once that's all done, the surveyor will come back out and drop flags for the exact spot of the piles and they will start drilling.  So close...

Unbeknowst to us when we bought the land, there was a protected black walnut tree growing on our property.  You would have never known because it was dwarfed by a massive jade tree.  To get the land ready for construction (hopefully soon) we had everything but the black walnut tree removed.  Per city ordinance, these trees are protected after they reach a certain size so you can't touch them.  Once the Jade tree was removed, we didn't think the walnut tree was going to make it -- it had no leaves, and didn't look great.  My thought was the jade tree likely sucked all the resources up around it.  Again, the jade tree was massive.  But this weekend when I went up to the land, it appears the black walnut tree is thriving!  

This is great news.  It means we'll have to give it a name, and find a good recipe for black walnuts, which are edible.  Maybe in some vegan chocolate chip cookies? 

Survey was one of the many steps during this process I had no idea about.  Really, I didn't even understand what a surveyor did.  Sure, every so often I would see someone in a neon construction vest, looking through that camera-like device on a tripod, but would never think much of it.  Turns out it's incredibly important.  

There's a few things a surveyor does when building a new house.  First, they establish your property lines, which the city requires.  In order to apply for the planning permit three years ago, we used the survey from the previous owner, but just had it updated.  A rare saving we were glad to accept. 

Second thing you will need a surveyor for is to stake out exactly where the house will go -- in our case, the location of the eleven piles we're driving down for the house and parking structure.  Ideally, we would have just called up our trusty surveyor that we used three years ago.  But when we tried to contact him, his line was disconnected.  Strange.  Three emails later, still nothing.  We were in a time crunch, because the inspector needed a fresh survey.  So after some internet sleuthing, I managed to find his surveyor license number and looked him up through the Department of Consumer Affairs, which keeps an updated record of Land Surveyor's statuses.  Well, turns out so much time had passed that our surveyor had died.  In this situation, one would think that you would just hire another surveyor to take over the job of this surveyor to update.  Turns out surveyors don't do this -- they prefer to do their own work from the start of a project.  So we had to hire a completely new surveyor to start from the beginning.  And, of course, we needed it done fast, so we had to pay a premium.

The architect had someone dependable (and young) who came up with a proposal quickly.  If there's anything I have learned from this, it's make sure you're choosing reputable people who seem like they will continue to work during the life or your project.  

All in all the new surveyor after staking corners, pile location, and house offset, will likely cost us about $3500 dollars.  This was not in the construction loan.  

Received the water meter hookup fee from LADWP.  $7509.32.

The breakdown is about a two-thirds of the cost is administrative fee for a standard one inch pipe, and a third for the cost of digging up the ground, tapping the water line, and attaching that to a water meter on the property that we will then be able to receive water from.  For some reason the city has estimated they will need to dig up 312 square feet (@ $8.24 a sqaure foot) of the road to get us water.  Seems excessive, but what can you do?  It's the only water outfit in town.  For me, that's the frustrating thing about this process.  You're at the whim of the utility company, with no transparency on how that number came to be.  LADWP hasn't exactly engendered the most trust of late (POINTS TO MASSIVE OVER CHARGING LAWSUIT).  It should be noted, however, that I work for a massive water company (the biggest in the US) and we have our own fees of this sort, and I have no idea who or how we come to them.  

Beyond the mystery of how the LADWP charging sausage is made, it never ceases to amaze me the regularity in which we have to bust out our check book and write hefty amounts.  It's gotten to the point where I have to write super small to spell out the amount.  

I'm confident this is the last big fee for awhile.  We aren't doing gas (and for obvious reasons neither should you) and everything else was baked into the construction loan.  But it just goes to show you need a cache of money on hand when you go into this.

When did drone proliferation happen under my nose?   Type the word "drone" into amazon, and it's instant choice overload anxiety.  Luckily, I have a fellow worker who is a drone fanatic, and he pointed me in the right direction.  Two ebay auctions later, and I'm the proud owner of a previously owned Mavic Mini.  Easy to fly and the footage is great.  The plan is to take drone footage every month or so to gauge progress. 

Since we haven't actually started building yet, this is a pre-construction clip to give you an idea of the house's soon-to-be location.  The contractor says the next step is taking out those retaining walls.  Once that's taken care of -- a surveyor will come out and mark the location of the eleven piles.  Four for the house, and seven for the parking structure.  

Seeing the land like this gives you and idea just how steep it is.  And the far piles are going to be TALL.  It'll be a good a good 25 foot drop from the balcony to the dirt -- so house rule #1, don't fall off the balcony.

There's always surprise expenses.  Like Indiana Jones creeping deeper into a secret cave, but instead of poisonous darts, or massive boulders, we're smacked with "Erosion Control Plans,"  "Permit Fees" and "Porta potty/sink combo."

Back when the idea of construction was finally begin to realize in the very distant future, the Architect said he would never build a house without twenty-thousand cash on hand.  An intense swallowed shook my throat at the thought.  We were just going to squeak by the downpayment, let along unforeseen construction expenses.  But it was well-planted advice, because we ended aiming for that.  And the bank makes you have "contingency" money in the bank anyway, so it was always going to be.

I fully expect there to be more of these popping up like arcade game gophers.  When people talk about the headaches of construction, aren't they just really talking about unforeseen costs?  I'm not scared anymore.  I'm mindful of what we're spending, and I don't wan things to go way over board, but you have to be in a certain amount of accpetance about this and just go with the flow, check book in hand, ready to watch money float away.

I suppose this is Day one.  Day one that took A LONG time to get to.  It's a big deal to close the construction financing.  Until you get the money to actually build the thing, it's ALL hypothetical.

The best thing about crossing this threshold is the project now gains a propulisve nature that is no longer on your back to keep going.  The bank funds the loan, money is given to the contractor, and it's really impossible to stop the thing from being built.  I suppose in many ways, this is the bank's house now, so they have the biggest vested interest.  But it's a relief nonetheless.  Three long years we had to fight tooth and nail to keep the project going.  Permitting.  Unforeseen costs.  Two appeals.  A pandemic.  At several points we discussed selling the project.  Very, very close one time.  But we stuck with it, and now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the Architect or the Contractor to call.  

After 15 months, we finally have our determination letter from planning.  Our appeal window is open until the end of July.  Fingers crossed.

When and if we get out of the appeal window unscathed, turns out our compliance meeting isn’t scheduled until October.  That’s right, we have to wait over two months, for a meeting with planning in order to get the final approval.

In the meantime, we’re waiting for bids to come back from contractors.  I’m hoping mid-August we start getting some back.  Fingers crossed!

Finding a construction loan is no different than finding a traditional home loan except there aren’t many banks that offer them.  We found that Citibank and US Bank had the most competitive rates.  We ended up going with US Bank because we found a loan officer who was kind, easy to get in touch with, and moved everything forward quickly.  In order to get started you need to provide the following.

1. Two years of W-2s

2. Two years of tax returns

3. Most recent 60 days of asset documentation (i.e. checking/savings account statements, retirement statements)

4.   30 days of pay stubs.

Once you get them all that information, they send it off, run your credit, and see what you qualify for.  Important to remember that you must have a credit score greater than 740 to qualify for the loan.  You can have a co-signer, but it will affect your LTV ratio (more on this later).  We were originally going to have a co-signer, but, unbelievably, my salary alone covered the loan.

The financing for construction is different from a traditional mortgage.  The bank won’t finance the entire amount for the construction, they use a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio.  The LTV depends on the bank, and in our case, they will only finance 75 percent.  We already have a loan on the land, so this gets baked into the construction loan because the bank will not allow you to have a loan on the land.  The reason why is they don’t want to have to be second in line for repayment if anything goes south.  Makes sense.   In simplest terms, our loan amount is made up of CONSTRUCTION COSTS + LAND COSTS + SOFT COSTS.  The total for this amount is $680,000.

After that initial amount, you do get credit for what you have spent money on.  In our case, this includes how much we have paid off on our land loan ($72,000), and how much we have paid in soft costs ($50,000).

Based on that, and using the 75% LTV, we can figure out how much we need in order to close the loan.  In our case, it’s $65,247.  Now that’s just to make up the 25% difference.  The bank requires you to have cash on hand as a contingency in the event an unexpected problem arises during the construction.  They don’t want you to be totally broke after closing.  This is calculated as six months of your mortgage based on the requested amount.  Using a simple mortgage formula plus what we expect to pay in insurance and property taxes a month, we know what this will be.

So in order to get this loan, we need to have $85,593 in cash upfront.  That’s a lot of money.  Considering we have already spent $119,277, to come up with another $85K is daunting.  At the beginning of this process, I thought we could get to construction with just the $150,000 we were going to use as a downpayment on a house.  I was wrong.  Luckily, we have saved like crazy over the last year and a half, and have enough to cover this next stage.  

It’s important (and a little terrifying) to remember this is all based on an estimated construction cost the architect gave us almost two years ago.  The contractor may very well come back with way higher bids than anticipated.  What happens if we don’t have the money to cover it?  Do we just put everything on hold while we save and scrape together the amount?  What if our permits lapse?   Construction in LA has gotten more expensive with how much everyone is building, and the tariff wars between China and the US has caused steel to go up considerably.  The mind goes to a dark place quickly.

In the event everything works out and we get a bid back from a contractor that we can afford, and we have enough to close the loan, you aren’t done yet.  The bank must approve the builder.  This means they go over the bid, check if they are bonded, and only then, once they say everything checks out, may you start building.  

I’ve often gone back to the metaphor of making movies, and it reminds me of what my friend and director Anthony Maras told me “If I knew what a headache it would be, I wouldn’t do it in the first place.”  Nothing is more stressful than the money aspect of building a house.  It’s important to take everything one step at a time and not to future trip, otherwise, you’ll never do it. 

Last update was six, long months ago.  There’s good reason – we added a third to our family.  As one quickly learns: Baby = chaos.  You must surrender to it’s wants and needs or perish.  That means everything else – that second draft of your book, that table you want to refinish, and certainly this blog, gets put on hold.  However, it hasn’t stopped the wheels of house-building bureaucracy to continue turning.

We’re slowly making our way towards the end of the planning process.  Or are we?

Back in March, I noticed online our application with the planning department was placed on hold.  I emailed and was informed that our planner, who we had worked with for over a year had abruptly left the planning department.  Immediately ones mind goes to the worst – would this mean delays?  Maybe losing our spot in a very long, and slow queue?  A few days later, I was informed our application had been given to a new planner.  We had not lost our spot, and she has proven responsive and friendly.  Exactly what you want.  As I write this our application is in final review with the higher-ups at planning and we should be receiving our approval letter in the coming weeks.  It was always my understanding that this was the last step.  

May we take this moment to remember some wisdom: Man plans, the gods of bureaucracy laughs.

Once the final approval letter is written, this begins a one-week window where anyone (literally anyone) can appeal your application.  If that happens, the planning department must review the appeal, putting your project on hold.  For how long you ask?  There’s no official answer to this question.  The last owner of our was in appeal for over a year.  He finally ran out of cash and that’s when we swooped in to buy the land.  Will this happen to us?  I don’t think so.  The only people who get the notice of the appeal window are the directly abutting neighbors.  There’s three.  Right after buying the land and getting the initial plans, I held a sort of meet-and-greet with my neighbors.  I invited about six houses in our area and provided Bagel Broker and coffee.  My hope was to one, introduce myself – Katy and I moved to Mt. Washington for its famous tight-knit community, so presenting ourselves as open and neighborly was important, and two, to show that we’re building a house for ourselves, and not as development.  The previous owner of the land was a developer and had apparently cut down a protected tree, so he never had a chance.  

The meet and greet was a success.  Once everyone saw that the house was modest in size (and didn’t block anyone’s view) and that we were actually going to live in it, everyone warmed up.  Some even signed a sheet in support of the project.  I would feel much better about the whole thing if it weren’t for the fact that seemingly anyone in the world can appeal.  Like someone in Arizona could stop by the planning department and appeal our project for no reason.  And the planning department would have to consider it.  The likelihood of that is small, except that Mt. Washington has a particularly fierce NIMBY community that is opposed to ANY new construction.  So we’ll see what happens.

But say we skate through the appeal process, then we’re done, right?  HA!

Turns out there is another, final meeting with planning, called a conditional compliance meeting, that’s necessary in order to start construction.  This adds yet another six weeks to the process.  I have to keep telling myself that these steps are a good thing – they protect the city from rampant over-building in an already dense area.  And perhaps a city like LA with its massive homeless issues shouldn’t even allow single-family homes to be built anymore.  So, like having a baby, we must give over to the process.  Fight the man and you will lose.  Try to speed things up and your will to continue shall be beaten to a pulp.  Murder any expectations about when, and realize how lucky you are to just go along for the ride. Building a house = Chaos.

Received construction documents from JLA, the structural engineer firm we hired.  Check out their projects.

I have been eagerly anticipated these documents as they are literally how the nuts and bolts of the house will be put together.

In hopes of understanding the documents better, I read the delightful book, “built” by all around badass, and structural engineer Roma Agrawal.  It’s chock-full of fascinating facts and history around the engineering of buildings.  Here’s a taste:  Globally, 1.4 TRILLION bricks are made a year. 

As soon as I received the construction documents, my hope of understanding them quickly went out the window.  Turns out that the vast majority of structural documents for a single-family house consists of 527 pages of your worst excel spreadsheet nightmare.

I thought the documents would look more like blueprints you see architects carrying in and out of the building department.  Big black and white illustrations that I could cover my dining room table with.  But as I kept scanning through line after line, page after page of math, it dawned on me the incredible level of intricacy that is put into the engineering of our future home.  Each line represents an in-depth analysis of the structural integrity of each element, and how it all works together.  You decide one day you’re going to get a house built, and you never imagine this level of thought will go into the floor, the piles, the concrete, joints, everything.

As Roma’s book explains, it’s easy to be blind to all the structural ingenuity  around us.  Every car, bus, house, building, computer, iphone, watch, light was engineered in some way.  Math, just like above, went into it.  And thank god it does.  I’d hate to live in a world where I questioned the structural integrity of everything I interacted with.  Will this Uber I’m riding in fall apart during my ride?  Will this elevator make it to my floor?  You wouldn’t leave your house.  

NEXT STEPS:  Apply for the construction permit.  Go out to contractors.  

In attempt to raise their development, the previous owners of our property agreed to give the city two feet of frontage for what is called a dedication.  It was the only way to get their project approved by the planning department – it’s worth noting their project had a ton of blow-back from the locals who appealed and protested the development from day one.  Because of this the project, which they thought would take months, took years.  And when they finally were approved to build, they didn’t have enough money and that’s when we swooped in and bought the land.

But we still had to deal with the dedication they gave the city.

These dedications are put in place to widen what are already very narrow streets to a certain minimum width to allow traffic to safely travel through. 

It makes sense on paper.  The streets of Mt. Washington are two-way, but often are hardly enough for one car to pass, creating an always fun interaction of who will back up to let the other through.

But the reality is these dedications are almost meaningless when the street is already lined with houses, essentially making a full street length widening impossible.

The other fun thing about these dedications is the city requires the owner of the land to pave it out of their own pocket at the beautiful cost of several thousand dollars… for two feet of street.  

As eloquently stated by the architect in our waiver letter:

Many of the existing building along Crane Blvd. are built into the required dedication area, which will prevent any future improvements.  

I was a bit worried, because the city is not known to budge, but he assured me that every project he’s done in Mt. Washington he’s applied for the waiver and it was granted.  A rare instance of fighting the man and winning every time.  The cost to apply for the waiver was $570.

Even though Simon batted a thousand in this department, you can’t help but wonder if you’ll be the one that breaks the perfect record.  With a tariff war continuing to rage on, and the price of steel increasing, having another unforeseen expense in the thousands was daunting.  

Three weeks later we received the letter from the city clearly stating we were NOT REQUIRED to do the dedication.  Our architect’s no-no continued.  It’s the little victories.  

NEXT STEP:  Receiving construction documents from the structural engineers.  Once we have these we can apply for the building permit and go out to contractors to find out what this will actually cost to build.  

Big news:

1. Soil’s Report

We submitted an updated soil’s report to the city.  This came with an unexpected $452 filing fee.  One of the many unforeseen costs of building.  We were hoping to use the company that was so helpful during the land finding process, but their bid came in significantly higher than the company who did the soil’s report for the people we bought the land from.  It didn’t come without risk – the company we went with were not going to do any more exploratory tests on the land.  They had done them for the original soils report when the project was a much bigger house.  The more expensive bid did want to do exploratory holes.  The benefit would be that when it came time to drill the holes for the pile, they would know what to expect.  Our architect said that if we went for the more expensive bid, it wouldn’t save us money, because the hole drillers would inevitably determine how deep we needed to go.  So we went with the cheaper bid.  

2. Structural Engineer

The next step was finding a structural engineer.  This is an important process most people don’t consider when they get into the house building game.  I assumed the architect determined the structural soundness of the house, but it is actually an engineer.  Architect is all design and flow.  And when you’re building on a hillside, earthquake prone area, this is crucial.

Throughout the process, our architect had an engineer in mind he wanted to use.  But when it came time to get bids, his guy was too expensive.  After going through a few more bids, surprisingly, the lowest one came from one of the best structural firms in LA.  They’ve done tons of famous modern homes around LA with all sorts of cantilevered swimming pools, and massive retaining walls, The Getty, so our modest project is in good hands.  

So far working with them has been great.  They’ve finished the schematic design, and we will hopefully have the construction documents shortly.

3. Planning Dept Progress

We went into the process begrudgingly understanding that it would take a year to get the planning permits.  That’s what Simon told us it would take, so we accepted it.  But often, I would find myself complaining to sympathetic ears, that in a city with a massive housing shortage, it shouldn’t take that long to get a planning permit.  One of my friends at my job, a savvy environmental lawyer told me I should be emailing the person in charge of my planning permit regularly to get updates.  She also had the idea that I should write a letter to the mayor, CC’d to the LA Times, my city council-member, both senators and the governor asking why it’s taking so long.  She made a good point that with rising interest rates, the length of time could potentially put the project in jeopardy.  While tempting, I decided to pass on the second letter, but have been continually emailing and calling the planner.  Not expecting much, I was pleasantly surprised how responsive he’s been.  I receive a call or email back from him within a day or two.  And most recently, he sent me a full status report of my file, and let me know that I was missing a couple documents he needed to move forward.  I passed the email on to Simon, our architect, and he said that meant we were ahead of schedule!  The squeaky wheel does get greased!  

Now, I don’t know if that actually means we will get our permits that much faster.  We also still need to apply for the actual construction permits.  But taking on an endeavor that literally everyone who has ever done tells you demands inhuman levels of patience, it’s nice to MAYBE be ahead of schedule.

4. Next Steps

Once we have all the construction documents done, it’s time to go out to contractors.  I have anxiety about this step.  Simon gave us a rough estimate of what he thinks the building will cost.  I have become married to this number, because, frankly, we can’t afford much more.  In talking with an architect on the Fourth of July about the numbers given to us, he said they didn’t mean crap.  "Architects are always wrong about what it will cost.“  I did not find these words comforting.  We are already spread as thin as possible to get this project going, so the possibility that it would cost even more terrifies me.  One step at a time.

Upon initially scanning our architect’s budget breakdown, I noticed a double astrix next to the construction budget line item.  The correlating note stated “does not include appliances.”  I didn’t think much of it it. 

Somehow, I thought I’d only spend a few grand on appliances.   A weekend doing the rounds on Craigslist and that would be that.

I’ve lived my entire life in a series of apartments and houses and never realized how many mechanical devices I interact with on a daily basis.  Often, as they are so reliable, they just seem to disappear.  An appliance blindness, if you will.  When’s the last time you thought (or appreciated) your garbage disposal?  Your water heater?  Your bathtub?

Of course, this is the opposite if said item starts acting up.  A finicky faucet or toilet can quickly become the bane of your existence.  

So I quickly realized while making the list of appliances we’ll need, that we better put some serious thought into this, because these things may very well make or break our serenity.

It’s not a short list.  I never thought I’d spend the better part of an hour scrutinizing sump pump reviews on Amazon.  But this is the magical place building a house takes you.

By far, the biggest surprise was how in real time I watched myself go from a penny pinching cheapskate, to a cliché over-budgeter.   Who doesn’t want a top of the line wall-mounted, Toto smart toilet?  HVAC system?  Give me the best.  The heck with it, radiant floor heating in every room!

Unexpected twists:

STOVE TOP

We’ve been wondering if it would be possible to do a house without a gas connection.  Not only would it save us literal thousands in utility hook up fees, it, in my opinion, is the more environmentally conscious choice.  Especially if we get the solar array I’m eying.  And if what I read is right, induction is totally the way to go — cooks faster, prevents a burn inducing surface, and, aesthetically, it’s got a killer profile.  This thing cooks by magnetic waves.  Now naysayers will tell you, “You’ll have to buy new pans.”  And they’re right.  Induction stove requires a specific metal to work.  Fine with me!  Right now we only own two pans, and that covers 99 percent of our cooking needs.  

TOILETS

I’m going all out here.  I want that wall mounted toilet seats.  And I want a temperature controlled bidet.  Heated toilets.  Katy recently spent ten days in Japan and she went on and on about how great all the toilets were.  Bring it on. 

HVAC

I really wanted radiant heating.  But after doing some research, trying to install this into poured concrete floors is tough.  So it looks like we’re going traditional.  I don’t know if this means we’ll have a bunch of visible vents in the ceilings.  The idea kind of makes me cringe.  But I trust Simon.  

CONCIET

I believe if people spent more time thinking about how each item that they own effects their life, one, they would own way less stuff, and two, they would be much happier.  Because the items that they interact with, even though lifeless, would mean something.

It’s interesting how each one of these items seems to speak of our personality and values.  Where before I only saw well designed items, now I an indeed an induction stove person.  It speaks to my ideals.  It absolutely does.  So does that Toto toilet.  

The building-of-the house process is just a series of decisions.  Large decisions, that are boiled down to smaller and smaller decisions.  Most people don’t like making decisions.   When you tell people that you’re building a house, its common to get a look of horror at the litany of decisions one will have to make.  Choices that come with a lot of consequences.  You get the wrong kitchen faucet, you’re going to be frustrated every time you use it.  Seemingly innocuous darts thrown at you by an inanimate object.  If anything, this is a great exercise in understanding how important each choice in this house is.  There really isn’t a small choice. Each and every part of this house, even if it’s functioning in the background needs to have purpose and meaning.  If you just slap any old bathtub into your bathroom, how can you feel connected to this space?  It’s no wonder people complain so much about cookie-cutter houses – they’re soulless, pieced together by maximum financial return.  I understand some people just don’t care.  A house is a house is a house.   And really, most people have no say in the matter.  Other than paint color, I never did before.     But for the few of us who get the rare opportunity to build a house, it’s a big deal.  Make it count.  

The original goal was to build the entire house for $715,000.  After taxes and insurance, the monthly mortgage at that price point is the most we can afford.  Around $3000 a month.

This also includes land, so after the $263,522 we paid for the property, it left us with $451,478 to build the house.  Upon our first meeting, Simon handed us a rough breakdown of what to expect – it included everything – materials, labor, permits, structural, garage, geo, survey, application fees, etc.  It was $483,400.  Damn, already over budget.  But Simon budgets the “fitout” on the high-end, so we hope to make up the difference by buying fixtures ourselves cheaply, and opting for things like laminate countertops over imported marble.  And after the last meeting, I think we’re on track.  Simon’s mantra of the “finish is the structure” bodes well for the budget.  Of course, anything could happen.  For example, with Trumps new tariffs on steel, we may be looking at an extra ten or twenty grand on the frame.  Yikes. 

Originally, when we were bidding on houses, we had $150K for a downpayment.  Now we’re using that money as our startup cash.  It covers the downpayment for the land and all the upfront expenses (see below).

The cool thing about construction loans is you can use the equity in the land as the downpayment, so that initial lump sum does double duty.

Everything in grey comes out of that startup fund.  Anything with a strikethrough is paid.  The numbers in red are what our construction loan will cover.

So what have we learned thus far?  

1. You need to keep stellar records.  I can see how budgets explode if you aren’t keeping track of everything.  Plus, with hidden costs like utility hook-up (can run upwards of 40K), and the fact that appliances aren’t included, you need spreadsheets to have a realistic idea of what it’s going to take.  One guy I met who was building a container house in Topanga recently had to reevaluate if he could even pull it off after his budget doubled!  And if he decides to bail, he’s out a bunch of money.  This is unfortunately a common story.  

2. You need cash on hand.  Can’t imagine doing this without our startup fund.  You need to be able to write checks for thousands of dollars at a moments notice.

3.  Get multiple bids on everything.  So far they’ve been all over the place – as much as double from bid to bid.  It’s stressful knowing which one to pick, especially when it comes to geology and structural.  When building a house on a hillside in earthquake prone Southern California, you may be tempted to go with that cheap engineer, but just remember you will always wonder if you really do get what you pay for.  This is why you need to trust your architect.  I’ve leaned on Simon a great deal so far.  I can’t imagine doing this without him.

Now that we submitted to the planning department, we have time to relax and dial in the design.  This part is tough for me.  I have strong design directions based on how I know we function, but they butt-up against some of the Architects already established ideas.  I don’t want to bulldoze his vision, but it’s also necessary to state our needs.  Again, I feel very much like the producer on a film set, ever gently making strong suggestions to the director, knowing very well they don’t want to hear them.  Our architect, as always, it lovely to work with, and he seems open to our ideas.  If there was some inner resistance to our suggestions, he didn’t show it in the slightest.  He must be a killer at poker.

There were two big suggestions.  One, making the bathroom more functional so several people could use it at once.  That means partitioning off the toilet and even the shower so that each is its own sort of water closet.   The thinking being if someone is using the sink, another person could shower, while another uses the toilet all at the same time.  It would mean swapping the bedroom over, so that the bathroom would be between the two bedrooms.

The second thing was the bump out.  We have yet to see a design with any included, and Katy and I really want this.  We both like to read, and the idea of a house without a cozy spot next to window over looking the view just seems like a must.  We settled on one in the bedroom.

That was it as far as suggestions were concerned.  We went over potential materials, and the architect showed us this fantastic metal siding sample.  It’s sharply folded corrugated steel that I think would match the sharp angles of the hexagon structure nicely.  I’m not sure what color, though.  We may be leaning towards black, though I never like how it looks in the renderings.  That being said, whenever I see it in a photo like below, it just feels right.   White doesn’t look bad either, though.

As far as the interior, Katy and I like the idea of “low maintenance” guiding the finishing options.  I need tidiness, and neither of us loves to clean, so anything that doesn’t require a lot of attention is ideal.  The architect mentioned epoxy coating for the walls, which neither of us was familiar with.  Found this on an epoxy site:

epoxy for walls are quick and simple to apply, and in no time create strong, hygienic, and easy to maintain surfaces that leave your space looking great. Particularly in settings where chemical resistance, light reflectivity, and sanitation are important; epoxy for walls is a perfect choice. It can prevent harmful bacteria growth and resist moisture that leads to dangerous mold. This is important for food preparation and handling areas, correctional facilities, locker rooms, hospital operating rooms, veterinary clinics, and more.

I’m into it!

Katy likes tile for the bathroom, but I hate dirty grout.  And I have yet to see grout that doesn’t eventually develop a gross moldy coating.  Again, neither of us loves to clean.  There’s always the option of using a darker tint grout, but that just hides the grossness.  There has to be some sort of surface that’s easy to clean.  Maybe epoxy’s the way to go in the bathroom too.

Terrazzo is out.  I got a bid back for $53,000 to do the entire house at one inch.  Even at half inch, it’s way out of our price range.  Polished poured concrete it is. 

The architect discussed another house he’s doing not too far from ours, where there will be a lot of exposed steel beams and concrete, and he said “the structure is the finish.”  I love this.  White walls.  Poured concrete floors.  Accents of unstained white ash.  We could be super happy with that.  Our house may very well end up looking like the Blue Bottle Coffee shop on Beverly.  I go here on the weekends to read, and I’ve always loved the inside.  Simple Japanese style modern white-ash woodworking to soften the industrial touches.

Today our architect submits to the planning department.  Big deal.  This is the permit that takes the longest.  Six months to a year.  

Last week we signed on with our geo-tech.  It was between two proposals.  One expensive, and one way more expensive.  We had worked with the more expensive company before, and liked them, but for this build, which is not an invasive one, and where we are forced to be budget conscious, it was decided that we would do just fine with the less expensive bid.  

Next step is securing our structural engineer.  We have one bid that came back almost triple what I was expecting.  Hoping the second bid comes in closer to what our budget allotted.

Our next conversation with the architect will be about the interior.  I’m a bit anxious about this step.  The pressure that we will make the wrong decision and be stuck with a layout we hate, lingers actively in my mind.  Originally, the house was expected to be about 1100 square feet, but after the set backs, and the placement, its more like 900 square feet, not including the small outside patio area.  So our original concept of two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a sauna might be pushing it.

In the mean time, I’ve started scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.

KITCHEN

Right now, half the house is going to be a large open space from the entrance to a large square window looking out to the view.  The space is narrow, around 12-18 feet wide, and has to include a kitchen, which will likely be built into the wall.  I like the idea of built in seating.  Also, of a clean, seamless wall of drawers.

BATHROOM

The plan has always been two bathrooms.  But with 900 square feet, it might be tough.  I like the idea of a communal bathroom, with doors to the toilet and shower, with a couple sinks, that way several people can be using it at once.  Of course, any homeowner you speak to insists you need a second bathroom, or at least a half bath, which I’m open to.  A small water closet (toilet and sink) might be the way to go.  But I just have a feeling that’s going to eat into our sauna space.  

READING NOOK

This feels like the thing that may cause the most contention if the architect vetos.   I’m even open to one being built into a wall without a view, but that would be a huge sacrifice.

KIDS ROOM

You read that right.  Looks like our guest room will be a kids room.  The placement will likely be towards the front of the house. I love this one.  The built in bed, the plywood, the fort up top.  There could be storage space underneath, so we wouldn’t need a closet.  

TERRAZO FLOORS

This is my dream, but likely the first thing to go if the budget gets tight.  We had them when my family lived in Nicaragua.  I remember how great they felt under bare feet – cool and soft.  We also had several maids who cleaned them daily.  And as we will not have a cleaning staff, it would fall on me to constantly clean them.

The most exciting thing was the carport.  It will have a ramp and some steps to go down to the house, which means the house will have a much  more private feel than I ever imagined.

Love how the house peeks up from behind the carport.

Lots of feelings going into that second meeting.  Having exerted so much energy in finding the land, negotiating the land, the insane loan process, and finally closing — handing the reigns over to The Architect left me feeling listless.  

I was concerned about this feeling.  Building a house takes Herculean amounts of patience and endurance — had I already burnt out?  Was I “over it?”

The Architect had large new print outs of the house on the land.  This was exciting.   I had made some rough mock-ups on Pages using an old survey and an early floorpan —but they looked ridiculous and amateurish compared.  

The Architect had several of these with different elevations – the house pushed  farther back on the property to keep it below a certain elevation.  The point was to avoid adding another foot to the side set back — which would eat some of our square footage on what is already a thin lot.  But the house can’t be pushed too far back, because that would require longer piles (think stilts) to support the back part.  Longer piles meant thicker piles, which meant a lot more money.  

Due to a strange equation in the Mt. Washington/Glassell Park Specific Plan – the local building code just for our area, if the building exceeds a certain height, then the side set back adds a foot — going from six to seven, essentially squeezing an already tight lot.  I quickly realized that this meant the axe for the loft.  An idea I had become quite comfortable with, as was apparent from my overly active “Loft” Pinterest board.  The Architect said the house would likely have 9 or 10 foot ceilings, and we may lose some square footage from the originally planned 1200 square feet.  I swallowed hard.

Finally, it was discussed possibly losing the hexagon shape altogether for a more traditional rectangular shape to maximize the thin work area we had.  Another blow.  I had become quite cozy with the idea of living in a hexagon, and envisioned a litany of hexagon shapes throughout the house — tiles, windows, and had even gone so far as to research the historical importance of hexagons:  apparently Charles Darwin was a big fan — called them “perfect.”

He did, however, suggest a bridge from the parking to the house, which Katy immediately fell in love with.

The next step was The Architect figuring out the right height/distance balance so that we didn’t exceed a certain height, but also not too far back where the piles would have to be larger (and more expensive).  He would come up with a few different options for our next meeting.  I ever so gently asked if one of the options could have a loft.  The Architect smiled, said yes in his polite New Zealand fashion.  I knew then there would be no loft.

The entire ride home Katy talked nonstop about the bridge.  How cool a bridge would be — she wanted that bridge.  I sat quietly thinking about the architect Alvaro Silva and what he said about building a house. 

Slowly accepting the reality that this house will end up exactly how it needs to, and that the process demands that I not get attached to any designs until the day we move in and could bang on the walls, clap our feet on the concrete and hear those noises echo off the ceilings, however high they end up being. 

Our VERY first meeting with The Architect dates back to January 23rd, 2017.  We had only recently started exploring building after falling in love with one of his houses in Mt. Washington.  A little research online had produced the fascinating little tidbit that he had built it for $190 a square foot.  Chicken scratch in LA building terms.

It only took five minutes into our meeting to learn $190 a square foot wasn’t possible. Those prices reflected a rare time after the housing crash where contractors were practically giving away labor just to work.  He told us today, in this market, we were looking at more like $350 a square foot.

We wouldn’t see The Architect again for almost a year.  We had by luck come across a great piece of land that had approved plans on them, which meant that the soil’s report was likely favorable (a rare thing), and the hard work of guessing if you can build was gone.  In a Hail Mary attempt I shot The Architect an email with the specs, what I thought the land would go for, our budget, to see if he could make something work.  I didn’t expect much.

A few hours later The Architect wrote back.  Just the day before, had a bid returned for a new concept using steel beams.  The concept was the exact size, and would work in our budget.  

Game. Changer.

A week later we once again sat in his office, surrounded by the cardboard and styrofoam house models that I stared at longingly.  Armed with the soil’s report, some plans, and a survey, we looked over the land together.  It didn’t take long for The Architect to see that the report was favorable, if not perfect for his new design— the Easy Estate.  He flipped open a black portfolio book and showed us.

If I had to give my initial gut reaction a one word summary, I would say it was unequivocally “spaceship.”  It was different from anything I’d ever seen.  I can’t say I loved it right away.  I was intrigued.  It was a hexagon.  I had never seen a hexagon house before.   It had massive glass ceilings, and sat on three or four piles.  It took all of five minutes for us to see it was exactly what we needed.

We spoke speculatively about budget — $715,000 based on what we had been pre-approve for to buy.  Katy had a great deal of concern about going over budget.  When talking to anyone who’s built a house or renovated, they always say you will go over.  The Architect said he would recommend anyone building a house have at least twenty-thousand on hand if (when?) something comes up.

At this point, Katy and I were extended about as much as we were comfortable, so the idea of going over, even a few thousand, let alone having to come up with another twenty was daunting.

If there was one thing we both knew coming out of that second meeting, it was that building this house would be a risk.

RISK VS REWARD

REWARD:

1. Brand new house

2. Larger house than we could buy (700 square ft buying vs 1200 square ft built)

3. We have something special that is ours and we love.

RISK

1. Breaks the bank

2. Something big comes up, and we can’t afford to take care of it

3. We took a chance on something different and we hate it.  

We I decided to go for it.  The next step was buying the land.

Cut to a month later.

Strutting into The Architect's office as land owners felt great.  Especially considering the blood, sweat, tears, and almost collapsed marriage it took to get there.  In the end, it was luck, patience, and more money than I would have ever thought I would spend on land, that paid off.  

I had tried not to have expectations going into the meeting.  The architect, did, after all, already have a design, so the traditional conversation of building the “dream” house was already off the table.  There was room to get creative on the interior build out, but not much more.   We had coffee the morning before the meeting, and got on the same page about what was important to us with this house.

Here’s our list:

1. Sauna

2. Bump-out/reading nook

3. Skylights

4. Two bedrooms

5. Two bathrooms

6. Loft space… if possible

The Architect wrote our requests down on stencil paper with a red pen, in what I thought looked like Klingon.   He clearly had his own language when it came to this stuff.  I’ve since studied the piece of paper (seen below) and am still amazed that somehow these symbols will translate into our house.  The way “Bump-outs” is in all caps, I’m not so sure we’ll get one.  

After the meeting I wondered if our requests were too much.  After all, I wanted to give The Architect the room to create his vision.  In the house building scenario, we were much more like the “money guy” on the set of the movie, and The Architect was the director.  We were the producers who watched the budget, and signed all the paper work, but in order to make something “special” we would have to let The Architect do his magic.  And so far he had proven himself with some spectacular pieces of work.  Since our project was a modest, little art-house, house (!!!) project, we had to let him do his thing.

Vincent Kartheiser, who played Pete Campbell on Mad Men, once said of the architect Robert Dunn, who he hired to build his lovely, quirky house, “I believe that whenever you’re hiring an artist, and Funn is an artist, he’s going to do his best work if he’s trusted.  You trust the artist and you don’t micromanage him.” 

We officially signed and paid The Architect the first installment for his services.  There as no turning back.

The next step was getting the Survey updated, and getting The Architect the Auto-CAD version, so he could start plugging in his plans.  

We planned on meeting soon.  

It was the day before my 35th birthday, and I couldn’t believe we were actually building a house.