Okay Go: Here We Go Again

We are off and running again:

Tom and I have purchased another property in Berkeley.  The place has a small storefront on it, which up until recently was the Berkeley Bail Bonds.

Now it's the headquarters for Rockhead and Quarry.

What attracted us to this property, other than the fact that we love dilapidated old buildings, is the size of the lot.  The place is on Martin Luter King Junior Way, right near downtown, right across from Berkeley High School.  We've also starting working on it - uncovering the upper windows, clearing out debris, taking down a partition wall, etc.

And it's only 8 blocks from this house:

This is a house on the corner of Walnut and Berkeley Way.  It is one of two imperiled brown shingle houses that are on the Acheson Property - a large parcel right near the University that houses the historic Acheson Apartment building, Berkeley Ace Hardware, and the two houses.  The entire parcel has been purchased by Equity Residential (EQR), and they are developing the site as 175 units of student housing.  The Acheson Building will be retained, but the Ace Hardware will be demolished (except for the facade), and the two houses will either be demolished or relocated.

So we've agreed to move the house.  The plan is to take the house down Walnut Street to University (one block), then down University to MLK (4 blocks), then down MLK to the property (4 blocks).  And we plan to keep the house all in one piece - no more chopping it in half like the Cheney Cottage.

The house needs total restoration, of course.  It is a two unit house (one three bedroom flat and one four bedroom flat), and it will need wiring, plumbing, heating, plastering, painting, floor refinishing, insulation, and a new foundation.  The roof, for the moment, appears to be sound.

Is this enough to keep us busy?  Well, no.

Then there's this house:

This is the Kenney Cottage.  It's a very amazing house - a Berkeley City Landmark, built in about 1884.  The Kenney Cottage is a prefab house, one of the first prefab houses made, and possibly one of the only examples of its kind left.  The house is solid redwood.  The walls are made of slats of wood that fit into channels in posts.  And, of course, it's a wreck.  It has been neglected by it's previous owner and was at risk of being demolished.

That is when Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association stepped in.  BAHA said that the house couldn't be demolished because of its historic nature, and so the owner (who was developing the site where it was standing) agreed to give the house to BAHA.  The City of Berkeley let BAHA store the house "temporarily" on an empty City lot  and the house has been there since August of 2003.

Tom and I became interested in the house, and went to look at it.  One thing we noticed immediately was that one of the walls was falling off - it had sunk about 4 inches and was in danger of collapsing.  This was happening because the wall is covered with stucco, and the stucco is too heavy for the house - particularly in its current state, sitting on cribbing (with the outside walls unsupported).

Phil Joy put cribbing under that wall to hold it,  He is going to come back to jack the wall back up into place - but first the stucco has to be removed.  As a result, I have been spending time, every weekend, slowly chipping off the stucco.

We have told BAHA that we will take the house, and we're now in the process of obtaining yet another lot where it can be relocated.  

Oh, and did I mention that the house has no plumbing, no wiring, no heating, no insulation, no bathroom and no kitchen, missing and broken windows, and the front porch is falling off?  So once it gets to its new location, all those will have to be dealt with.  After putting in a new foundation, of course.

Maybe we are crazy.  But hey, at least we have a theme song:

Just when you think that you're in control,
just when you think that you've got a hold,
just when you get on a roll,
here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again.
Oh, here it goes again.
I should have known,
should have known,
should have known again,
but here it goes again.
Oh, here it goes again.

(You can watch the music video here: http://vimeo.com/8267567)