Beach House Part 5

Editorial Rating:

Reader Rating: ( 0 votes)

Ok, I am back.  Having survived the illness of a lifetime this winter and now fully recovered from the surgery required to cure me, it's time to catch this blog up to the present day.  Alot has happened since my last entry, and we're on the precipice of borrowing too much money, cutting in our road, and building the house of our dreams.

When last I wrote about our aesthetic progression on house design, I mentioned that wife of tres_arboles and I decided that the efficient and attractively simple deck house (now Plat house) among Greg Lavadera's stock plans seemed to most fit our vision.  We were concerned about a couple of things:  inside parking, secondary family room and "away" space, and missing a potential view of the ocean by building to one story.  But I loved the synthesis of modern and cabin in that plan, especially the connection to outside.  And I could easily picture growing old and crumudgeonly there in between surfs and bottles of Washington Cabernets (or maybe not-so-crumudgeonly as wine and surf are my recipe for bliss).  Besides, the ever-creative wife of tres_arboles used the choice to produce several conceptual drawings of semi-attached two-car garages with guest/family space above and vast expanses of glass to the west providing us our coveted view.  Decided!

During our investigation of the design situation, I also began the necessary and (for some reason) somewhat uncomfortable search for a General Contractor.  As I would learn, there's no shortage of construction labor in the less urban counties of Washington State, but locating a builder with a fairly vertically integrated operation, that will superintend a project for an absent owner is not a straightforward task.  In addition, the quality of that labor pool is wildly variable and reliability is a huge concern.  According to my experience and the anecdotes provided me by friends and acquaintances in the building industry, there are plenty of outfits that will bid a job with little or no established source of labor, little or no privity with the quality trades in a given market, and with little heed for the "values" of the owner that hires them.  What the owner get as a result, are contractors who can't say "no" to any potential business and then struggle to build within budget and expecially within promised timeframes.  To make ends meet from job to job, they cut corners on materials, hire anyone with a hammer and a mode of transportation to the site, and break agreements with essential subs.

The importance of that last flaw can't be understated.  I was able to collect a list of business names from my beach neighbors and by driving past building sites and taking phone numbers from signs posted outside of the best looking homes.  When calling these firms, I almost always first asked about their capacity to General the job from raw ground up.  Imagine my surprise when four of the first five guys I called said, "Raw land?  Call me when you get your road built, utilities pulled, lot cleared, and foundation poured."  Period.  I am now informed that that statement is code for, "The city public works department is a pain in my rear and I owe money to each of the three firms that do lot development and site-work in this market so it's better if you hire them than me!"

Many reading this blog here might be thinking, "So what, being your own GC is the in-thing, and will save you plenty dough."  Maybe, but I can't be there to GC, don't have the time to schedule and hound a bunch of trades, and my time is more valuable to me than money.  Because I don't have much of either, I tend to hoard and protect that former.  Fortunately, I called Jim fifth, and in doing so, finally found a contractor that not only had the capacity to run the whole project, but has a fully vertically integrated building firm, with quasi-in-house engineering and drafting such that we convert our stock plans to those meeting local codes.  In addition, fully asserted that when placing the house on the ground, the GC must be fully invested in the siting, with full knowledge of environmental factors that should influence proper siting, and therefore couldn't see running a job any other way.

After those several phone interviews, the familia tres_arboles made the run to Jim's office in coastal Washington, got a look at his portfolio and outfit, and spilled the beans on our plan to build a Plat House staring westward into the sunset.  "Interesting plan and probably an easy build," he muttered as wife and tres_arboles looked at eachother, nodding approvingly.  "Add a two-story garage and breezeway off the side entrance to the mudhall/laundry?"  "Simple.  Easy enough to match the roof line and glazing."  More self-satisfied grins and nods amongst the familia.  "It's a beautiful day.  Let's head to the beach and take a look at the lot."  We liked this guy and the way he was thinking!

We took the 20 minute drive to the back side of the lot, tromped around amongst the dunes, grasses, and scrub pine, and breathed in the satisfaction of having made an authentic step formward in building a our beach house.  We climbed a dune or two, kicked dirt in the low spots, and then unfurled the plans over the fender of his Truck.  After a moment or two of reflecting over the plans, fist to serious mouth he said, "What I can't figure out here is why you want to build a single story house and expand the footprint by building a semi-attached two story garage.  You have a beatiful lot here and most certainly will have a breaker view from a second story, but that would be a fairly intensive use of materials to acheive the lifestyle objectives you have for this home."  And suddenly we were all chest and no legs, our foundation having been rocked by this simple observation.  The question now was whether to stick to our guns or revisit some older ideas to embrace the values of simplicity and conservative materials intensiveness.

In part 6:  "Back to 'Square' One"