A few weeks ago, a very painful realization lodged itself in my mind– we still didn’t have our drawings back from the engineer. The engineer had had those drawings for many weeks, (though it is my understanding that a few days is more the norm) and the permit process with the city couldn’t even begin until we got those drawings back and our architect did a bit more work on them. The permit process takes an average of 4-6 weeks once begun. We weren’t (aren’t) going to be able to jack up the house and do all the foundation work in the very brief window of dry time between achieving our permit and the onset of rains in the fall.

I must admit that I felt a bit like crying, a bit like screaming and throwing a fit when I realized this. This project has taken so many years just to plan that executing it will be a relief comparatively. Partly this is because we have had to radically redesign our project twice in order to contend with our obstructionist neighbor. Partly this is because we are doing trade for our architectural work, which I’m guessing puts us below paying clients in priority. Either way, it has become a marathon exercise in patience and adaptability.

We settled our lawsuit against the obstructionist on June 12, getting everything we needed from the settlement (alas, they cannot make him disappear). His funky sewer on our property should be fixed within 2 months, and we will have an opportunity to video the line when we are done with construction to show that we did no damage. Not so much to ask, right?

Our consolation prize for waiting, AGAIN, until NEXT spring to lift our house is a trip to DISNEYLAND!!! We’re going in the fall, and we are actually pretty excited.

In the meantime, we will push forward with the permit process and try to prepare ourselves for an early start in the spring. I won’t even imagine a future in which that cannot happen next year.