The Remodel, May 2020

And then we got serious about getting a permit. When the road base additions and compactions were complete, the soil tester came back and said it was 100% compacted.   Before, it had been in the 80's or 90%.  Not bad.  But 100% is like concrete!  It doesn't get any harder than that.

It seems as though a lot has changed with the building permit procedures over the decades since Mike was an actively licensed general building contractor.  He's built a LOT. He knows a lot. He asked his contractor friends questions about what was necessary and what they do as commercial builders.

Well, it's not like that for owner-builder doing an addition to an existing home. The State of Utah has requirements, the Federal Government has requirements.  And all the lines must be filled in. But Mike balked and just didn't want to play by the rules.  "They don't need to have all that!  It is NOT necessary. All I have to do is..." this an such what his friends said. But it didn't work, so the website (which is where all of it is nowadays--all online and a scourge to not-so-computer-savvy older person-who-shall-not-be-named) didn't get filled in properly for a very long time.  There was a lot of waiting, watching, looking, asking, waiting.  Mostly waiting.

Then Mike finally gave in and got the right people to do the right things and stuff finally started to move. But not until June.

So in May, I packed some kitchen stuff, started cleaning out certain areas. I worked. We endured the Pandemic some more.  Mike shopped for materials and supplies.  He worked at getting his parents' home on the market.

And we waited. We traveled to Nevada to see Gail's family.  We took a Mother's Day trip over the mountain to find a place to have our family reunion in June (Not DisneyWorld! Thank you, COVID-19).

 And, finally, on June 1, the forms for the footings were started!

YaY!  Progress!!!  But there is still no permit issued!!