'We're pretty much there with the floor plans,' we said, as we sat down with our architect. 'Just a couple of tiny tweaks - a window in the garage, and a sink in the upstairs lounge.' And that's how it went. Just as we were about to roll up the floor plans and start talking about exterior finishes, The Love of My Life cleared his throat and said 'there's just one thing I wanted to ask about before we move on'. I tensed. I knew just what that 'one thing' was. A goddamn subterranean wine room. We had one, of sorts, in London for a while: a damp, dark, cool cellar. Ever since then TLOML has hankered after some sort of wine cave. There's a practical benefit to keeping wine underground - it should need minimal refrigeration, if any. But I think the real appeal is that of a bunker, a secret sanctuary. Maybe even behind some kind of secret door. Based on a largely fact-free offhand conversation I once had with a builder, I told TLOML co...

Over the past couple of months this house grew. The idea of a modest, 4 bed+ house around a spacious courtyard spawned the floorplans for a 6+ bedroom colossus, around an ever-decreasing courtyard. Some things (my office, the deck off the master) got smaller or deleted altogether. But then we started throwing on things like the o-furo, an outdoor workout space, a mudroom, a wine room with space to actually sit down, and more balconies and decks. And then I got the fear. I was afraid we were creating a monster with many empty leaf-strewn balconies.  Since then we've ditched the o-furo and the outdoor workout space, plus several hundred square foot of balcony. I think we're in a saner place now. It is now a 5 bedroom house with 2 living rooms (okay 3 if you count the library nook), 2 modest offices and a wine room. It's no Versailles, and although it does still look like quite a large house I'm confident we'll use every room. No redundant 'formal' dining ...

Quite slow moving this blog, isn't it? Turns out so is the whole design and build process. For those of you who've asked me 'what next?' and 'how long will it take?' and 'when will you start building?' here's a timeline. The first big step is to submit our preliminary plans into the city for approval. Once we have that we can get started with the Coastal Commission approval and in parallel work on our detailed plans. That's the bit with civil engineers and energy calculations and electrical plans. Those detailed plans need to back to the city for final approval, and once we have that and the Coast Commission's OK we can start to tear down and build. Note the red-circled question marks. We don't know how long the preliminary city approval, the coast commission approval, or the final city approval will take. If all goes we should be ready to build next summer. Note too the 'we are here' arrow. It's a long road ahead...

We're in! We squeezed our 2300 sq ft home's worth of possessions into Casa Del Sol's cockroach infested* 1500 sq ft. The former owner left us the clogs and the Casa Del Sol sign, you will be pleased to hear. He also bequeathed several electrical outlets that don't work, a side yard full of broken plant pots and random street furniture, and the ugliest blinds I've ever seen. It feels a bit makeshift - the old IKEA Expedit and some plastic drawers have been pressed back into service and half our possessions are in boxes in the garage - but it works. And life on Loma is good! Here's why. Being 1/4 mile closer to the beach makes a dramatic difference to how beachy life feels. Moving to a quieter street helps too. I love seeing all the beach-goers walking by our house: the Junior Guards walking by in their swimsuits and hoodies, barefoot surfers, kids in red wagons. It's friendlier here too. All the dog walkers pass by on their way to Clark Field and natural...

We got floor plans! And they were almost perfect! But not quite. Fortunately, one of the reasons we chose Lane is that while he's a talented designer,  he seems pretty low-ego. These are not expressions of his architectural splendor. These are homes for people. He's very pragmatic, and invited lots of feedback. Basically his vibe was 'tell me what you want and I'll make it work'. Here's the ground floor: I want a bigger courtyard and we don't need such a big family room, so that was an immediately obvious fix. My office can be much smaller. The elevator is only for the mother-in-law unit, so that can move. And most of all we like friendly front entrances. Not some tucked away secret front door, or a cavernous driveway tucked under a big overhanging bulky house. We want an old fashioned door onto the street - especially on what we think and hope is a friendly street. So we suggested these changes: The second floor was pretty spot on except we do...

We've closed on the purchase and we've selected an architect (Lane Design Build) so now the fun can start. It's time to start imagining what our new house might look like. It's time to stop Pinteresting and day dreaming and start discussing actual floor plans. Here's our wish list: FIRST FLOOR Two car garage with storage Living room/dining room/kitchen open to courtyard Wine room Family room Large courtyard Side yard to include outdoor shower & ofuro Powder room/ 1/2 bath SECOND FLOOR Master suite with master bathroom Two bedrooms with shared bathroom Laundry room THIRD FLOOR Ash's bar (lounge) open to roof top deck Katie's office (small bedroom) Powder room/ 1/2 bath 2nd/ 3rd FLOOR Casita: bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, small dining area, living room (600sf) It looks like a l...

Hermosa Beach is a dense little 1.4 square miles, and is a little bit short on parking. There are lots of older beach cottages with no garage or driveway. There are also lots of narrower streets and alleys without any sidewalk, meaning each house just runs right up to the road (or 'street' as Americans call it - who knew?). In an attempt to rectify this, when people renovate or rebuild the city requires them to put in parking spaces on their property, and a sidewalk. Loma Drive is almost without sidewalks, and therefore street parking, for most of its length. If we were just tarting the place up but adding less than 50% to the living space, we could leave it as is. That extensive patchwork of spaces for us to park in would remain, 'grandfathered in'.  But we are going to build a brand new house and that means bringing the whole lot up to code. Not only will we need to add a section of sidewalk but we will need to provide off-street parking for 3 cars. And if we hav...