Day 4

I spent day three at home with my son who was sick. Not much progress. In fact, none at all.

I have a friend, Jim, whom I met at the dog park, and he is a licenced architect. He offered to look at our site and give us recommendations regarding soil conditions and a recommended foundation size as well as wet stamp my drawings for the county's approval . This should save us a fair amount of money and time to hire an architect. Plus I like Jim, I think he'll have some good ideas.

Originally we had the garage positioned to come off a 90 degree curve in our driveway. It turns out, after a lot of thought and eyeballing, that the drop in elevation from that curve is quite substantial. To build it that way we would either have a very sloped driveway leading down to the garage door or crazy high foundation walls to raise the garage close to the level of the existing driveway. Neither option is desirable. I don't want water flowing off the driveway and into the garage nor do I want to pay for 8'-0" high foundation walls instead of the 4'-0" that they could be. Our solution is to turn the garage so the garage door lines up more or less parallel to the existing driveway. We have the room to put a Y in farther down the existing drive close to the house and run a new driveway back to the new garage parallel to the drive that is there now. The advantage to this is that the point at which we would connect the old and new drives is already substantially lower than the original connection point and the longer run for the new drive allows for a more gradual slope. We can put the whole garage at a lower starting point thereby saving on the high foundation walls. Yes we have to pour a longer driveway but I think any additional cost for this modification will be made up for in less concrete for the foundation as well as less fill to grade the land around the garage to into the existing landscape.

A drawback to this whole change is that our original layout for the garage office will have to be revamped. Originally we had the office up at the front of the garage. The whole building would be an L shape. In the hollow of the L we would put a patio sitting area that would be visible from the house and have a good view of the yard. By rotating the building we would block the sitting area from the house with the office, turning it into the wind and subjecting the area to a less than desirable view. So we've decided to push the office to the back of the garage. Imagine now a V with the center part facing the house, a beautiful trellised area collecting the south and west sun and sheltered from the wind. I think this will actually look better than the original idea where the sitting area was facing south and east.
I now have to redraw everything I had.
That's my Day 4.

Day 2

I have to arrange for someone to come out and take a look at our property for fire mitigation purposes. For the most part, any trees within 15 feet of the house should be cut down and trees within 30 feet are to be limbed up. Believe it or not, this might be a deal breaker for me. We live in a forest and have probably 100 trees our our 1.4 acres. Still it pains me to cut down even one. Our bit of mountain has wonderfully moss covered outcroppings of granite which are site to behold unto themselves. But when a tree grows from the middle of such an outcropping, with its roots tangling around looking for all the world like the tree is literally holding on to the rock, it is such a cool thing to see. What a shame to cut down those trees. And how to you remove the roots from the rock? So I've been delaying calling about fire mitigation for fear of what I'll hear.

Day 1

Well, my husband and I have decided that we need some more space. He would like an office detached from the house for privacy and we need some more garage spaces. We have a project car that needs it's own space so the kids don't start wandering away with parts. A double detached garage should allow enough room and space to ensure the car remains untouched. Today I go to the county to get more information about, well, everything. More to come...
Amy