Went up to Garden Valley again yesterday to walk and look around a property with stunning views out over the South Fork of the American River, five mostly flat acres amid woodsy-piney trees and tall stands of manzanita. But the inside of the semi A-frame house (built in 1984) looked like the fevered dreams of a malarial hippie. Once inside the front door things stopped making any sense.
The layout was simply bizarre and bizarrely primitive. Ceilings were covered with rough, splintery, 1″-by slats and panels. One side of the lower-area was rough-sawn walls that were painted an uncomfortable beige-pink, and the other side was green. Instead of doors over closet areas there were bath-curtains. The 20-gal water heater was hidden in an inaccessible upstairs closet. Someone (a-someone, singular) might have been OK with it as a hermit-cabin for themselves and their imaginary friend(s) provided they were Breatharians and really didn’t have to prepare meals either. The unusually small electric stove had a vent-hood fan above it that sucked-up the cooking vapors, and rather than venting them outside (because it lacked a vent-stack) blew them right back into your face. There was virtually no pantry space, and the dormitory-sized refrigerator’s total capacity would have been consumed by a sandwich and a six-pack – and lacking that cold-storage meant that you would be constantly out shopping for food or eating out.
But all that could have been overlooked or repaired had the structure functioned at all. The cross-beams with giant bolts that held the walls apart were not “sistered” together for strength but about four inches apart, (apparently to run wiring to the multiple ceiling fans) reducing their load capacity and ability to re-orient the upper floor. The upstairs “loft” which should have been an expansive, relaxing, contemplative focal-point – a stage-area *at right-angles to the view* – was instead divided perpendicular the wrong way, and covered in plastic fake-wood laminate.
There were just issues that could only be addressed by tearing it all back to the studs and then igniting the debris pile on fire. Too bad really.
Not Clauswitz 
Yeah, I’ve seen a few of those… Hippies is right. They ‘communed’ with nature more than they slept…
LikeLike
Not sure what the regulatory environment is like in CA when it comes to building, I’m almost ashamed to admit.
Do you know which municipal authority you’d need to submit drawings to for permits? Is there any state mandate for (gulp) solar panels or the like?
Maybe due to my position, it has always seemed rather daunting to perform any work in the state of California; I think you’re a braver man that me!
Regardless, good luck on the search.
LikeLike
The County is the main regulatory authority authority, and this one they love their permit-process and the associated fees – that help them run things. It’s like they don’t want retarded mushrooms popping up everywhere? However it’s also The West and The Mountains, with a LOT of Don’t Tread on Me types, and there’s a lots of woodsy-hilly places the County doesn’t much go, and so stuff happens…unless someone is growing pot.
Then the Sheriffs descend upon it with an iron fist, helicopters, and guys with a lot of guns. The cartel-growers are up in the woods here and they “import” illegals who are taken up here blindfolded – they don’t even know where they are – but the Cartels know who and where their families are (in Mexico), and if they misbehave someone at home dies. So they don’ know nuthin’.
No mandate to go solar, just some sleazy business practices that attempt to entice you, and some people who want to “get off the grid”.
LikeLike
When looking around Napa a couple of years back I saw many badly built crazy expensive dumps, I’m hoping to start looking again in a year or two in the forlorn hope I’ll have better luck.
LikeLike
Forlorn is a great adjective! 🙂 There’s a lot of bad-built crazy dumps up-out here too, but plenty more to sift through.
LikeLike