Decision

It's been a while since we've updated. Sadly, the silence is mostly an indication of us not doing much on the home front. We've been insanely busy with work, but occasionally we have a moment to ponder how little we want to stay in this current condo long term!

With that in mind, we've made a bit of a decision. We're no longer eyeing lots in any type of historic preservation district, which includes our current neighborhood. It hit me one afternoon that I didn't want a board of strangers telling us what we could or could not do with a particular piece of property.* There are fewer things that make me grumpier faster than thinking about the Historic Landmarks Commission.

* And yes, I know that this grouchy libertarian rant doesn't take into account all the good things that zoning has brought this world, nor the positive achievements of cities — and Salt Lake City, in particular — such as the roads I drive, the power lines I use, the water lines that slake my thirst, et cetera, et cetera.

That's the short story.

The medium story is that I called a SLC planning employee to ask about a particular, reasonably-priced property in our neighborhood. This piece of property has a nearly condemned home on it, making it — so I thought — a ripe candidate for a tear-down. The planner stated in no uncertain terms that she would never try to tear down a building in a historic preservation district. She almost laughed when I pointed out that the building wasn't a contributing structure, that it was in really bad shape, hadn't been occupied, was nearing the point when you can call the city to request that it board up the home, etc. Evidently, even the planners in the city recognize that the HLC doesn't play that way.

The HLC has absolute power over tear-downs in historic preservation districts. In order to tear down anything in that district, you must prove economic hardship, which is a subjective term with jurisdiction for that decision residing solely with the HLC. In short, the HLC does not want you to tear down anything in a preservation district.

With the rest of what we've heard about the HLC, the variances that they would have to approve in order for us to build on any lot in this area, and the grumpiness I feel about these guys in general, something clicked. I just didn't want to deal with it any more. I didn't want to have to pep talk myself into the fight it would take to build modern in this area. I love this neighborhood, but...my love has its limits.

So, wherever you are, nameless planner in the depths of the City-County building, this post goes out to you. Thanks for setting me right. We're now looking at neighborhoods near Liberty Park, just south of downtown, safely outside Salt Lake's historic preservation zones and near a couple of streets where a few other modern homes have popped up in the last year or so.

Oh, and I promise to hound Tai to show you all what he's done with the fireplace, book shelf, and mantle.

Oy

“Imagine having it all, while preserving the environment.”


Uh-huh...

Here's a little more information about size and LEED certification from the 100k House gentlemen, as well as a pretty decent explanation about why that quote up there isn't much of a mantra.

Update: Apparently the Internet reads the NYTimes. ReNest tackles the same topic.

Fireplace non-update

I had two local wood-working companies come to bid on our fireplace; I heard back from one of them. The bid came in at more than $1,600 with a five-week lead time; we're going to pass on it.

We're also now talking about plan B, which might include a nice tile around the mouth of the fireplace and another round of bidding for a wood frame to that tile.

We always love hearing suggestions from the internet, though...consider this your palate:

CaBOOM! Day 3 Part 1

The best house of the whole 3 days was the first house on the tour on Sunday. The architect, Robert Thibodeau of DesignUniversal, had this home on the tour 2 years ago that I really liked.

 

Here is the home from this year's tour.

When I talked to the architect, I told him how I loved the warmth that the materials he chooses bring to his building.  He said that his design philosophy is "regional modern" where he uses locally sourced materials to give it the flavor of California. In the case of this home, that means using lots of redwood from the region for the outside decking, ceiling and floors.

The home essentially consists of two rectangular forms placed side by side. One form contains the public areas - kitchen, dining, living, while the other contains the private areas such as the bedrooms, den and bathrooms.

What I thought was particularly striking was the use of custom shelves to separate to the two areas of the house. It provides separation without closing off the space. Plus all the walnut they used is just gorgeous.

Who knew that 15th century religious art could look so good in a modern home?

As I said in my post on Day 2 of the tour, I'm really partial to the use of concrete block, which I think was used to perfection for the fireplace.

I also loved how he continued this theme into the backyard.

Corridor for the private areas.

The floor in the public space was a highly polished concrete that looked really pretty.
I absolutely loved the flooring in the private areas. I had never seen an end-grain floor before. The architect explained that it is a commercially available product that used to be used for factory floors quite frequently. This product is a redwood that comes in panels to make installation a little easier.

The brightly colored exterior doors were a nice touch.

Finally, a renewable source of fresh eggs out in the backyard.

Two steps forward, one step back

Tai finished the work on the tile for the washer/dryer nook this week, and I spent some time looking for appliances. We have very specific requirements for what can go in there: 30" wide by 30" deep by less than 78" tall for a stacked washer and dryer. The dryer has to be electric because we purposely didn't run gas to the space, and both the washer and dryer have to be able to run on 120 V.

It's the last condition that is proving the most difficult. Standard power for washers and electric dryers is 240 V. I went to a couple of different spots around town looking for something that would fit our criteria, and in each store, the salesmen showed me the same catalogue with the same, single option for a 120 V electric dryer. This type of dryer evidently also takes a really long time to dry because there's half as much juice running to the machine.

Another option for us is to purchase a combination washer/dryer, which I've only ever seen in Europe. They're tiny — built to fit under a kitchen counter like a dishwasher, and the one I saw the other night was a condensation dryer (no, I don't know exactly what that means). And, about 150% as expensive as a typical stacked washer/dryer would be.

But it's so cute, no?

We're hoping our friend The Google Search comes through with some more options for us, one of which may be running a gas line right through some drywall to the space. TBD...

CaBOOM!!! Day 2

Day two of CaBoom was not quite as inspiring as day 1, but it's still 1,000,000 times better than going to any Parade of Homes. All the homes were in West Los Angeles, which is an area that seems to have come of age in the late 40's to early 60's and has very much kept that vibe.

Each day has 5 homes and here I'll post about 3 of them. One I just thought was silly and the other I will post about together with another house by the same architect that was on the tour on day three.

House 1:

The first home we toured was an extension of a modest mid century modern home that California is so great for. 

 

The architect added probably 500 or 600 feet in the back, while maintaining the integrity of the original home. The materials used were concrete block and clear poly-carbonate panels. I am actually quite partial to concrete block and there was a home on the third day that used it to perfection.

The added space is used as a large public area and all the walls were lined with custom fabricated steel shelves. Large glass doors  that open on the corner blur the lines between inside space and outside space. This is the great thing about architecture in California. The weather is so nice that you can really take advantage of indoor/outdoor space planning. This is unfortunately not quite as feasible in a 4 season environment like Utah.

The use of the clear poly-carbonate panels on the outside walls and the large glass walls and windows brought an amazing amount of daylight into the space.

Custom panels were created to divide the space from the rest of the house and they also served as a place to display the owners art collection.

Overall I really liked this simple addition of square footage to an existing structure that was architecturally interesting in its own right. It would be good inspiration for someone looking to add square footage to some of the smaller bungalows in the downtown and Sugarhouse areas of Salt Lake.

House 2:

The second house on the tour was a new spec house that had some nice finishes and the ONLY basement I have ever seen in Southern California. Overall though, it was kind of boring and I really didn't like the use of the manufactured stone on the outside.

The house was built with a pre-engineered steel frame that is more typically used for commercial buildings, so in that regard it was an interesting re-purposing of pre-fabricated commercially available products.

I really liked the way that this house and almost all of the other two story houses on the tour made use of landing space at the top of the stairs for a study or office.

The basement was cool, and would be a good entertainment area of a house, though it didn't seem to me to be extremely useful space.

This was the other house the builder built at the same time. I snapped this picture through the screen on a window upstairs, so the quality isn't so great. I thought that the cladding on the exterior of this house was much nicer and worked better than the other.

House 3:

This was the fourth house the tour. I skipped the third because as more time passed, I just really didn't like it and the posts are getting ridiculously long as it is.

When we pulled up to this house, I was a little confused. Just a little rambler, what's up with that?

They had us walk around to the back of the house where we were greeted by something that is unlike anything I have seen outside of a science fiction movie.

The architect, Neil M Denari is apparently a pretty big deal. He has designed some pretty impressive sky scraper type buildings in New York and Japan and other places.

All in all, it was a little too Space Odyssey 2001 and clinical for my tastes, but the craftsmanship was like nothing I have ever seen before. 

These are light tubes, which use mirrors to bring day light into the house where a skylight doesn't make sense. I thought that these were really cool.

This is how we do things in Utah

Re: pest control