Buying land, building a house, planning for a real darkroom!

DREW WILEY · Jan 18, 2021

Most beaches here on the West Coast of the US are technically open to all. Of course, that does not mean they're necessarily physically or safely available. But being right on an ocean cliff is not always a good idea. It depends on the geology. My brother once owned the fourth house from a soft beach cliff. Then, the next time I visited, it was the third house from the cliff, with the first house upside-down on the beach below! Beachside lots also tend to be the most expensive, even if the riskiest.

I once took a year off from college to earn some money. There were some homeowner's at a particular resort beach who requested to have their concrete seawall removed because it was spoiling their view. I tried to talk them out of it; but they insisted that a flooding event had never happened there, and that if we didn't remove it, they'd just hire someone else. So me and my companions were paid to jackhammer it away. Ten years later every one of those houses was washed out to sea.

Sirius Glass · Jan 18, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Most beaches here on the West Coast of the US are technically open to all. Of course, that does not mean they're necessarily physically or safely available. But being right on an ocean cliff is not always a good idea. It depends on the geology. My brother once owned the fourth house from a soft beach cliff. Then, the next time I visited, it was the third house from the cliff, with the first house upside-down on the beach below! Beachside lots also tend to be the most expensive, even if the riskiest.

I once took a year off from college to earn some money. There were some homeowner's at a particular resort beach who requested to have their concrete seawall removed because it was spoiling their view. I tried to talk them out of it; but they insisted that a flooding event had never happened there, and that if we didn't remove it, they'd just hire someone else. So me and my companions were paid to jackhammer it away. Ten years later every one of those houses was washed out to sea.

That is opening access to the coast for everyone.

Fujicaman1957 · Jan 19, 2021

John M Austin said:
From Drew: "
You'll need a silver recovery unit, or you'll kill your septic system. A number of other darkroom chemicals could also be a problem. If you're planning on a large space, I recommend having some removable internal darkroom walls to totally isolate the sink room from where the enlarger is, or where film and paper are stored, or from the drymounting area. The humidity and fumes in traditional setups are certainly not ideal. I zippered in plates with removable tapcon screws, and used corrugated fiberglass panels for lightweight walls. That system is also nice if you eventually sell the property and someone else wants to convert it back into a more open room for something else."
Great! I am making notes.

Drew, got any addresses and phone #'s on people still making them?

DREW WILEY · Jan 19, 2021

I haven't looked into silver "buckets" anytime recently. There should be some way to make your own. In any event, keep metals out of septic systems. And being essentially a marine preserve area, not into storm drains either around there.

Sirius Glass · Jan 19, 2021

The OP could buy California desert land and wait for the great earthquake which would turn it into beach front property.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/626085.The_Last_Days_of_the_Late_Great_State_of_California

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Great-State-California/dp/089174021X

DREW WILEY · Jan 19, 2021

Sirius - I'm not going to get into the political debates about access. It's more a given here in northern Cal than in So Cal. I have a family member who is one of the top constitutional land issue lawyers in the country and expert on the subject, and has won even US Supreme Court access trials. But it can get pretty darn complicated, especially now that the definition of "mean high-tide" is steadily shifting, both due to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Our sliding coastal hillside issues are analogous. Another family member has a Geophysics company specializing in those kinds of issues; but I was trained in Geomorphololgy myself. I sacrificed a nice hillside view for sake of a lot underlain by solid granite when purchasing property here. It makes a huge difference during earthquakes. And the worst ones weren't even the 1906 SF one, but two earlier ones across the Bay which outright liquified huge amounts of unstable mudstone. Even what is now downtown SF was liquified. It just wasn't as heavily populated as in 1906.

AgX · Jan 19, 2021

Where will the water for the future house&darkroom come from? A public net or your private well?

Sirius Glass · Jan 19, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Sirius - I'm not going to get into the political debates about access. It's more a given here in northern Cal than in So Cal. I have a family member who is one of the top constitutional land issue lawyers in the country and expert on the subject, and has won even US Supreme Court access trials. But it can get pretty darn complicated, especially now that the definition of "mean high-tide" is steadily shifting, both due to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Our sliding coastal hillside issues are analogous. Another family member has a Geophysics company specializing in those kinds of issues; but I was trained in Geomorphololgy myself. I sacrificed a nice hillside view for sake of a lot underlain by solid granite when purchasing property here. It makes a huge difference during earthquakes. And the worst ones weren't even the 1906 SF one, but two earlier ones across the Bay which outright liquified huge amounts of unstable mudstone. Even what is now downtown SF was liquified. It just wasn't as heavily populated as in 1906.

Posts #52 and #55 were humor. Next time I will give your prior notice so you do not get your blood pressure up too high. Pax.

DREW WILEY · Jan 19, 2021

No blood pressure issues. Just a veiled reference that going out and buying coastal property often carries significant implications or risks that no realtor is likely to bring up. I'm in the middle of three generations of family that have at some point in each of our careers specialized in the geological and practical logistics involved. Any of us could recite some really big horror stories involving bad planning, miscalculation, bull-headed engineers, reckless development, and gullible buyers.
Floods, massive slumps, slides, coastal erosion, dam failures, you name it.

Sirius Glass · Jan 19, 2021

Drew, we are on the same page.

DREW WILEY · Jan 19, 2021

Well, I gotta admit I despise big developers. Have good solid reasons for that, and lotsa experience. When I was in supplies distribution, we'd sell to reputable local contractors, but never to the biggies; they were alway lying, withholding payment, bribing inspectors, and building things substandard at risky locations. A good day is when one less of them is in full operation. Tomorrow might be a good day.

SchwinnParamount · Jan 21, 2021

I am quite happy just having a glimpse of saltwater through the trees. If I find a good acre of solid land that I can put a good septic drain field on or better - connect to sewer, then I am happy. Agx raises a good point. Water quality, whether from community well or municipal water supply, has to be consistent and relatively good. Film and paper development (as we all know) depends on consistent water. At any rate, my wife has really gotten the bit between her teeth. She has taken over the property search which means we'll end up with what suites her, not me. So I need to be sure that we have a good compromise. My buyers agent understands my requirements but now she's being influenced to look for stuff that makes my wife happy. No matter. I just need to have room to build my workshop/darkroom along the lines we've discussed.

Vaughn · Jan 22, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
The OP could buy California desert land and wait for the great earthquake which would turn it into beach front property.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/626085.The_Last_Days_of_the_Late_Great_State_of_California

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Great-State-California/dp/089174021X

One of my favorite books from my college days -- it is more about the relatively recent history of CA than the Quake itself. The book covers Regan's run to CA governorship -- the first election to have a major candidate's campain run by a PR film (Spencer and Roberts -- I went to grade school/HS with Mr, Spencer's son). Also covers the Farm Labor Union movement well.

Still a good read now. Written with a good sense of humor.

PS...one of my father's rare investments was a couple of lots in California City, out there in the desert. The word at the time was that a new international airport was going to be built there to relieve some of the pressure on the LA airports...never happened, of course. The two lots are still in the family...waiting for the Big One!!!

Sirius Glass · Jan 22, 2021

Vaughn said:
One of my favorite books from my college days -- it is more about the relatively recent history of CA than the Quake itself. The book covers Regan's run to CA governorship -- the first election to have a major candidate's campain run by a PR film (Spencer and Roberts -- I went to grade school/HS with Mr, Spencer's son). Also covers the Farm Labor Union movement well.

Still a good read now. Written with a good sense of humor.

Nice to see that someone understands the reference.

DREW WILEY · Jan 23, 2021

I've seen it all - desert homesites on alluvial washes right at the mouth of flashflood canyons, subdivisions built on riverbeds, washed out, then rebuilt and washed out again, developments on unstable steep slopes, right below unstable clay cliffs, atop toxic waste sites. It takes at least two parties : a crooked developer and a sucker. There were a couple of wonderful W.C.Fields movies about the sucker-based California real estate boom, like My LIttle Chickadee, where his character got taken in an orange grove investment scam. That's exactly what happened to my Grandfather. He bought 18 acres on unseen real estate near Long Beach. But nothing would grow on it except sagebrush. Then, as he was dying with TB around 1913, he couldn't afford to pay the property taxes on it anymore, and had to forfeit the property. Well, there's a reason nothing would grow on it - it's was saturated with oil ! Four years later that plot became part of the Naval Oil Reserves, arguably the most valuable land per acre in the entire country. If my family still owned it, we'd be as rich as Saudi sheiks. Life throws some curve balls.

SchwinnParamount · Jan 29, 2021

We're in a weird market over here. Lauren (my wife) and I put a bid in on the perfect piece of property and offered $10,000 over the asking price. There were 3 other bids and we weren't even close to the winner. This was a piece of land with no improvements other than a macadam road along one border. The new owner will need to dig a well, add septic, get the power company to run the line... and with all that, we thought there would be no other bidders. Wrong

This is going to be tougher that I thought.

SchwinnParamount · Jan 29, 2021

I'm gunna hire Drew as a consultant before my next bid. The issues that he raises wrt desert issues are not present here in western Washington but there sure are other pitfalls and gotchas that idiot property buyers (me) may fall into.

Sirius Glass · Jan 29, 2021

The interest rate is so low that properties are sold for over the asking price, some even getting into bidding wars. I have several friends that are looking for houses to buy in various parts of the country and that all have the same experience.

SchwinnParamount · Jan 29, 2021

Since I have a few hundred thousand zops to drop on the property (thereby making the balance of the new loan lower) wait until the frenzy dies down? If I do, it will likely be when interest rates have gone up. That will mean I pay more to borrow money but since about 50% of the property value will be financed rather than the 70-80% that usually gets financed, my total cost to borrow will wash? What do I give up? Currently available delectable properties will have been snapped up [but perhaps the perfect property won't come on the market until the hungry sharks have left the scene]. I will have to pay for the frenzy driven appreciation. Swim with the sharks or wait? Hmmm.

SchwinnParamount · Jan 29, 2021

AgX said:
Where will the water for the future house&darkroom come from? A public net or your private well?

It will come from whatever water source feeds the house. Public (association well, on property well , or city water). One of the properties that we got out bidded on had a well dug on the property itself. Another property had an association well. The others have been city. I won't have the $$ to dig a property-specific well just for the darkroom

Flying Camera Studio · Jan 29, 2021

Good luck on the hunt! Real estate in the PNW is pretty wild right now.

MattKing · Jan 29, 2021

Crazy around here too. It is at least partly due to Covid-19. It seems a lot of people who are now working from home have decided to sell in or near the city and move farther afield. Prices are down on condos in Vancouver, and way up on houses out in the Fraser Valley.

SchwinnParamount · Feb 15, 2021

My real estate broker convinced me to pause the search until the fall of this year. Apparently the market will be flooded with foreclosed property and houses in the fall and prices should drop slightly. There will be fewer buyers per property and easier to put an offer in that wins.
Note: I had an offer in on the perfect property which included a detached 3 car garage with an 2nd floor that included a perfect darkroom space and kitchen. The space was easily big enough for multiple photographers to work. The property was 1.3 acres and on city water. My offer was easily beaten by some puke from Seattle who bid $30k over the asking price. Yeah, I was not happy.

DREW WILEY · Feb 16, 2021

Prices are going nuts here. A neighbor moving to San Juan Island is just going to rent out their big house in case they change their mind. Here you're lucky if someone doesn't overbid you 200K on a tiny fixer-upper house. Smallest house on the block, on a tiny half lot, quickly sold for 750K, and they still are putting a ton of money into essential repairs. I couldn't afford to live in the cat's box on my own front porch at today's prices. I bought this place 45 yrs ago. Sold my other house in the mountains a decade ago - couldn't realistically still keep up with all the necessary brush and tree work that comes with forest fire prevention. Now it's very difficult to even get fire insurance in rural inland Calif.

rjmeyer 314 · Aug 27, 2021

SchwinnParamount said:
My wife finally agreed to buy an acre (or more?) of rural land across the sound from Tacoma in a place called Purdy Washington. We're going to wind up on septic but there will be plenty of room for a good drain field. I've started planning the project to include a heated, plumbed, and electrified workshop attached to the home. I'll have my darkroom and office out there. I intend to make it possible to black out the whole building so I can make the darkroom as big as it needs to be.

I want my dry side to have cabinets, enlarger table, print mounting, and framing area. The wet side will have a big sink for washing prints and film. What I don't know about yet is if I can find stainless steel sinks. I've thought about buying the dishwashing sinks from a restaurant that is going out of business or perhaps having them fabricated. Not sure yet.

My enlarger is an Omega D2 and I can print from negatives as large as 4x5. I was hoping to find an 8x10 enlarger some day since I also shoot on 8x10 film. An Elwood would be fun but those things are freaking huge and heavy as snot.

I'm in my third (and hopefully final) custom built house. When we designed the house I knew that I would want a darkroom. I had an 8x10 Elwood, as well as a 4x5 Beseler. In my previous houses I hadn't been able to get the magnification I wanted out of the Elwood due to lack of headroom. For this house I decided to add three extra courses of cinder blocks to the basement walls.lls

Buying land, building a house, planning for a real darkroom!

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