Domus Dawson: The retaining wall.

Estuardo running the show.

Complications, setbacks, rule bending? Of course we wouldn't be Valka's if we didn't have a few hiccups and setbacks. But we've been through legal battles, deaths on the work crew, red tags on the house, boundary disputes and not to mention our house makes the movie "the money pit" look like a walk in the park.

The first of our setbacks was quite scary with the Dad having a series of chest pains and numbness in the arms and fingers which naturally caused great alarm. I took Dad to the hospital and after a few tests, a few hours and a few thousand dollars later he was discharged from the hospital with the green light from the Doctor........ or at least that is the story that Dad is sticking to...none of us actually heard the Doctor tell him he was ok.

Dad giving himself the thumbs up to leave.

Dad and Estuardo pretending that they are working

The following few days were super productive. Dad, Estuardo and Danielo had the footings and the steel for the retaining wall finished and ready for inspection in no time. When the building inspector arrived we proudly stood by our wonderful wall with permit and drawings in one hand and a pen awaiting his signature in the other. (insert setback #2 here). He wouldn't even look at the wall or drawings until we presented the old drawings for the house. Even though the house drawings were on a separate permit that had been approved, signed, sealed and closed, he wanted to check zoning and setbacks.....WTF????? "No problem!" I say as I whisk back inside and grab my set of drawings for the inspector to review. Unfortunately, my set of drawings were a copy and not the original, so "douche bag" as we affectionately called him, wouldn't review them and promptly left saying he wouldn't return until we had them. Where were they?

no drawings, no signature, no concrete...

My first instinct was to call Tim, the "safety" contractor, our front man to cover for Dad when the he wasn't here. (Unfortunately, he wasn't cheap and we were painfully reminded of the great value of having my Dad here every time the invoices arrived). Anyway, he said that he didn't have the drawings so I figured that they must be in the house........somewhere. I stripped the house down from top to bottom, even digging in the attic and searching between studs but before I could hit rock bottom, I was plagued with setback #3.....RAIN. And not just Seattle misty sprinkles, but torrential tropical, flash flood downpours. Our 3' wide x 10' long x 3' deep trench for the footing was filled to the brim with water. Our driveway looked like a mustard coloured swimming pool. eeeeeek!!

Drawing my attention away from my new mudbath was the quest for the drawings. I had surrendered to the fact that I did not have the drawings. I called every contractor and subcontractor that had ever set foot in the house, I even called the neighbours we had been in legal battle with thinking I may have left them my copy, but no one had them. I swallowed my pride and called the Building Department and said that they were lost and that we will have to use their copies. Well, hit me while I am down, they had lost their copies too! AND the digitised versions weren't coming up either. If we can't get theses signatures we were stuck. No signature, no wall, no stairs and in 2 weeks no Dad! Somewhere around 3am, curled up in the fetal position and exhausted from my endless hunt, I begged Tim the saftey contractor to look again and again and again. When I woke the next morning it was to the gleeful squeals from Dad as he found them safely delivered to our front door......it was Tim grrrrr. It's always the first place you look.

We called for another inspection and lucky for us we didn't get douchebag. The ironic thing was that the new inspector didn't care about the old drawings, setbacks or zoning. He just inspected the wall and signed off on it. Why didn't we get him the first time? In any case we rescheduled the pour and didn't stop running until it was done. Here it is.

I had to get up early for the pour and discovered that sunrise is amazing from my deck.