Meet our Artist

Talking about possibilities...!

Talented, Visionary, Sweet as can be..... Gaby Perozo  

Gaby (aka Gabs) received her bachelor's degree in Ceramics at Long Beach State and continues to live in this great city where she also has her art studio.  Gabs is a close friend and it just so happens that we have similar art style;)  I look forward to collaborating with her and creating a unique piece, made especially for the treehouse.  Check out some of her artwork below:

Magic is in the Air - Meeting with the Surveyor

Early in the lot buying process, our surveyor Mike, placed marker's on our lot to easily define our property line. After doing so, Brendan and I went for a site visit to check out the property line and we were never able to find the corner flag to our lot... we assumed that the weather knocked it down. Current time: I have been talking back and forth quite a bit with the architect and every time we talk, it seems that our measurements are off....  I go a few times to the lot, to do additional measurements... the additional measurements confuse us even more.  Our architect suggests getting a surveyor to do a full survey and locate the tree's on the lot, as well as utilities.

We give our surveyor a call and Mike comes to the rescue ;)  I can not say enough about Mike; he's easy to work with, has a calming and confident energy about him, really enjoys the outdoors and is excited about the treehouse.  I meet Mike at the lot and mention the flag that we were never able to find... we begin to climb the lot and to my surprise, our lot is about 30%-40% bigger than we had originally thought!  (I guess we never found the flag, because we hadn't walked far enough...!)  In addition to our lot being bigger, we also found a cluster of beautiful tree's tucked away from the street.  My mind was going wild as I was standing on this lot, with the sun on my face (things felt magical)  The new cluster of tree's will give us a lake view from our living room, and we're far more tucked away and secluded!  Mike then proceeds to let me know that he thinks Lake Arrowhead water owns the lot to the right (18 acres of land) of which most likely will never be built on- space to hike, meditate, let the kids roam, run around naked....hehe  The possibilities are endless.  Back to the architect...  Things continue to move forward and work so well - we have special guidance ;)

Land we discovered 

More Land we discovered nestled in the trees

Site Visit: Grading is Harder than It Looks...

Head to the site to gather information (measurements, elevation, etc)  Without any experience ever "grading", we head to the lot to pull measurements...  Check out the video/pics for a better sense of the lot and village ;)

Stopping for the view as we head up the mountain

Our Interior Decorator

Dressed up for a Design Event in Long Beach - fun!

Let me introduce you to Danielle DeCarr (interior decorator)  Danielle has a natural talent and is part of the Fogel Interiors Team.  She is consistently fine tuning her talent and attending UCLA's Architecture and Interior Design Program and is certified from Newport Interior Designers Institute.  Danielle can create an atmosphere just by looking at an empty room and we're so excited to have her on our team!

Design work from her current job at Fogel Interior

Besides Danielle being talented, she's also fun, easy to talk to, and a beauty.... Oh no, I sound like I'm creating a dating profile...  but really, all of these characteristics make her the complete package. Danielle is one of my best friends so I'd say I know her pretty well...

Danielle, Shea (my 7 month old son) and I went to an event recently at Trebor Nevets in Long Beach (Vintage furniture/interior design)  It was such a great event - drinks, appetizers, music, and fun people!  Before heading to the event, I was able to show Danielle a bit of my inspiration for the treehouse and I could see her mind begin to work - within minutes, she understood what look I was going for!  Looking forward and beyond confident that with Danielle on our team we'll have a kick a** interior.  (excuse the language... hard to hide my excitement for our interior decorator)

Preliminary Meeting and Red Tape to Cut Through

After a few months of dialing in the design/architecture for the treehouse, there was still one big question:  We have an exterior staircase going from the main structure to the "hang out" structure; Will this pass as a minimum of 735 sqft that is required?  We were getting to a point in our design in which we were ready to send to the engineer, and I didn't want to be sending the engineer a design that may have to completely be re-done if the city didn't give the OK.... 

Jams on the road are a key component to any important meeting...

I set up a preliminary meeting with a few city contacts - Building and Safety Land Use and the architect was going to be on the phone through the meeting.  With any important meeting, I make sure all my ducks are in a row; the night before I was gathering any information that would help my case and make it easier for the city contacts to see the vision.   A key component with any important meeting - Throwing jams on my car stereo at a good volume to pump myself up...After 1.5 hrs of being well pumped, I walked into that city structure ready to dominate (yet nervous the city may shoot down the plans completely.....)

San Bernardino Land Use Services Department

I walked in to the meeting and more and more people started coming in; apparently there was a lot of interest in this project and I took that as a good thing ;)  By the end of the meeting, there was a good 8 of us in the room discussing the project and it felt good to have all those city contacts at my fingertips with any questions.  In the room we had the following city contacts:

Supervising Planner
Building and Safety Supervisor
Land Development Engineer
Structural Engineer
Building Official
Fire Prevention Officer
Architect

And may I also add, in the building department you don't see too many females, so I used that to my advantage and worked my charm ;)  Needless to say, the meeting went well and we were given the "preliminary official" OK that the architectural design is a go!

Treehouse Inspiration Boards

Ideas, Ideas.....  Back to the boards for inspiration pieces for the different rooms as well as material (exterior, flooring, cabinets, etc)  I will begin to do research on the materials we want to use.  The plans are to start building after the snow is gone...  In the meantime I am finalizing details on the design, sending the design to the engineer and then will be submitting the proposal to the city and obtaining permits

Meeting with Contractor

Shea's pretty into the outdoors:)

After getting a better feel for the design, I needed to make sure we were still in budget for the contractor work.  Originally the structure was going to be a small structure in the tree, with a roof deck, but after talking with the city, they let us know that the structure needed to be a minimum of 725 sqft.  This shifted things around a bit.  A few posts ago, you saw the updated design which shows a structure connected by a staircase to the main structure.  This "extra" structure, adds an extra 280 sqft that we had not accounted for....

I met with the contractor to get a feel for what sort of price range we were looking at and unfortunately it was a bit more than we were hoping for...

Back to the budget to see where we can move things around...  after moving our expectations, we are paying more than we thought we would on construction, but still in the budget (I doubt we'll be "in" the budget much longer....hehe)

Soothing the Bump in the Road

Shea checks out the tree's, while dad
does some off-roading

Last we talked, the city mentioned the treehouse was too small and we were most likely going to run into city problems.  After talking with the city, we had 2 options

1. Go the Major Variance Route (Pricey and still a big chance it wouldn't go through)
2. Go Directly for the Buiding Permit with 2 buidings on the property

I called the city contact and did a pre-chat and told him we were thinking of possibly seperating the minimum square footage in 2 different structures.  (One above the garage and the other being the treehouse)  I was trying to get a feeler from him, and if this would pose an issue on the project.  He let me know that if we proposed that, we would essentially be proposing for a duplex (because there are 2 seperate structures on 1 lot....) 

I then asked the golden question: What if we have stairs attatching the 2 structures?  It sounds like this idea may be easier to obtain a buidling permit for and so we are on this path.

What that means for the next step:  Get with the architect and design a seperate structure close to the main structure and have it connected with stairs.  We have been playing with the design and once we get it down I will post it ;)

Bump in the Road

Architect Designs are good, and we are ready to move forward.... we send our design to the city and we hit the next bump.

Needless to say, this project has some uniquness in many aspects.  When we designed the treehouse, our initial way of thinking was to design according to the guidelines of a SFR (Single Fmaily Residence, a standard home)  In our first meeting with the city (trying to convince the city to let us tie into the tree) the city agreed to let us tie into the tree if we followed the guidelines of an SFR.  The main reason we would need to follow the guidelines of an SFR was because this would be the only property on the lot.  If there had been another property on the lot, the treehosue would be secondary and we would not need to follow SFR guidelines.  When we talked to our architect, he began to mention that building a treehouse, the size of a SFR would be far to big for the treehouse to be mainly supported by the tree.  The minimum size of an SFR is 725sqft...  He advised that we desing the treehouse and later go through the variance process. 

When the treehosue design was emailed to our city contact, the bump arrised.... ugghh.  We knew the bumps were on their way, so here we go.  Nothing about the current treehouse design follows SFR guidelines.  Our architect, (who knows treehouses ;) is being a big help when helping communicate with the city.  We have been talking to multiple people within the city and once we get some good info we will be making our next move.  Whether that requires to change the designs, add on, or go through the variance process.  More to come...

3D Walkthrough of Our Treehouse

We are loving the design process of the treehouse and although it's constatnly changing, we have a 3D walkthrough of the design thus far ;)  Lots of fun balconies, which we are loving.  Our architect has some great indoor/outdoor designs.  (He has created the windows on the first floor to open up to the balcony, creating a shared living space with nature)  Not included in the video is the bedroom and bathroom on the first floor.  This video is also not accurate to the material we will be using for the structure.  Have fun checking it out!

Pretty Close to the "Final" Set of Blueprints

We've had so much fun working back and forth with Dave, our architect.  He truly is an artist who not only listened to our vision, but also was able to create it better than we could have thought it up ;)  He has a passion for creating treehouses and unique projects of these sorts; I have only good things to say about him. 

Below is an exterior picture of the treehouse to take a look at.  I have also attached a link of the full blueprints.  Soon, we should be receiving a 3D walk through of the treehouse, and I'll make sure to post on the blog for you treehouse fanatics ;)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6AA0hs6PYac0YteVNOUkd1WTg/edit?usp=sharing

Arborist Report - One Step Closer

We received the report from our arborist, showing that our tree's are healthy.  This was a big step that we were crossing our fingers on.  If the tree's weren't healhty, not quite sure what I would have done.  We will use the report at our next sit down with the city to show that a specialist has looked at the tree's and has given us the healthy tree go ;)

A few things we will need at our next sit down meeting with the city:
- Architect Plans
- Engineer Plans
- Arborist Report

Arborist Report - includes the summary of his assesment and gets into further detail.

In Love

Welcome Shea Casey Pena!

Been a while since my last post; as you may have guessed, I've been quite busy and in love with our new son ;)  Knowing that we get to share this treehouse with Shea, and my nieces & nephews, brings more excitement for all the memories this treehouse will create.  The treehouse was put on a slight hold for the past few weeks, but we are back on track and we have some fun things to share....

till next time... 

Treehouse Orientation

We're coming along with the design of the treehouse and as we were looking at the design, we realized we didn't really have an orientation for the treehouse.  Which way will the treehouse face?  We want the main views from the living room area...  The movie below shows our trip to the site, Bren climbing the tree, and us figuring out the orientation…

More Prelim Designs from Architect

We receive some more Preliminary Sketches from our Architect!  The purpose of the these prelims are to get a general idea of the exterior structure as well as an interior layout. 

Looking at the Treehouse from the Road (Looking Up)  Steep lot; thinking of some sort of bridge from Parking to the Treehouse.

Looking at the Treehouse from the top of  the lot (Looking Down) Design shows 2 overlapping structures around the main tree.  By adding structures on both sides of the tree, we balance the load on the tree.  Design shows covered Deck and 2 roof decks.

Site Plan to give you a better idea/measurments of the lot

Views from the Sides.  The Stairs lead to the front door.  There is a covered deck and 2 roof decks.

Interior Layout:  Design is showing the stairs leading to the deck, which in turn leads to the front door.  Inside, the design shows a kitchen on one side, a living area/studio on the other.  It shows stairs leading to the 2nd Structure (Loft)  In this design you also see the architect incorporating the surrounding tree's.

After taking a look at the designs we set up a meeting with the architect to talk about some good stuff. 

Likes:

- The 2 Overlapping Structures on both sides of the tree. 

- The Stairs Leading to the Deck

- The big Windows in the Loft

- The Multiple Decks

- The incorporation of the surrounding Tree's

Changes:

- The round deck rails on the top roof deck

- Big Windows in the main Structure (Where the living room and kitchen would be)

- A separate bedroom from the living room

- Kitchen - Moving the stove on top of the island (to create an open feel and inclusiveness with the living room)

- Increasing the square footage of the Main Structure

Overall Feel We're Going For:

- Simple/Clean

- Modern/Industrial

- Open

We also talked about Interior Wants and showed Dave (Architect) some Inspiration Photos, but I'll save that for another blog post :)

Daily Communication

We've gotten to the point where we are communicating daily with our team.  Whether it be the architect, engineer, arborist, city, etc.

Architect - Sending info back and forth to get a good design

Engineer - Talking about what a load test entails, and what he can do for us.  A load test, test the load that the tree's can take.  This will help us design structurally.

Arborist - Collecting data to then have the arborist write up a report for the city plans.

City - Figuring out rules and regulations (roof, fireplace, etc)

Climbing the Tree

I'm quite pregnant and should't be climbing tree's, so Bren (my husband) heads to Sport Chalet, buys more climbing gear and heads to the site.  He has a few things he needs to take care of:

- Needs to take video of the site for Dave (architect)
- Needs to map out any neighboring tree's we might be able to use (for Dave, the architect)
- Needs to climb the main tree all the way to the top and take pics and measurements (for the arborist)

Photo's

Footage for Architect

Footage for Arborist

Meeting with Our Architect

Plans are moving along and we are had another meeting with our architect  (David Fall) to express more of our wants as well as measurements and slopes of the land.  Meeting went great, Bren and I are having a ton of fun playing with all the ideas and we should receive a set of architectural plans in the next couple of weeks!  Our current thought is to use the main tree and some of the surrounding tree's as support trees (to minimize the use of man made stilts.)  A couple more things the architect needs from us to finish the design:

- Measurements from main tree to supporting tree's

- Video's for more familiarity (Architect lives in WA, so this should help)

Interior Inspiration Below

Like the sliding bedroom door

Interesting use of space

Storage idea under the stairs

Liked the Compact kitchen on the wall (Without the door)

Liking the style of this Island

Like the cut out storage space, not so much the style of the island

Great Metal framing around the wood

Loving the cement walls in the bathroom

Fun Light Fixtures

The Arborist Meets us at the Site

...

Big day for us; the arborist meets us at the site. The arborist will let us know if the tree's are healthy or NOT…. If tree's are healthly, awesome and we continue on as planned. If tree's are unhealthy, not exactly sure what we're going to do. The city has let us know that as long as we get a specialist to look at the tree's and ok them as healthy, we should be good to tie into the tree. We meet with the arborist and after far too much talking, head up the hillside to the main tree. After a few hours, the verdict is in….Tree's are healthy! Phew, what a load off.  We find out the species of the trees: the main tree is an Incense Cedar and the secondary tree is an Oak. Things are looking good ;)

That same day, we also need to get measurements to produce a topographic map for the architect. This will help the architect get an idea for the steepness of the property. (as he's located in Washington, not CA) We bring the family crew along for the day (my dad, sis and her boyfriend)  The family was a HUGE help as always; really don't think we would have completed the days tasks without them.  My dad has a background as a carpenter as well as  construction and metal; having him there allowed Bren to be with the arborist, while my dad headed the measurements for the topographic map.

Architect Sends Preliminary Sketches

Our architect sends us preliminary sketches.  The architect takes our ideas and inspiration and puts them on paper.  A bit hard to read, but you'll get the gist ;)

From the street (the curved part of the square on the sketch) He shows a driveway to the parking spots. From the parking, there are stairs that lead to a bridge, and the bridge leads to the main house.  The main house is broken up into 2 overlapping structures.  He shows a roof deck;  from the roof deck, there are stairs to climb up to the bird's nest lookout.  He shows a deck on the first floor and a bridge leading to another lookout cube on the side.