Ignoring the fact that we need permission.....

Even though we need the "green light" from the bank, we have to continue to push ahead as though we are building the house. This means working through the demolition and excavation permits. By doing this, we are hoping to avoid several weeks of down time while we wait for the city to approve what we would like to. Also, since we plan on doing this either way, being this year or next, these permits are renewable, and will allow us to be ready when we want to do it. As a result, the money we pay for permits will not be spent in vain.

The process of getting the demo/excavation permit is two-fold. First, the demolition company does their part by applying for the permit, doing the air quality, and rat infestation prevention, and sending approval letters to the alderman, and each of our neighbors. This just assures each neighbor that every possible measure will be taken to ensure no damage will be done to their property during the process. On our end, we are responsible for getting the excavation permit, which means that I have to get signed approval letters from each of the neighbors, and the alderman to confirm they are in agreement with our decision to dig a really big whole in the ground.

One thing that has come up through the course of all of this, is at what distance from the neighbors foundation do we have to be in order to not have to use shoring to protect the other home from having issues due to collapsed land. In the end, this is going to force us to move the house as much as two feet to the west. This will present us with some re-design work in the form of re-creating the north face of the garage so the door is in line with the back door of the house, and if the three in the front yard will then be directly in front of front door. The former will not be much of an issue, but the latter could be a problem, and its something we will know about this week some time.

So, this week we are going to have the two large tress in the back taken down - one is dead, and threatening our neighbors wires, and other is in the middle of the future garage. Once we are done with that later this week, we will be working through the rest of the design to make sure we have things right before we finalize most of the design to go to the permit process.