Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Booya! Guess whose permit is signed, stamped, initialed, red-lined and paid for? There's just no stopping us now!

After much deliberation, Jeff and I decided to pull the permit as homeowners (vs having a contractor pull it for us). I wouldn't really say that I would recommend doing this (ultimately it makes us and SOLELY us responsible for anything that could possibly go wrong), but being that we are no strangers to pulling permits (did it on our last house too) and because it ultimately does save money (even just the labor alone of going down there and doing it) meant we were up for the challenge. FRUGAL is our middle name! So, after a heated match of paper, rock, scissors...I headed over to Kinko's to print out two sets of our plans and headed downtown to the Public Services building.

Pulling a permit is scarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry, especially when you really have no idea what you are talking about (I'm referring to myself here). If you are making any changes to the footprint of the house...even adding a concrete stoop or tiny deck...you first have to go through the Zoning department. Lucky for me, I was only pulling the permit for the interior work...so I got to jump right to Plan Review. I won't go into too great of detail, but the process is about a full hour of working with a 'Plan Reviewer' on exactly what the work is that's being done. They are looking at the cost of the project (which then determines the cost of your permit), the structural changes (your plans first need to be reviewed and signed off on by a Structural Engineer) and the details of the plumbing, HVAC and electrical plans. What they aren't looking at are things like fixtures, cabinetry...really anything that goes on once the walls are closed up. So you can imagine how eloquent I am when I attempt to answer his question about what we are going to do to the exterior walls to insure we have no condensation build up from the heating supply lines. Oh yeah! Just WATCH me dance around these questions.

After feeling like I had been interrogated for the better part of the morning, I saw him pull out his big red stamp and sign off on the dotted line. I had to restrain myself from jumping up and down...but I managed to retain my cool and calmly escorted myself over to pay for the permit. It wasn't until I got out in the hallway that I started skipping back to my car. WOO HOO!



On a side note, I found myself a little project last night at Homegoods. Went there for sheets, left with bags of frames. I've been wanting to do an arrangement of frames going up our stairway. But I wanted to do gold, carved wood looking frames and had trouble finding the perfect ones...until last night. I fell in love with these frames and started playing around with how I could create a little arrangement going up the stairs.



Now clearly I don't have enough frames, but I wanted them to be a bit mixed and matched...so I bought 6 of these in an array of sizes and will add in non-matching ones to bulk up my display. Once I feel I have enough frames, I'll start finding the pictures to put in them and have them printed in the proper sizes. I also want to mat some of the photos, but leave others un-matted. It will be a fun project...and I have so many professional photos of the girls and even back from our wedding that I never took the time to develop. If you know of any great spots to find more vintage inspired gold frames, let me know!

Finally, a shot of my little Rosemary. I didn't go into much detail of why the end of our trip was 'tumultuous'...but it had a lot to do with finding out my little Rosemary was at the hospital having stitches while we were stuck in Los Angeles. She's doing great and is quite proud to share her wound with anyone willing to look (that tiny little cut on her chin)!