The Living Room
Because we really did plan on following the rules of legitimate remodeling, we turned in some preliminary paperwork to the city’s building department, which is conveniently located directly across the street from our house. This resulted in a stern message from the Building Code/Permit Czar on our answering machine. He requested a meeting with us right away, and we were nervous.
On the day of the meeting, I was shocked to see Dominic changing out of his grubby work clothes into a button-up shirt (the equivalent of a suit on Dominic’s scale of dressiness). We went over our “story” like criminals, fearing the worst. In all honesty, we weren’t quite sure what we had done wrong, but we felt guilty anyway. In the inspector’s office, we shook his hand, and found out that he had “stopped by” and seen “way more work” than we had said that we were going to do. Apparently, one needs a permit to tear down a house’s interior, not just to rebuild anew. He told us that he could “red-tag” us (I’m still not sure exactly what that means - it sounds menacing), but instead he would issue us a retroactive permit for what we had already done. Grateful for his benevolence, we smiled a lot, laughed loudly at his jokes, and I think there may even have been some curtsying as we left his office.
Determined to stay on the right side of the law from then on, we have since abided by the building codes, which, for the most part, make sense. (I’m glad that a firefighter carrying his gear has to be able to fit through my bedroom window to save me, but I don’t understand why the first light switch in my kitchen must be fluorescent – must we all look a little greenish while we’re cooking spaghetti?) Also, lots of people warned us that permits cost a lot of money, but, compared to how expensive everything else has been, they didn’t seem to cost that much at all.
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