It has been a month and we are still trying to get everything needed by the city in order to get the building permit. This has been a process and since I have never rehabbed a property to this degree I am leaning as we go. Once we finally decided on the perfect layout for what the interior of the "Fowler House" will look like we than had to submit it to the Boise Historic District to get the go ahead with the exterior. That process took a 1.5 weeks which was fast compared to how long some reviews take. Our review was "over the counter" and did not need a group meeting. This was because everything had already been approved and we were just making some minor changes.
Once we got the certificate of occupancy through the Historic District we were than onto getting all the documents necessary to get our building permit. Once we submitted our plans to the city they came back asking for a Manual J from HVAC. I had never even heard of it but my HVAC contractor, Marco from Gomez Mechanical, was all over it. Two days later I got the Manual J back which was 47 pages of heating and cooling specs for the house. Once that was submitted the city came back with a couple more documents needed. They needed a few things changed on the Manual J, and than asked for a Manual J, D, and S from the electrical sub. We are currently working on this and hope to get our building permit soon.
In the meantime, I realized that we do not need a building permit to start painting so we are contacting the painter to get him started right away. Even though this is not a lot going on with the house, the neighbors will be happy to see something happening to the house. I have had neighbors calling and asking when something will be happening to the house and have even given my Realtor another set of the plans to meet with neighbors to show them we are working on it.
It has been amazing how many subs we have met at the "Fowler House" who has never gotten back to us with a bid. I did get a bid for new windows which will have to be wood as approved from the Historic District and the bid was $17,000+. Ouch.
My Realtor than got me in touch with a guy named Justinian who specializes in restoring properties from this era. He was not happy with what we are going to to with the interior but said he would work with me anyway. He said he could refinish all the wood, refinish the current windows for half the price, refinish the hardwood floors, refinish the plaster and make more siding to match the current siding. We had many subs saying to pull all the exterior siding off and put all new on as well as pull out all the lath and plaster and put up sheet rock. This would take away the restoring part of the "Fowler House" and add more cost. I am glad to have found Justinian but the bad thing is he will be gone mid Aug to mid Sept. Hopefully by the time he gets back we will have all the mechanicals in, new roof, exterior painted and the garage built.
We will see what the next couple weeks have in store as we move towards starting the restoration of the "Fowler House".