Planning the pool and spa

While getting another round of bids to refurbish and move the pool, I've decided to draw the outline to help visualize positioning and size of the final product. Because of where we are adding on to the house, we are forced to move the pool a bit to abide by Palm Springs city codes and be within allowable distance from the house.
So this is the diagram:

Moving the pool 6ft West

Here is the outline of the new pool, showing the added spa on the west side of the lot. Note that the pool equipment will be moved behind the grapefruit tree, out of sight:

This is the West side of the lot, showing the new pool outline with the <large> spa.

Standing on the east side of the yard, in the new master bedroom (bottom left line on the image below shows the line of the new master), we can see where the pool line will be once it is moved 6ft west, leaving a comfortable 10ft between the master bedroom and the edge of the pool:

Linda's new pool once moved over 6ft to the West

Next we need to figure out whether we want to do regular plaster or mini pebble on the pool bottom and whether we do salt water versus traditional chlorinated water... stay tuned.

Patio lounge chairs

Linda is far from being ready for furnishings, but we nonetheless acquired 4 new patio lounge chairs from Asylum for her. Rest assured, they will be put to good use at our current location until then.

bathing suit on, cocktail in hand... ahhh

Sweat Equity, 1st installment

On Tuesday, I delivered the first installment of sweat equity. Yep, dug a ditch for the relocation of the new gas meter -- we're moving it from the inside of the yard to the front of the house. This also allows us to create an unobstructed courtyard between bedrooms 1& 2.

The Ditch!

We were very lucky to have requested the move from the gas company when we did, as our area is due for pipe upgrades and so the company took care of most of the cost for the move. $656 was our part. Not bad. 

Alteration of setback petition was approved!!

... Well, sort of. After tons of back and forth with the Palm Springs Planning Department (wonderful group BTW), we finally were given a maximum allowance for the rear, but nothing for the side. I'll take it!
So now, if you refer to our previous map with available space for building, we can go up to 12 ft from the rear and 10 ft on the side!  Yeah!!!  That means that we can have a room that is 3ft wider ... times about 27ft in length = a nice 81 ft of extra overall square footage.

Goodbye beautiful tree!

We knew we were going to expand and so why waste time and get attached... so here we go:

Let's hope Mother Nature forgives me

It took a day to remove -- the root was the biggest challenge.
Next up is the hideous shed which seemed to have been built as a bomb shelter!

Shed on the left is built into the property wall. Image on the right shows it GONE!

So now we're at this:

New current property map (as of January 15th, 2011), without the (illegal) shed and large palm tree. 

To add or not to add....

Once we started thinking about what to do with the remodel, or the revival, we really took into considerations two things:
1. Budgets - how far can we go with our available budget, and how can we get the most bang for the buck without compromising the quality of the build and the integrity of the era of the house.
2. Land - how much can we expand, and how will that affect the overall property experience ... and long term value.


So with some expert help, we started learning about laws. Ugh... yes, we first had to figure out what size, height, shape and style we could build. These were the results of our findings: 
The lot coverage in our neighborhood only allows for a maximum of 30% coverage. Meaning that current house + garage + addition could not be more than 3000 Sq Ft (our lot is 10,054 Sq Ft). Currently the house is 1440 Sq Ft and the garage about 588 Sq Ft for a total of 2028 Sq Ft.  Meaning that we can add close to 800 Sq Ft.
In terms of the height, we found out that it is near impossible to build up in Palm Springs.  Which is fine because we're keeping our mid-century long and low... the way it was meant to be. 
One thing we did find out was about setbacks and how we needed to stay away by 25 ft from the street in the front of the property, 10 ft from the property line on the side and 15 ft from the rear property line. 

Linda (as of January 14th 2011, with current setback dimensions

The obvious solution is to add to the rear left of the property, extending as far back and to the side to accommodate for more room. We didn't want to add behind the garage, even though that is where we have the most room, as we believe that living in Palms Springs really means you have to enjoy the outdoors. We're thinking that the space from the pool to the grapefruit tree will offer a great opportunity to create a nice outdoor space using some creative landscaping. But we're far away from this.... check back in a year or so.
So, we did some drawings to see what we could do, and this is what we thought might fit best with the lot and current property.. of course that would entail getting rid of a large palm tree, a (illegally built) brick shed and move the pool. Move the pool?!?!

Mid January 2011 ideas for expanding Linda

Well, we did like this idea. The one issue we had was that we were limited on both the left and rear side with the setback limits (10ft / 15ft). But maybe there was a workaround?
So after a bit of research and visiting the Palm Springs Planning Department, I found out that we could do a request for setback alterations, granted we had some valuable reasons (or hardship) for needing more space. So we filled out the application... let's see what happens!

The not so fabulous reality of Linda...

With the good comes the bad and by that I mean baaadddd. Our first impression when we visited Linda with the real-estate agent was the following. Walking through the front door gave us this gorgeous view:

Linda circa 2010 (July more precisely) - from the entrance

By turning our heads to the right, we were able to see the ... 'kitchen':

The kitchen is between the first wall and the second. Nice stainless steel and granite!

But then it got better, between the two bedrooms (see map of property in case you're lost) there was a full bath, in perfect condition... for 1950.

Brand New bathroom with swankin' wall paper at the entrance. We'll see about saving that fabulous pattern.

Hopes were still high by that point... until we stepped out into the 'yard':

Linda's back-side. (nothing a few million $$$ can't fix!)

Of course, after this first walk-through of the property, i was sold! I had a vision. I could see the amazing potential! I knew right away that this was the right property. I think I had a heat stroke.
Jen was horrified and probably passed out somewhere hoping I was joking about this potential purchase. (guess again)