Blog of Chris

I met with a representative from BGE today, concerning the relocation of the electrical feed coming into my house after I put up my addition.

Both my cable and the neighbor’s run through the space where my new bedroom will be, so they must be moved. I figured this would cost a lot of money, but with a little bit of tweaking to the construction plans, it should only be a few hundred dollars.

When the back of my house is torn down, the existing electrical panel and meter will be temporarily mounted somwhere out of the way so that there is still power available for doing the construction work.

Once my electrician is just about done with his rough-ins, he will re-route all the old circuits to the new panel (at which time there will be no power!). Then BGE will come in and hook up the new panel, and the juice will flow once again.

All I have to do is mount an unsightly 20 foot 6×6 post to the side of my new addition!

BGE said the whole thing will cost about $170, which isn’t bad, all things considered. (Plus the cost to buy and install the 6×6 post)

-C

I spent about 3 hours last night finally installing trim tile in my bathroom.  It’s been needing it for quite some time, as the bathroom was been functional for nearly 2 years now.  I had to use 2 boxes of cove base tile from home depot, which I think costed about 60 dollars.  I also had to pick up a set of tile pliers (for cutting shapes), a sponge, trowel, and a tub of pre-mixed mortar.  (Oh yeah, and a tube of caulk-style sanded grout).

Overall it was a simple process.  Like all trim work, the only tough part is the corners, which my bathroom has plenty of.  There are matching outside and inside corner peices that you are supposed to buy to tackle these corners properly, but I regrettably did not have the foresight to get these.  The not so professional solution is to get creative with the grout.
The pain of it was that about a third of the way into the project, I realized that the tiles I bought were not quite white.  They were buscuit, which looks a lot like white, especially under the dull flourescent low-level lighting of your local Lowe’s home improvement warehouse.  Sigh.  So, the bathroom has trim, but the corners are not as pretty as they could be, and it’s not quite white… You can’t really notice it unless you are looking for it…  of course, it’s the first thing I look at when I enter the room.

-C

Well, not really woes, as nothing has gone wrong (yet). It just takes for-frigging-ever. On Friday I had to go downtown for the 4th time in this Baltimore City zoning process.

Here’s a recap:

1st visit: Informational visit to the downstairs zoning office. I picked up their “Guide to Rowhouse Additions” which clearly outlined what was needed: Photos, site plan, sections, and elevations indicating old and new construction. I then proceeded to complie all of this stuff into a neat packet. Also on this visit, I ordered my zoning plats for $42 dollars, at another city office building (located next to city hall). You must submit the plats themselves in your packet, or a receipt showing that you have them on order.
2nd visit: Drop the packet off in the downstairs zoning office. They review it, and find out what exact zoning codes you are violating (if any).

3rd visit: After the downstairs office has had your packet for a week, they will call you to come pick it up. When you get it, you will see a typed out list of the zoning ordinances that you vill violate if you build. You take this information to the cashier in the permit office, and pay a $25 fee. Then, you hand carry the packet up to the 14th floor to the Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals. You drop it off (I forgot to get it notarized, but they have a notary right there… another $2, but it’s better than if they didn’t have one at all.) Again, it must be reviewed and they must put their own, new cover sheet on it… This takes about another week.

4th visit: Again, I visit the BMZA office on the 14th floor to get my copy of the wording for my public sign, and my official hearing date. The sign is to let the community know that I intend to build, and that they may come protest my addition if they think it is out of line.

So, now I have the wording and standards, which I must adhere to exactly…

“To whom it may concern, Chris Whong wants to finally finish his friggin rowhouse, three years after he started.”

So, my hearing is scheduled for December 5th. That’s how far out they had an opening. I imagine that it will still take a little time after that to get the permits in order, and then it’s the holidays.

Also, if it’s too darn cold, it’s a bad idea to rip my house open in the middle of winter and risk pipes freezing, etc.

We’ll see how this all pans out, but I have from now until the 5th of December to hammer out the numbers with my contractors.

-C

After

I recently assembled a document with before and after photos of my house. The change is pretty dramatic.

I am going to finally finish the house, adding a full height basement, new kitchen, new bedroom, and multi-level rooftop decks. Right now I am in the planning stages, lining up financing, appealing the zoning board, and getting prices from contractors. I’ll post some shots of the plans when I get a chance.

I documented (not very well, but documented nonetheless) the first part of my project in another website, before I knew the power of canned blog software. I intend to do a much more thorough job documenting the 2nd phase on this blog.

-Chris