Rehabber’s Rehab

So we submitted our plans today, and it was not so bad as Matt thought.  The initial stages are actually pretty easy.  Looking at the Village’s website, it looks like you have to have everything ready when you go in–drawings done and electrical and plumbing permits signed off by the professionals.  It’s a little overwhelming, and after looking into it I could start to understand Matt’s stress.

After an expensive and hurried trip to Kinko’s, I went down to the Village Hall with Matt. He claims that once those people find out you are an architect, they love to start giving you a hard time, where as home owners can basically get away with anything.  We took a number and sat down to wait. 

Once our number was called, we brought up our plans and started to figure things out.  So to start off, you just submit an application for plan review, and all the information on this is basically your own.  The electrical, plumbing, and building permits come after your plan is aproved.  I was relieved since we didn’t have those filled out yet.

We are applying for a kitchen/bath remodel and addition of a deck.  We took them through our plans to make sure that all the details they needed were there (Matt had to make a few notes about rail height on the deck), but I was very impressed and proud of my brother-in-law with the detail in the drawings and how much he had thought of.  Matt had stamped and signed all 3 copies of our plans which each included a plat survey and gave them a copy of his architect’s license.  Then the moment he had been waiting for, they wanted the license of his company as well, even though he is a home owner doing a private project outside of his company on his own home.  We were told if he hadn’t stamped them, they wouldn’t need any information at all, and as a home owner you can draw the plans yourself.  I could have brought them a picture I came up with myself on a piece of printer paper and they would take it.  But because he’s an architect…

Matt very calmly explained that he is a home owner drawing plans for his home that he didn’t feel he should be penalized for being more professional (more professional than any drawings I would do, I can tell you that!).  While they went to check on this, we contemplated another expensive trip to Kinko’s to print them out again, and we would just leave the stamp off this time. Ridiculous.  Fortunately when they came back, it was all okay, and the plans were accepted!

100 bucks later, and that was it.  It will be 4-6 long weeks until we hear, and longer to get a permit if we have to make revisions.  By then we will have our electrical and plumbing information together and hopefully can just move forward.  In the meantime we will leisurely paint and strip every wood surface I can get off the walls.