Catch-Up, Ketchup, French-Fry

Hello Dear Readers, (both of you)
It certainly has been a while since I've done any kind of a construction post.
There has been some very exciting developments here that will astonish and
amaze!
Well, okay, not really......

I think that we are ready for drywall in the downstairs apartment. Yes, that
apartment that I've been working on for what seems like an eternity.

Here are some exciting pics of the downstairs unit ready for drywall (I hope).

The main hallway

 From other side.

The utility room 

 I decided to do a low voltage panel for the entire house also.
you can see it on the left here next to the House sub-panel.

 Fancy new 90min fire door outside.

Fancy 90min fire door inside.
Very crowded in there, better clear it out before the inspection.

Master Bedroom

Master Closet

Kitchen

Dining Room

Dry Wall Blocking Examples

Front Bedroom

Back Bedroom

Yep, Still Purple

And its holding up awesomely.

Metal For Crazy Bike Rack Idea

 Yay! Craigs List! I got all this 1" crew square tubing for less than the scrap
price! Yep, still going to make some kind of crazy bike rack for the house.

Okay, we all caught up....not quite, one more CRAZY post should do it.
 

Check Your Drawers!!

That's right folks, check your drawers!

I didn't and when I finally did this is what I found!

You know how everyone has cabinets in their kitchen?
Have you ever pulled out the bottom drawer and looked behind it?
We never had, until for some mysterious reason the bottom drawer
would not shut. I pull the drawer out and reach in and start pulling
out all these crazy Asian snack foods and teas, all of them very
long ago expired.

So, you just bought a new to you house? Just moved into a rental?
Pull out that bottom drawer and check...never know what you're going
to find.
Dare Ya!
 

A Death In The Family....

We here at Chez 3.0 are saddened to announce a death in the family....
Tiny The Wonder-Fish has passed away.

Tiny and Baby Madscientist in happier times.

The famously humongous fish in the humongous fish tank.

I inherited Tiny from a room mate over 20 years ago...yep that's right Tiny was
20yrs old when she died. She was a Pacu from the Amazon river. Pacus are
the closest relative to a piranha you're allowed to have in CA. The males with their red
bellies look a lot like piranhas when they are young and little. Unfortunately Pacus
don't stay little for long. Tiny was 18" long and 12 pounds when she died.

The Steinhart Aquarium in GGP used to have a couple HUGE Pacus in one of their
giant freshwater tanks. On this tank there was a little brass plaque that said something like,
'These two Pacus where left here in a bucket in 1940 when they were just a couple inches
long. We are not taking anymore Pacu's'. The dang fish in the tank was 65 years old and
looked like it could eat a golden retriever.

We all thought Tiny was going to outlast us and I'd end up willing her to baby madscientist.....

Tiny was a funny fish. There were people that she liked and people that she definitely didn't like.
She liked watching TV with us. She's watched every single episode of every single Sci-Fi series
we've ever watched. People will think I'm crazy for saying this but she definitely had a personality.

I wasn't expecting her death to hit the family so hard but it has.
RIP Tiny

Guess its time to make another custom tombstone for our cemetery.......damn-it.....

How To Get Screwed Over By....

Your local building dept.

Have your super nice guy, reasonable BI get freaking bought out by the city
and take early retirement....
I've been working on this stupid freaking project for a while now which is
taking a basement that has two illegal apartments in it and make it a single
legal apartment.

The code enforcement inspector was really reasonableish. He didn't make me
gut the entire basement. He let me keep both bathrooms and the drywall on
one side of each wall which also means I got to keep the non-load bearing interior
walls also.

After the initial demo we had a meeting and he laid out exactly what he wanted me to do and at what
point he wanted me to call him back to re-inspect.
Boom, I go to work, get really hurt, (my back) get really sick, (my liver unfortunately) and it ends up
taking a lot longer to get to the pre-agreed inspection stage.

 I call him back and SURPRISE he's retired!!!!

 Now the whole agreement was verbal between us, he was going to be the only BI at the job so I didn't think anything of it.

Where's The New Code Enforcement Officer?
For two months I've tried to get the new code enforcement officer out to check out the situation. That's three phone calls and three emails and one phone call to his aide. I hear nothing from the guy for two months. I get sick of waiting and email his boss with a very polite WTF?
The next day I get a phone call from the code guy who says its not his job and to make an appt.
with a regular inspector.

Regular Inspector 'no likey'
Today a 'regular' inspector comes out and freaking tells me this.
That he was sent out to tell me no, I can not actually finish the basement as an apartment legally...
that actually the zoning was never approved and that the building permit should never of been issued!!!!!!!!!!
I told him that, that seemed impossible to me as the building dept absolutely does not issue building permits without a signoff from zoning/planning. I swear I can remember getting a letter from the city saying the planning was approved.
He says that he thought he was coming out to look at a bare basement.

So, the building dept doesn't want this permit finaled and I've got a nice 3 bed 2 bath apartment that is ready for drywall(I think).

Because of my own slowness and the injury/sickness I only have a month and a half left on the permit.
I'm worried that they are going to jerk me around until the permit expires and then refuse to issue another one...

I got the inspector to unofficially look around today and he said that he thought the quality of the work was nice, and picked out a couple of small things I could fix. Point is, no health/safety issues. From what he was saying it sounded like he had a meeting with his superiors and they gave him a list of stuff to look at to try to deny me outright.

They wanted him to look at all the windows to make sure they were original and therefore under the historical building code (smaller openings allowed for egress).
I am supposed to have a meeting on Monday with the BI and the top dog at the building dept....we'll see how it goes I guess.
I need advice...what do y'all think I should do?
I feel like, to the best of my knowledge I've done the right thing and because the city early retired my BI I'm getting seriously F'd.
I think right now my only two options are:
1. Ignore city and finish unit illegally.
2. Go to meeting and hope for a reasonable accommodation.

Help,
Mads

Bike Rack Idea 2

Electric Bugaloo

After doing some more impaired thinking on the bike rack subject I realized that the
initial design had some serious drawbacks.
Then, it occurred to me, what if I thought more like 'giant pantry pull-out' where the
super beefy full extension drawer slides are mounted to the top and bottom of the
pull-out, not the sides?

Pantry Pull-Out Bike Rack Idea

 In this version the rack is made out of Ipe, metal, and wheels.
I would build a lockable weather tight 'cabinet' to go with this crazy
pantry pull-out.
Now all I need is 12' full extension drawer slides....

Ipe Drawer Slides

 Here's my initial idea for the top drawer slide or track. Ipe is crazy dense, slick
wood that slides against itself very easily. I wonder if I could get the tolerances
above correct for smooth movement year round as the wood slightly changes
size with the relative humidity.

Bottom Track

Here is my idea for the bottom track. With the wheels mounted to the rack they
bear the weight of the rack/bikes. This way the tracks don't need to be built strong
enough to handle the full weight.

Ipe Construction
Left over from a zillion year ago deck project I happen to have several Ipe deck boards.
I have some 5/4 by 6 by 20' pieces and some 1by4 by 20' pieces.
Working with Ipe is not very different than working with metal. I'm thinking to
through-bolt the 4 track pieces together with counter-sunk bolt heads.

I've also got a crate of these little wheels.

and a bunch of steel.....
Wouldn't have to buy much to do it....

In Other News
Got an almost free table saw the other day!

Its a bit of a project....I need to do some rust prep and to assemble it but its
a beast, all cast iron with a real 3hp 220V motor. Baby madmadscientist is already
excited about the secret bookcase door I'm going to build her with it.

 

Under Deck Bike Storage Part 2

Hello Everybody!
All three of you, sorry for the 'long time no post'. I really jacked my back
up and haven't been able to do anything much....
Now that the drug haze has cleared a bit I'm in too much pain to do physical
work but I can design!
Yay!!!, designing on opiates!

Bike Storage Idea
Giant sliding rack
Want to have safe, weather protected storage for all of ours and our tenants bicycles.

Here's my idea for the 'big bicycle pantry' pull out rack idea.

It will take a space slightly larger than 12' by 6' but it will store 12 bikes, I think.
The idea is, unlock and open the barn doors, grab the rack and pull it out to the
left to access the bikes.

Bike Post Idea

This is basically a 4by post with four adjustable hooks to catch the top
tubes of the bikes. Two bikes per post.

Questions:
Make structure out of wood, metal or both?
How strong is strong enough?
Will the tabs and guide wheels be enough to keep the rolling rack aligned?
Can this be done so that it is reasonably rugged and idiot proof?

We Won An Award!!

Yoo-Hoo!!

The Alameda Architectural Preservation Society gave us an 'award' last night.
Well....not really an award as much as an honorable mention.....guess they couldn't spare the $3 for
the laser printed award certificate......

One of the other honorees spent several hundred thousand dollars on redoing their glorious
Queen Anne...and they got the certificate....guess I didn't want it that bad.

Here's the cover of the award ceremony program.

The inside of the program.

Here is a short video of the presentation of our honorable mention.

Overall it was a fun 'only in Alameda' experience with the MC singing songs
in-between each award.
Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the entire program as baby madscientist was
falling asleep in her chair.

We don't do anything just to get an award but its nice for our hard work to be noticed
every once in a while.