nothingugly

I got a question about the previous post, and it’s been on my mind.

Nice post. So here’s my question: why bother? I grew up in the Bay Area and know Oakland well. I would never live there. Crime is bad. The city government is corrupt and inefficient. The housing stock is falling to pieces.

However, these are things you’re obviously well aware of. So you must have a very good reason for buying a place in Oakland. What is it? I’m not trying to argue. I’m trying to figure out why a smart, energetic person is bothering with Oakland. Can you help me out here?

  I’ll go one step further. Why live in a place where they’ll burn your house for complaining to the cops about drug dealing? Or where there are two recycling centers in easy walking distance - and one is a polluter and the other is a haven for crack-heads?  In a city that has a well deserved national reputation for street crime?

I’ve done some travel overseas, and when I’m asked about the US, I’m usually stumped.  After all, most Europeans seem to think of the US the way most Americans think of Texas… boorish, belligerent, and in poor taste. I answer, “Well, the US is really REALLY large.” In other words, we’re talking about people, not “crime rates”. In city hall, I’ve definitely run into my share of obstructions, and I haven’t even applied for permits yet. However, I also found Betty Marvin, who ran the Oakland Cultural Heritage Survey. She has every block of West Oakland memorized, and when I mentioned my address, she asked what had become of the church two houses down. At no cost, she provided me with an overview of Oakland architectural heritage, and found a picture taken of my house in 1987.  I’ll be using it as a restoration guide, and the Mills Act she pointed me at may help mitigate tax issues.

  Finally, my immediate neighbourhood. My right hand neighbour is a good friend and fellow NIMBY denizen. On my left, there’s a gracious family whose roots in that house go back almost a hundred years. I’m across the street from brand new yuppie condos. 7 minutes from the bay bridge toll plaza. 8 minutes by bicycle from a Bart station. I’m a 5 minute walk from my woodshop. Many of my friends in the area are either in the trades, artists, or both - so there’s a ready supply of skilled friendly help for this project.

  On Friday night, I attended Art Murmur on my friend’s double decker bus. We drove through the Acorn projects in the wee hours of the morning and got nothing but smiles.

  There’s even a potential upside. West Oakland was gentrifying quickly before the crash, and condo projects are starting - even now. As gas prices skyrocket, the suburbanites who bought places in Tracy have moved to be closer to their jobs. I’m within four blocks of Emeryville, Pixar, and more condos than you can shake a stick at. Ten years ago, it was solid industry.

  Finally - if I’m lucky - this house is my way out of cubicle life. I’ve paid cash, and I have some left to fix up the house with. In a year, I’ll be broke, unemployed, and I’ll own my own house free and clear. How much money does it take to live a life well? I’ve made some compromises, but I get to live the life I want to be living, surrounded by happy people who have made a similar set of choices.

  There is risk. I’ll lose some tools. I may get mugged on the street. It’s possible my house will be broken into. I’m panhandled daily. Shopping carts rattle by the front window all day. But you know what? It beats the shit out of sitting in a cube.

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I’m trying to buy a house in West Oakland. The price is right - about 135K. The place needs… well, everything. The previous owner bought three places, side by side, and did a lot of “work” on them, so they could flip the houses. All of it was illegal, and all of it was BAD. Want new walls? Just smack up some drywall over the old plaster. New outlets? No sweat - wire those bad boys in before the new drywall goes up. They won’t see the wires; they’re between the two layers of plaster. But the  absolute best? The roof. You can see daylight through this roof. You can whiff basketballs through this roof. The mold is so bad that I have to wear a respirator. The floor has traces of green from alge. But the kitchen! it looks FAB, does it not? Want to remove a stairway and not fix the siding? Cut the door in half, nail it shut, and call it waterproof. NEXT!

  In other words, it’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’m delighted. However, the City of Oakland is doing everything in it’s mother-lovin’ power to stop this sale. Why? Probably because they LIKE crack houses. My diligent and excellent escrow company has been “working” with the City of Oakland for almost a month to try to get this thing sold.

  First, we pull the title. YOW! Ug-LEE. There are numerous liens on the property from the city. Apparently, when the owner walked away, the crack heads moved in. The city cleaned it up a few times, and tried to charge the owner for the service. Now, the owner has fled, so the city is owed the cleaning charge. Also, there are numerous fines from “red tagging” - All the work was done without permits. There are three additional liens which were recorded in error (how do you record a lien by mistake? Three times?) Then, there’s the doozy. The city has a $50,000 “prospective lien” on the property. And, to cap it all off, the city is in the process of declaring the property a “Substandard public nuisance”. Now, this is all well and good. The guys who “fixed” this house weren’t going to correct anything, and city wants to get paid. However, here comes a buyer - me - paying cash for a crack house in West Oakland. Not to fix it and flip it, but to live there. You’d think they’d want to help.

  Here’s where the fun starts. Escrow contacts the city, and the city informs us that the “prospective lien” is ACTUALLY only for $5176, and they refer us to an inspector. The inspector’s boss has been known to return emails, though it usually takes 48 hours. The inspector herself hasn’t returned an email, ever. And she’s running about 30% on phone calls. In fact, the city of Oakland’s voicemail system has been entirely unavailable twice. So, since we’re now three weeks into the 7 day escrow, I decide to trot down to city hall.

  I lean that, we (the seller and myself) have to file a “compliance plan” with the city. The intent, presumably, is that we follow through with the compliance plan to remove all the issues that the property now has. However, to do this, we have to work with the inspector. Oh, and draw up plans. And file a $2000 bond. And pay about $1600 in fees. BEFORE the buyer owns the house. What happens, I ask, if the deal falls through? I’m informed that it has happened in the past, and the buyer attempted to get the fees and bond refunded (I guess they were out the plan drawing charge, which typically start at $2500). The inspector told me that the city of Oakland - i.e,:, her - told them to fuck off, and the buyer was left with no money, and the city was left with another crack house. Oh, and one of the violations? Well, my door is right bang at the top of the stairs. No landing. I go to the historical department, and pull a photograph taken in 1988, showing the door in the current position. The historical department guessed that the porch had been glassed in sometime in the 1920s. So, I’m forced to correct a code violation from 1925 before I can move into a crack house?

  After three or four rounds of this, (not to mention the good old runaround to other departments, but that’s a side issue), the inspector calls me back and informs me that since it’s an all cash transaction, I can actually just take responsibility for all of the above issues, and we can FINALLY transfer title.  The seller - a bank - drops the price of the house by the cost of the bond - $2000 - and the approximation of the fees - $1600.

  The summary, though, is pretty sad for Oakland. What it really means is that it’s effectively impossible to use a loan to buy a house which has been declared “substandard” by the city. Only the worst of the worst manage to get declared substandard, but it’s a bureaucratic roach motel. Essentially, the city is going to ensure that once a house has been identified as a nuisance, it’s pretty much going to stay that way, racking up additional fees, and never get sold.

  My house will close August 5th. 36 days after entering the 7 day escrow period.

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   The multi-router is a great tool for cutting motise and tenon joints. It’ll also cut dovetails and finger joints, but I have lots of tools for that. If you have a multi-router, this is probably a very interesting post. If you don’t, you’ll probably want to move along.

Several woodworkers who have come through the shop have been interested in how I’ve solved a couple problems related to the JDS multi-router. One, is how to store the cute little templates that let you cut all the shapes that the router can cut. The other is how to mount a digital gauge on the Z-axis.

  First, the template storage. This tool board uses the standard cleating system that all storage uses in my shop. Note the padouk peg that secures the finger and dovetail templates.

  The other trick is that I noticed that JDS offers a digital gauge for the Z axis for the low low price of $469. From the photo, I recognized it as an OEMed proscale gauge. I was able to pick one up directly here - the best deal, when available - or for slightly more here. Mounting it was trivial - I provided two screws and some nylon washers. Images below.

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   Still building out the shop. A couple weeks ago, I got a large blower installed, which pumps enough outside air into the shop to turn the air over about every three minutes. Now, it’s all about the vacuum system.

  One cute trick that I used - everything on the walls is on 30 degree cleats. The shelf below is also on a cleat -  i just cut a notch out of the bottom of it. It’s strong enough for me to sit on.

  The rest of the shop is a bit of a mess - with no vacuum system, sawdust ends up on the floor, up my nose, around the corner, and inside “sealed cabinets”. I’ll be glad when it’s done!

  The jointer and planer run on three phase, and the rest is 220/110.

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A customer brought a piece of pre-finished flooring from China to the yard across the street. Under the finish, there were handprints. Little hand prints. TINY handprints of the child who had fed the flooring through the planer.

And because that’s depressing as hell, here’s Oscar.

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I quit my job a few days ago, so it’s time to get started on some real projects. I’m building out a workshop over at NIMBY. It’s in West Oakland, near the port. I’ve heard the area referred to as “dogtown” (as opposed to dogpatch, in SF, I guess). It’s a strange mix of industrial, aging residential, and brand new vandalism-resistant condos. Every block has a different personality - some are benign, and some scare the shit out of me.

The seemingly inexorable death of the industrial zones at the hands of the housing boom has halted, and in a weird place. The warehouses are here, but they’re empty, or converted to light industry. Some were probably waiting to be torn down so more condos could go in. But it’s bustling during the day; we’re next to a lumberyard and a recycling center. The local drug addicts are omnipresent, and always hungry for scrap to feed their habits. We let them go through the trash, and they leave our stuff (and cars) alone. It’s an amicable relationship, conducted at arm’s length.

One beneficial side effect of the death of industry is that there’s a LOT of equipment available at the wrecking yards, and it’s being sold at scrap metal prices. This is large stuff, so it’s hard to resell. All of it requires a forklift to move, and it runs on three phase power, which isn’t available to your average home based woodworker. Details on the machines when I have more of them in my greedy little hands, but it looks promising.

The space that I’m turning into a shared workshop is reasonably large - about 1500 square feet. It’s going to need a lot of help. But today was a milestone, I think. One of the local business had a large Taiwanese dust collector, a little banged up. I have one of these at home, and I can’t say that I love it, but it’s functional, and I”m not excited about hauling mine across the bay. I offered the shopowner a low price, and he thought a moment, and made me a gift of it! My fantasy is that we’ll get people to contribute to the shop, and they can come play and make it a better place. I’m four days in, so far, so good.

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Just ‘cuz. Also a fork and a giant metal wrench thing. The wrench thing was a gift. When I got it it was covered with orange rust. I hit it with a rotating brass brush (drill mounted) and then put tung oil on it. The tung oil took almost two weeks to cure, but I love the look. The hammer is made from a chunk of maple and a piece of god knows what that was used to sticker some wood that I was shipped. It seems to be some kind of exotic, not very heavy. This is my uncle’s xmas gift. He can fill in the punch line for himself.

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Not the most thrilling post ever, but the big secret of this “blog” is that I use it to inform people who need to know about my plans. Ie: people who might be bidding for construction, relations, etc. I finally got my soil reports, so I know enough to finalize my site plan. We have a landslide that prevents building in certain areas - or, at least makes it prohibitively expensive.

The shop has been revised a bit to work with the terrain. I moved the water tank so it would be a little less visible. I’ve also removed a few windows from the shop. The house has some cute lighting in the kitchen, which should represent a decent approximation of my LED lighting. I’ll also probably embed upward facing LEDs in the shelf that runs around the perimeter of the kitchen and bedroom. No idea what I’ll do for a vanity; I’ll boil that bridge when the pot calls it black.

Floor plans with dimensions:

• House, first floor
• House, second floor
• Shop, first floor
• Shop, second floor

Site planning:

• Without detailed elevations
• With detailed elevations

Salamanders? We’re still waiting.

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I finally completed the rework of the oak tree project that I started back in may. The color choices weren’t working for me, so I redid much of the glass. I think the textured lead worked out well.

PDF and DWG oak tree stained glass patterns.

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