before sunset

The foundation guys are really working hard and it looks like the pour will be next week.  The forecast has storms in the forcast and we are supposed to be in the Bay Area next weekend so we shall see what happens.  I kind of hope it gets delayed a week.  Fate please don't throw those words our faces later on in the project.  They're quite friendly, take a look for your self................

shoes at the door please

One of our absolute favorite things to do is go on modern/green/cool home tours.  Every year about this time are the AIA home tours in San Antonio and Austin.  This year was a little different than previous years since we are actually building a home so we needed to really scour the details of each house and not just casually take in the overall designs.  These tours give you the rare opportunity to see from the inside out how each architect and homebuilder went about achieving their desired result.  We've been doing these tours for years and,without a doubt, have been heavily influenced by some of our favorite spaces.  There's just something about being in an actual space and experiencing it for yourself.  It's something you just can't get from a photograph or blueprints.  It's like standing in the middle of an amazing chapel or staring up the face of a skyscraper.  But residential architecture is much more subtle (the kind I like at least).  My favorite rooms are ones that take the sunlight, environment, climate, and the outside world and blend them with a perfectly orchestrated interior space that add up to the sort of living that is simple, comfortable, and intriguing.  I'm reading a book called The Perfect $100,000 House by Karrie Jacobs who was the editor at Dwell during the "good" years.  She has a passage in her book that describes this experience very nicely. "It's about how a building treats your body, how it feels physically to be in a space.  I stand in rooms and try them on like I'd try on a dress."  As luck would have it, our architect El was wanting to go on the tour as well.  So we all decided to go together and it definitely made our day to have him with us.  It was an interesting tour this year.  It had a nice blend of modern and not so modern, although I would have liked to have seen a little bit more new construction.  The thing about these tours is that most of the homes showcased are very expensive which does not necessarily translate to better design.  The approach we have always taken when we find a space that we like is to find what it is that makes the space appealing.  Is it the ceiling height?  The floors?  The Viking Range?  The windows?  It's always different.  The thing is sometimes the qualities that draw you to a space are not the most expensive features.  Sometimes they are.  Over the years we have made a mental list of the things that we could do on our budget that would create an amazing space.  Some of the things on this list are room shape/size, openness, window placement, ceiling height/angle, concrete floors, and overall style.  Most of our list are decisions that would need to be made on any house and not things that come with significant added costs.

So onto the tour.  The tour was really a great experience and I highly recommend bringing your architect to one of these if you are building.  We spent the entire day going back and forth about the smallest of details in each house.  It was really a great way to communicate for both of us.  He got a better idea of the things that we liked and we got a better idea of some of the things he had in mind for our design.  The highlight of the tour was the very last house we visited.  A very modern home in Alamo Heights.  Obviously, money was not an issue with this one, it had an elevator for godsakes.  It was very well designed and had the most comfortable spaces on the tour in my opinion.  It also reaffirmed our decision to put wood on our ceiling.  It had nice 2x8 sheets of douglas fir throughout the living area which really warmed up the space.  This house also sticks out for another reason for me.  While we were in the kitchen we noticed that there was a mini split ac unit that just seemed out of place.  El couldn't think of a reason it might be there and it didn't make any sense to me but I assumed with the amount of money that had gone into this house the reason might just be out of my comprehension.  On the way out the architect was standing by the door so El decided to ask him about it.  As soon as the question came out his demeanor changed and I could tell a nerve had been hit.  He said they underengineered the ventilation in the kitchen and had to add in the mini split to get it cool enough.  It was a very short conversation and it ended with him thanking El for bringing up "the one flaw in the house."  Score one for ETD Studio.
 
http://www.aiasa.org/downloads/Website/AIA_2014HomestTour.pdf

The next week we went on the Austin AIA Hometour but it was not quite as good as years past.  There were some interesting houses and we got to spend the day in Austin so I can't complain.  Next time you're there I highly recommend the Blue Dahlia, a hip French restaurant in East Austin.

lost and foundation

Ok, so a few things have happened over the last couple of weeks.  The foundation guys have continued to prep the site since we got the permits approved.  Since I'm pretty unfamiliar with the ins and outs of foundation work I've spent quite a bit of time online trying to gain a basic understanding of the whole process.  I expressed a few concerns about stumps and some shrubs that were in the footprint.  I felt like most of it should be taken out before putting down any base or concrete.  There seemed to be a bit of resistance to do any further clearing by the foundation guys.  I spoke to the head foundation guy and he said that it shouldn't be a concern and that this is how it is usually done.  I expressed these concerns to our contractor and he then spoke to the foundation guy.  This resulted in one of the guys in a Bobcat removing some boulders, stumps, and shrubs.  It's possible that they may have done this on their own anyway but I don't really see any need to stand by silent if I feel like something might not get done.

Another box that received a check mark was a meeting with the septic engineer.  We agreed to meet, just he and I, at the property on a Thursday morning.  I was once again in unfamiliar territory so I was actually looking forward to asking a few questions.  I got there a bit early and watched as he pulled up in his red Range Rover which caught me a bit off guard.  I'm not sure what I expected a septic engineer to drive but I guess I was thinking more late 90's Ford truck than a slick luxury SUV.  I was even more surprised when his attractive assistant got out of the passenger seat.  Anyway, he and his assistant turned out to be very nice.  We walked the entire property, he did all of his measuring, and I got to ask my questions.  We did walk to all four corners of the property to try and find the iron rods that marked the property lines.  We only found one but it was fun looking anyway. 

Rough in plumbing was the next step in the process.  After I told the plumber the general location of the septic he figured out how things were going to work with the drain pipes.  I did find it strange that the location of the septic came from my mouth and not some official septic engineers report or something.  I was sure that I had heard him right but mistakes are made all the time and putting the septic drain pipe in the wrong location seemed like a big one.  I ended up speaking to the septic engineer on the phone and he confirmed the location.  There was also some discrepancy between the plumber and the foundation guy on where to put drain pipe.  In the end the plumber got his way (which I felt was the correct way) even though it supposedly caused a little bit more work for the foundation guys.  The plumbers made quick work and got the plumbing in in a day and a half.  The city came out to inspect the next day and actually disapproved it for not enough gravel around the pipes.  The very next day the guys came out and fixed the problem and the city gave us an approval.

I spoke to the foundation guy the next day and he said that things should start moving quickly now.  In fact, he's estimating pouring the foundation a week from now.  I watched them bring in a truckload of gravel the day before yesterday and supposedly there are two more coming.

I have been "hanging out" at the property quite a bit.  Basically if I'm not at work or don't have something scheduled I'm at the property.  Partially because I really enjoy being out there and seeing the process but also I don't want to not be in the loop on anything.  Communication is a really funny thing and the more people you add into the "chain" the less likely that you will effectively receive the message.  I guess some people really don't want to be involved, not unlike life itself.................

swedish wolf's paw on the rocks

Yesterday was our designated vanity day.  No, we didn't stare at ourselves in the mirror all day but rather made the trek up to Round Rock Ikea for our first major purchase.  It was a very exciting day for us although there was kind of an odd sort of feeling buying vanities for bathrooms that didn't yet exist.  We planned on getting out fairly early so we could make a couple of stops in Austin and really enjoy the whole day.  The early escape we had planned almost immediately got side railed when we got a call from our contractor saying that he was meeting with the plumber at 12:30 out at the property.  Since this seemed like kind of an important meeting and we want to be as involved as possible in every aspect we delayed our Alamo City exit.  The meetup only lasted about 15 or 20 minutes but we were glad that we decided to go.  The plumber seemed knowledgeable, motivated, down to business, and like an all round nice guy.  There were a couple of decisions that I'm not sure could have been made had we not been there.  One was the location of the septic tank and the other was running an extra water line for future construction.  Feeling quite confident plumbing was headed in the right direction, it was onto Austin without anymore distractions!  Well, a few traffic delays and an irritated sciatic nerve later we decided to make a pit-stop in San Marcos at the Restoration Hardware outlet store.  What trouble could we possibly get into?  Well..................it turns out that among all of the very cool and very overpriced things that were in the store there were some very cool and very underpriced metal dining chairs that have been on our radar for awhile.  Here's RH's description of the chairs:

Early-20th-century café chairs from France served as the inspiration for our industrial-style seating. Its classic, simple design, light weight and compact proportions make it indispensible in a host of milieus.

And those exact words escaped my lips when I saw the chairs in the store, "indispensible in a host of milieus."  Except that when I said it it was with "indispensable" spelled correctly.  That's right, yours truly found a typo on the RH website.  I wonder if I could argue for an extra 10 or 20 percent off if I brought that little factoid to their attention.  So anyway, the Remy chairs which are normally $139 ended up in our hand for $40.  We ended up buying 8 chairs so that's $320 instead of $1112 (before tax of course).  The cool thing about the chairs is that they can be painted if we want another color.  We're not sure if these are going to be the interior or exterior dining chairs.  The important thing is that they are comfortable, virtually indestructible, stylish, and we got them super cheap.  So once again we got on the road feeling very good about what had just transpired.

So a toll road and some "amazing deal" banter later we arrived at the Round Rock Ikea.  We were slightly disappointed that we missed our Austin time and it was already around 5 o'clock.  We talked about stopping into a bar to have a drink or glass of wine but we were also anxious to wander IKEA.  We didn't want to go far so we drove around the parking lot just seeing what was there.  It was pretty much a big shopping center and things looked bleak until we came upon a Specs (the alcohol superstore).  All it once it made sense, spiked lingonberry cocktails.  So a bottle of Tito's vodka and two lingonberry fountain drinks later we concocted what turned out to be an actual drink, Swedish Wolf's Paw.  Who knew?  By the time we reached Småland we were feeling quite relaxed.  I won't say that Ikea is the best place to have a drink but I won't say that this wasn't a genius level move either.  Add in some Swedish meatballs and we are talking true enlightenment, "meaning of life" sort of stuff. 

So after the cafeteria transcendence we moved on to the bathrooms section, proceeded to find the items we came for, and mark down the warehouse location numbers with our IKEA provided unendowed pencil.  We did make one decision on the fly.  We had originally planned on having a 55" double sink/cabinet in the master bath.  After a short discussion we decided that two 31"  single sink/cabinets might work better and give us a little more flexibility with the leftover space.  It was a fairly quick trip through the warehouse even though we needed two of the flat industrial carts and a little help from the IKEA worker with the mohawk.  In the end we ended up with the following items:  one 39" Godmorgan/Odensvik sink cabinet combo, two 31" Godmorgan/Odensvik sink cabinet combos, one Godmorgan 39" mirror medicine cabinet, three Dalskar faucets, and nine Godmorgan legs for a grand total of $1313 with the 20%.  That saved us $303 which is almost the amount we spent on the dining chairs.  It's like it was meant to be.  Yes, I'm saying that a higher power wanted us to have discounted dining chairs.  So the sinks/vanities are officially taken care of coming in at almost $1700 under what we have budgeted..................not a bad Friday.

I should say that the modern home san antone blog does not advocate shopping and drinking unless it's Friday, you devote your entire day to it, and there's an amazing sale going on.................

oh my godmorgan

Making successful decisions regarding a new home are almost always sink or swim.  Well, tomorrow will almost surely be a "sink" kind of a day.  More specifically, sinks.  Even more specifically, sinks and vanities.  Even more specific than that, well, you get the idea.  As luck would have it, IKEA is having a sale on their bathroom related items.  We picked out the sinks and vanities that we wanted a few months back and were hoping to catch some of these items on sale sometime between then and the time we would absolutely need them for installation.  I always say there's no time like the present and that especially holds true if the present is highly discounted.  There's nothing like getting 20% off of what was already going to be a third of the cost you had budgeted for the bathroom sink/faucet/vanities.  The sale goes on until the end of October but we wanted to make sure that everything was in stock.  So after a quick trip tomorrow of Swedish meatballs, Lingonberry drink, and a stroll through the Bathroom section (in that order) we will be able to check the first box on our interior purchase list.  Below are a few pictures of IKEA godmorgan/odensvik combos we will hauling back from Round Rock tomorrow.

  We will also be going with IKEA for our kitchen as well which also happen to be on sale.  So tomorrow we will be coming back with everything but the kitchen sink because, well, we have until the end of November before that sale ends................

nice form

It's official, we have permits!  We also have forms!  As soon as we got word that the permits were approved work on the foundation immediately began.  Below are some pictures of the work done yesterday.  The forms are almost completely up with exception of a couple of places.  One of the exceptions is because of a last minute patio addition to the rear of the house.  We took a nice walk on the property this morning just to take in the work that was done yesterday.  It felt good, very good.  There's something truly gratifying about seeing the first actual physical starting point on what has been up until this point only an idea.  Today should be another day of smile producing progress.

less agua please

Over the weekend we went to the Watersaver Landscape tour here in town and we were actually pleasantly surprised.  Despite being a free tour it was actually pretty well organized and informative. Each house had a comprehensive plant list sheet that you could take home. Definitely saw lots of plants and landscape ideas that we will be utilizing at the new casa. Here's a few pics from the tour.

whether permitting..........

For this next post I planned on giving some background on our house design and how it came to be but i've decided to add in some updates as they happen in real time so you can live this blog in the present and not just the past.  So we are currently in the permitting phase of things which i had previously heard was a nightmare of a process.  The city of San Antonio is certainly doing their part not to dispell this notion and almost surely guaranteeing that I will jump at the chance of bringing this up in future conversations with friends and strangers alike.  If you ever have to go through this process you should make note to immediately erase from every part of your brain that has the slightest control of your memory anything with the word "tomorrow" that is uttered, spoken, written, emailed, messaged, hinted at, assured, promised, or even slightly alluded to.   NOTHING IS HAPPENING TOMORROW!  Not the phone call that was promised, not an update, not the inspection, not the review, and certainly not a decision in your favor because karma had been waiting to repay you for the time you turned in that five dollar bill at the rollerskating rink lost and found instead of just slipping it completely unnoticed into your empty pocket.  We applied for permits a few weeks ago and immediately ran into a problem.  Apparently I had not done a tree affidavit when I had part of the land cleared so the foundation guys could shoot some grade.  Even though I had called and talked to someone in their office and was told otherwise there was talk of fines and other repercussions.  I was then told I needed to document every tree on the property that had a trunk diameter of over 5 feet and what species of tree it was.  Luckily, one of favorite things to do is to hangout and "walk the land."  So below you can see the satellite image of some of my documentation.  I even numbered each tree with corresponding info just to make sure.  I think i ended up with 76 trees in all.  So a few days later the tree survey was approved.

So onto the actual building permits.  Mr. Tenorio, our contractor, had filed for the permits a few weeks back and didn't anticipate any issues following the tree debacle.  Well, score another one for the city.  They denied the permit saying they needed more info on the bedroom/hallway wing wall from the structural engineer.  They also misunderstood that the fence we had planned was not around the entire property and but only in the very front "courtyard" portion of the house.  So El, our architect and also Mr. Tenorio's son, coordinated with the structural engineer and spoke to the permit people about the fence misunderstanding.  Of course,  the city wanted a hand delivered copy of the engineering plan and not an emailed one.  So earlier in the week everything was delivered and on track and a call was suppose to come yesterday.  Call never came but this morning contact was made and they said they needed the actual survey with deed/recording info.  It just so happens that I was on the property yesterday meeting with the septic engineer and had them handy so I promptly sent them to Mr. Tenorio who then sent them to the city.  As of right now the permit people say that things should be all done this afternoon and the permits will be ready to pick up.  Bets anyone?  The important thing is that this has not rattled us and we knew coming into this that things rarely ever go smoothly, whether it's permitting, planning, financing, or better yet the actual building.

catchup

Ok, so as of today we are a week or two away from starting actual construction on the house.  To give you some background I'm going to write a few posts about how we got to this point.  I won't go into details about the years daydreaming and thinking about, what was back then, just an idea of a house (although you should get plenty of insight along the way).  Instead I will start with our first hurdle, where to put the house.  There were many factors to consider and, in many ways, we felt this was the most difficult and important decision of the process.  Again, these are not in order of importance.  First, we needed a place that would let us build a modern custom residential home.  There are very few places in the city of San Antonio that I would consider suitable areas that don't have a strict homeowners association, specific builders, or strict building restrictions.  We had lived near the downtown area for several years and wanted to move away from the transitional up and coming areas surrounding it.  The areas around downtown San Antonio area have seen a bit of a "renaissance" in the last few years which meant that real estate prices skyrocketed as well.  Most of what you get there are fixer uppers anyway and we wanted a new build.  Second, we wanted a neighborhood without "neighbors".  We've had enough "assholes next door", late night barking dogs, and "why do they always park in front of our house" to know that we needed a serious buffer for the home we planned to never sell.  You can see how difficult this was becoming.  A good neighborhood that would let us build a modern home with serious distance from surrounding neighbors that was in the city limits.  A tall order to say the least but that wasn't the end of our wish list.  Third, it had to be the right price.  Fourth, it had to have a good public school option.  Fifth, it had to have some charm.  We didn't want to be in a place that had no soul and was completely cookie cutter.  Sixth, we were really hoping to build this thing on the most solid ground possible, like solid rock.  We had had enough foundation problems in our previous house and never wanted to deal with that again.  Some of the other things we hoped for were good highway access, a neighborhood pool, nearby parks, distance from any huge apartment communities,  and a place with decent proximity to everyday shopping.  So this is the part of the story where the seemingly impossible task turns the corner, the clouds part, the light peaks through, and the music cues at just the right moment.  About 14 years ago a friend of mine invited me to play some paintball with some guys.  He gave me directions to some remote neighborhood on the northwest side of San Antonio near UTSA that was mostly large lots of juniper ashe and live oaks with a few homes here and there.  It was only three random hours of my life but for some reason I always remembered the area.  So fast forward to 2012 which was just about the time we were really pushing the idea of moving and making this house happen.  We had done a great deal of driving  over several months through random parts of the city in search of our future homestead when we decided to drive through the former paintball battleground.  It was pretty instantaneous when we laid eyes on the property.  Two acres of perfect untouched hill country in the city limits with a for sale sign in the very front.  The first call we made was to find out the price and turned out it was right!  The second phone call, a couple of days later, was to make an offer and turned out it was...............not right :(  Someone had apparently put in an offer between our first and second phone call.  A big disappointment to say the least.  But we at least felt like we had found the right neighborhood, which was no small thing.  So i'll ration out the suspense and fast forward this story.  A month or two later a second "perfect" lot came on the market and a certain cool couple put up an immediate bid and received an almost immediate acceptance.  To make the deal even sweeter the appraisal came in $11,000 under asking price and our amazing realtor/friend, Yvonne, made the deal happen at appraisal price.   I've included a few photos of the property below so you can "get to know" the land before things really get going.  I've already gone on too long but i'll just add one more thing.  Building this house has become more than just about the construction.  This is really about putting your money where your mouth is and doing something you actually believe in.  In regards to location, we really reject the notion that your physical location embodies who you are.  It's such a simple way of thinking.  Living in a "cool" downtown loft doesn't make you outgoing or interesting and living in an outer suburb gated community doesn't make you a bland uncultured person.  We really want take this chance and make this home a real reflection of who we are and not the other way around.  In the end it's just a house but that doesn't mean it can't blur the lines a bit between form and function.............