Patio build – the stories

This was an out of the ordinary fun project. Not because of the project itself, but the stories that surround it. We had a lot of fun doing this. Just read along, and you’ll see why. Just incase I forget to tell him again – Big thanks to Craig for all the help and the hours put in. Could not have done it without ya bro. Thanks to Angela as well, for letting him hang out with me. Means a lot.

Ok where to start…

First the inspectors…

I called the city to see if I would need a building permit. They told me if I was attaching it to the house, then yes. So I gathered all the information I could on what I would need to bring with me in order to obtain the permit. I would need 2 drawings of the patio and project to scale, and a drawing of the property lines, where the house sits, and the new addition – all to scale as well. Thank God for Google Sketchup. I modifed my drawings a bit to show the scales, drew up the property lines from the servey drawings and thought I am ready to do this.

My loving wife took the paper work up to the city to get the permit. She calls me and tells me “the guy wants to talk to you”. I had a feeling. He tells me that he is worried about the way the posts are secured and the concrete. After a bit of arguing, he tells me he will speak to the senior inspector. Then he gets back on the phone and tells me that they will have to deny the permit because they feel I need a 2 foot deep by 1 foot wide footer, with the poles cemented 18 inches deep. What tha? I am not building a drilling platform, I am building a cover over my patio…I promise I will not let my friends talk me into setting up the band on top of it or having a dance party on top of it. Besides, I park a 4 door 4×4 Ford truck, a Ford Edge, and a Chevy Malibu in my driveway, which is only 4 inches deep – so I am sure the 4 inches of concrete will hold the 500 plus pounds of lumber sufficiently. Further more, he tells me that they just don’t want to be responsible if someone gets hurt. What tha? Since when did the city have responsibility for someone getting hurt on private property? Is that not why home owners insurance is required when you own a home?

I told them I knew plenty of people with engineering degrees – if I had one of them look at it and tell me it was fine could I go on from there? Or what if I just run it up to the house and not attach it what then? He tells me – if you get an engineer to sign off that it is fine then he overrides us. If it is not attached blaa, blaa, blaa. Needless to say, I am a bit pissed off. LOL OK maybe not a bit – maybe a little more on the VERY side. I hang up. 

My wife calls me back to tell me she talked to them a little bit longer and that they really complimented my drawings and planning. They also precede to tell her that “most people would not have even tried to get a permit for this. It is just a weekend project and if the neighbors don’t complain, then they would have just built it. I am not even sure why y’all needed a permit.” My wife – in all her calm wisdom replies “because we are law abiding citizens and the city said we needed one.” They hinted to her again – ” Most people would just build it and go on.”

That was all I needed to hear. I was ready to build. I called Craig to let him know we were on!

So Craig and I started Saturday morning around 9:30 AM. We decided to wait out a thck fog and let some things dry up around the house. We had floods all day Friday in Lubbock. Once we got started it was on. We worked hard and the girls, well I’ll use their words, they were “living life”. They had rented a few movies (chick flicks) to watch while we worked. They were kind enough to bring us some ice tea and call us in for lunch though.

We worked until dark, and decided to call it a night. We showered up, ate supper, and decided to watch one of the movies they rented for us. The one we decied on was “The Orphanage”. Had a freaky intro – we finally got it to play only to find that it was a spanish movie. We had to read the entire thing. On top of that it was not that scarey. Guess me and my hispanic friends have different views on fear.

We picked up where we left off Sunday afternoon around 3PM. I had stained a few boards right after lunch, but waited for Craig to help hang the 2×6’s. While working we found we were one strong tie short, and needed a few thing to finish the job up. So we made a trip to Lowes.

I won’t go into details here on the blog, but after arguing that I needed to pay for something they told me know and I got it for free. LOL This is a really good story and a blessing of sorts, but I won’t share it here. If you know me personally – call- I’ll be glad to share it with you.

Anyway – maybe you don’t find it as funny as I do, but it was a weird couple days on the project. Take a look at the Pictures page under Our House (scroll to the bottom) and you’ll see updated pics as it is finished.

Later,