Unknown Unknowns

This wouldn’t be a blog if the author — yours truly — didn’t have a lengthy and, for the most part, inexplicable absence of content.

A lot has happened over the last few weeks. We’re a bit more than halfway done with the project, which, while not complete, certainly looks much more like an apartment than a finished garage now.

We had a great meeting with our contractor and his cabinet supplier to figure out our kitchen. Although we had come up with a (relatively) long, linear kitchen plan with our architect, we came out of that meeting with an additional few feet of cabinet and counter space.

A few days later came our first bad news, and it was a doozy. After the interior walls and the cheap laminate flooring had been demolished, we found out that our concrete slab was cracked. Although our contractor initially told us he’d be able to repair it, a few days later he explained that he’d recently repaired a slab that had been in better condition and the city inspectors were still insisting that he replace them. Our slab needed to be replaced.

That moment could have been scripted by HGTV and the price tag was hefty at $7000. We were, however, able to gain some concessions that helped the medicine go down.

The rear concrete patio that we’d always wanted had been stricken from the scope early on. At the project’s earliest pre-planning stages, we had even considered making it part of the interior space with exterior walls and a roof, but those costs (plus additional county fees that would trigger based on total interior square footage) were ultimately too high. Losing that 200 square feet of indoor/outdoor space amounted to close to a third of the total usable space so it was a real issue for us. After some tense negotiations, we got it added back in as part of the slab work at no additional charge.

Another lucky break helped mitigate the unexpected cost of the new slab: Our contractor had also previously removed the high gated fence we had wanted to build around the patio to provide privacy for ourselves and our guests. Apparently he never communicated that he’d removed it from the scope to his subcontractors, so a few weeks after the cement was dry, we were pleasantly surprised to see some workers digging holes for posts. Getting both the patio and fence back in at no extra charge helped soften the blow a bit.

We also learned that we had a leak under one of our house’s existing bathrooms. Since the ADU’s sewer line connected to our sewer main, repairing it cost a few hundred dollars (and may have unearthed a $15,000+ future bathroom renovation). With the leak repaired, however, the plumbers were able to start digging through the awful, rock-hard clay. We knew the clay was tough from previous attempts at gardening, a fence we’d had built and from neighbor accounts. This was confirmed by three very long days of constant jackhammering and the visible fatigue of the guys working the machines.

Eventually, the trench was completed and the gas, water and sewer lines were run. The cement was laid and our contractors got to work on framing, wiring, insulating and installing sheetrock.