Siting the Buildings

Ed & Brad

It’s the little things that one doesn’t anticipate that are frequently so remarkable. As perennial remodelers, the location of the house has always been a given. Now, simply locating the new buildings in exactly the right and intended location is a challenge. A few inches this way or that puts one directly in violation of the building setbacks, or changes the angles of the buildings to one another. Each of our three building is askew on the lot, askew to one another and the lot is askew as well. The challenge of layout is multiplied with every wall relationship to every other wall relationship and the buildings' walls to the property lines. The combination results in weird angles every which way and a million ways to be off.

Having done landscape designs for years and years, I certainly understand the difficulty of measuring strange angles and buildings-to-property lines-to-roads-to-buildings-to-property lines, but laying it out from scratch is new to me and brings new meaning to the challenge. I now also understand why so many of my clients say, “well, this isn’t exactly like we’d planned it,” as they hand me their site plan.

So, today Ed and Brad figured and measured and sited and staked. I played official recorder and photographer and sick one. I did manage the other end of the measuring tape from time-to-time, but for the past three weeks I've been with flu/cold junk and am definitely not totally functional again. And, the coughing goes on and on.

Our concrete workers, The Marty Bros., begin with the forms for the foundation next week so the big push to finish the utilities is on. Brad's friends Scott, Erin and Chris will be here for the weekend to join us in getting ready for the concrete's arrival.