Success!!

As hard as it is for us to believe, we have permits!! After another insane conversation with the city planners, Brian went to the head of the department and said "I'm not leaving here without my permits, if I have to stay all day!" Finally, they gave us "conditional" permits, meaning we still have to jump through a couple of hoops, but we can get work scheduled. The relief is so sweet!!

The Elephant is Winning

We STILL don't have building permits! We are now becoming convinced that for some reason the city doesn't want us to save the Caton
House. We discussed suing the city, but that would just take more time
& money. We seem to be at a dead-end. The city keeps demanding more
paperwork; stuff they could have told us about months ago. One person
says they're ready to issue permits, then the next person says "no, you
need to give us a notarized letter stating...". It's insane. Every time
we think we're close to getting permits they throw up more bizarre
restrictions and demands. We're thoroughly demoralized. Our
documentation is now well over 200 pages for ONE REMODEL JOB!

Ok, I'm done venting for now.

Waltzing With The Elephant

I'm so behind on my posts, I apologize! We managed a 2 week vacation, spending a week in Provence and a week in Tuscany. We really needed a break, and came back much rested.

Our biggest problem with Caton House is dealing with the City. Early on we requested a meeting of city staffers to review requirements. Several staffers didn't show up even given weeks of notice. So requirements that fell under their purview weren't addressed and are now jumping up to bite us. Plus the fact that we paid a sizeable fee for the meeting!

Another issue we've had is that we never know who to talk to at the city. Last week Brian stopped by the planning department and asked "Fred" a question. He was told to go downstairs and ask "Jeff". So he did, only to have "Jeff" tell him to go upstairs and ask "Fred"!! That's a typical interaction with the city, unfortunately.

We have generated an appaling amount of paperwork on this project. As of a month ago we were up to 79 pages, and I know it has grown to over 100 pages since then. There's one application that's so complicated that we've had to hire another engineer to fill it out. Plus the number of times city staffers have contradicted and reversed themselves has made this project truely frustrating.

We've given the city staffers feedback on these and other issues, and can only hope that things improve. We've requested that the code books be put on reserve at the local library so we can access the info we need. We hope to have our permits soon as we have a "carved in stone" moving date.

On the positive side, we have gutters! So we're inching forward as much as we can without permits. I'm meeting with a graphics artist to make a business sign for us. He has some really good ideas!

I'm attaching a photo from Google Earth of the house. The bottom of the photo is the southeast corner of our property.

And now a paint job!!

We have one coat of primer paint going on the house today. Yesterday they (Protek Painting) finished the east side and today they're doing the west side. The difference is astonishing! Even though it's just the flat white primer and not the final paint it looks so much better to be all one color! We need to finish the foundation and replace the damaged siding on the bottom of the house before we can have the final paint applied, but this will make it look better and protect the siding in the interim.

Our renovation proposal was heard by the Corvallis Historic Resources Commission last Tuesday. We were worried that they'd want us to make a lot of changes to our plan, but not only did they say yes to all our proposal, they gave us one item we didn't ask for: they asked if the window shutters were original. We don't believe they are, and we don't like the way they look. Apparently neither did the Commissioners because they gave us the option of putting them back on after painting or not. So we'll leave them off.

We found out that for Corvallis' 150th birthday this year the City wants homeowners & businesses to plant 150 new trees in Corvallis. We've been planning to plant a couple of street trees anyway so I called the (extremely helpful) City Forester and requested 2 trees. As soon as I decide which kind we want she'll order them at no cost to us! We'll plant them when they arrive, probably in late fall.

Brian has been doing a lot of tear-out inside the house. The long-term water damage has made it necessary to replace a lot of the interior walls. I've attached a photo that's typical of what we're finding. The wood is so rotten that if I gently touch it, it crumbles. Not good! (top photo) On the positive side he's discovered some neat old joinery, the photo on the bottom shows some mortise & tenon he uncovered in the flooring!

We have a new roof & an improved back yard!

The roof is finished and it looks terrific (photo above)! It will be so nice to have the leaks stopped which will stop the ceilings & walls from deteriorating further. We’ll have Sprick Roofing back to do the shop & store room roofs when its time.

We are on the agenda for the August 28 Historic Resources Commission. The proposal came to 16 legal-size pages plus one addendum! We resolved the parking lot issue with the city, but we need a written report from a specialist certified arborist to confirm that our plan will work to save the old black walnut tree. The closest arborist of this type is 45 miles away, which means we’re paying $80 per hour of driving time plus working time! And that’s actually pretty inexpensive for this type of arborist. He’s a specialist on paving that will minimize impact on trees.

Yesterday we rented a small backhoe and Brian had a lot of fun! He cleared all the blackberry bushes from the backyard, and removed an old, overgrown lilac. I wanted to save the lilac but it was beyond that, so we’ll plant some new ones. The photos above show before (top) and after (bottom) from about the same perspective - quite a difference! The backyard looks so big now, and we can really see how much our property slopes to the north. We also found many beer & soda cans and a lot of trash. I was hoping for some old treasure lurking under the bushes, but no such luck. Brian also pulled up stumps in the front yard and I went behind him collecting the flower bulbs he’d uncovered. There were a lot; I plan to add those to the landscape plan as well.

There was an old metal shed in the yard next to the walnut tree. When Brian moved it with the backhoe we could see that some creature had been storing walnuts under it. There was a carpet of walnut shells about 3 inches deep! I tried hard not to think about which creature it might have been, but by removing the blackberries we’ve reduced the rat habitat. We should see fewer now that we’ve been getting things cleaned up.

The roofers have started! AKA Shake & Bake!

Sprick Roofing started tearing off the old shingle roof on Tuesday (7/31). They're finding a lot of damaged beams, but we expected that. Brian spent yesterday rebuilding the valley above the "sunroom" while I finished stripping the front door. I can't imagine tearing off old shingles on a 95 degree day with the dust & dirt present in such an old roof. The roofers were black with dirt by the time they quit for the day. They're pleasant guys: friendly and very hard-working. They started laying new shingles on the west side yesterday. Several neighbors stopped by to say how happy they are that the new roof is finally happening, and that we chose to replace it with cedar shingles. I can't wait to see how it looks when it's finished!

We were on the August 14 agenda for the Historic Resources Commission until the City planning department discovered a code that throws a huge monkey wrench into our parking lot plans. It seems that not only are we required to have access to our parking lot off the alley, but we must also widen the alley by 3 feet, and pave it at our expense! That kills our plans for a nice landscaped buffer zone between the alley and our parking lot. Now it will just be asphalt. Nothing green! It also has us, the City Forester, and the arborists I've talked to worried about the old walnut tree. The tree is up against the existing alley, and our concern is that the paving will kill the tree. We're trying to come up with alternate plans, but there's apparently no way to get around paving it all. We'd hate to see that tree die as it is not only very attractive, but also should reduce our cooling cost in summer. Stay tuned for developments!

A picture is worth...

Someone pointed out that I haven't posted a "before" photo lately! Here's the Caton House in its current condition.