Construction Next Door
Part 2 of 2
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Bill and our friend from Chicago, Rick Martin, look at
the empty lot, and the south wall of our house. That
wall had not been seen since 1939, and it had never
been painted. The demolished house was only about
half as deep as ours is. Notice how the unpainted
wall is only half of our total south wall.
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Larry decides to walk all the way around our house.
This was the only time this has ever been done.
Realtors talk up "detached houses" as being a
feature of value in this town where most
houses touch others. We joked that at last
we owned a detached house in San Francisco.
We did not paint our newly exposed south wall.
That made no sense since the new house would
cover it long before the fall rains would begin.
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Unusual view of "the other 21st Street" from our back yard.
We normally see this street only from our front windows,
and seeing it from the back yard seemed very strange.
Note the house to the south of the empty lot. It was
built just two years ago, and the contractor did not
even finish the wall. It had plastic flapping around
on its wall, even. This made the owners of this brand
new house feel really good about the quality of its
construction. The contractor had no idea this would
be exposed to his purchasers so soon, because the house
just torn down had that happen because the people who had
lived there since the 1950s had unexpectedly died.
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The new house will have a deeper foundation than
ours, so our foundation had to be underpinned at their
expense. The holes you see there will be filled with
concrete, and then the remaining dirt areas will be
removed and also filled with concrete, making our
foundation go much deeper than it went before.
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Construction of the new house's lowest floor,
as seen looking west from our back yard.
May 15, 2003
And here's our new neighbor, all completed!
November 23, 2003
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