Modern ADU in Claremont

Hi, everybody. It's Danny with ADU Resource Center, and today, we're in Claremont. I'm with the Juan Strickland family. Juan, thank you for inviting us- Thank you ... and le- letting us, uh, show your open house ADU today. Thanks for coming out. Appreciate it. It's 800 square foot. Right. Two bedroom, two bath. Correct. Right. Now, I'm gonna be inserting pictures while we're talking, so, uh, we'll be doing the audio, and- Okay ... there'll be people seeing what's going on. But first off, congratulations. I have to- Thank you ... I have to say, and I told you this off-camera, but it is sincerely one of the nicest projects we've ever done, and I'm super, super proud of the way it turned out. Um, I have a couple questions with regard to finishes, like flooring- Mm-hmm ... countertops, uh, and of course, the glorious ceiling height in there. Right. So let's start at the beginning. Okay. How did you find ADU Resource Center? How did you wind up getting in touch? I, I believe we might have gone to a s- a seminar, um, put on at a church. Um, to be honest, I don't quite remember, but we've been to two or three ADU seminars in the community. Okay. And they've always been very informative. Was the inspiration to build this your idea, or your wife's? Uh, I think it's probably more my wife's, but, uh, definitely w- I was on board with the project. And, uh, we've had, you know, rental properties in the past, and we thought we might be renting this one out. And my wife loves it so much, she decided she wanted to move into it, so. Now, we talked off-camera about that, so this is a funny thing. There's a new trend that we're noticing. A lot of people build an ADU, thinking they're gonna put it out for rental. Mm-hmm. And somewhere during the construction, they go, "This is nicer than we thought." Yeah. "Why are we gonna rent that out? We should live in that, and rent the front house," which actually does bring more rental income, doesn't it? Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and we, we have a tenant that's, uh, coming in in a couple weeks, and, uh, we're moving in a coup- in a couple weeks. Um, but, uh, even with the incentive from the city of Claremont to offer us $20,000 to make this a rental as part of a lottery, my wife said, "No, I'm, I'm moving into it." Yeah. "I love it too much." Well, the pictures tell the story, and as we're showing the pictures while we're talking, it's obvious you can certainly live in there. Yeah. And you have enough property left over. So we talked a little bit about the- Right ... the, the courtyard here. So it's gonna be a master plan. It's gonna be glorious. Yeah. And I don't think you'll actually miss the old house. Yeah. So that's a great e- that's a great, happy ending. Did, um, the design, when you bu- When you go buy a house- Mm-hmm ... we never get to design anything. It's already built, right? Right, right. But when you design your own house- Mm-hmm ... that could be fun, or it could be a little bit of anxiety. Yeah. Was it a fun process for you, designing? It was a fun process. Uh, we had great architectural drawings. One of the challenges is that you don't really always understand the components and nuances of architectural drawings. So for instance, the front door that you see right behind us, at one point was a much bigger door, like Shaquille O'Neal could walk through. Oh, it s- it was tall and 12 feet. It was this tall door, right. Was, yeah. Okay. Um, but when we actually had the door come out and placed in, um, somehow, um, the manufacturer had had the door measurements off a little bit, and that allowed us to say, "You know what? Let's, let's go up to a regular sized door." So you brought- And that's what we wind up doing ... and you brought up an interesting point, because there are some things in the planning stage you can't really visualize until you get to the construction phase. Right. Like the clerestory windows that you added. You did those- Right ... on the fly- On the fly ... during construction. Right, and that delayed the construction project, when you decide to alter the electrical layout, or placement of lights, or in this case, you know, what we talked about with the door, um, or the windows. Um, we- But it was a welcome delay. It was a welcome delay. Because of the, the outcome. I mean, it's glorious. Right. It turned out great. The door looks wonderful. We were commenting how nice, I like these artistic looking doors- Yeah ... rather than the Plain Jane vanilla doors. Right. And I love the clerestory windows and all that, that wall with all the natural lighting. Right. Right, exactly. And one of the biggest things that my wife and I learned was to make sure you always do everything by permit. According to wh- what- whatever your city's guidelines are- Yeah ... the regulations are, do it by permit. Yeah. Did they have to do what's called a supplemental? If you decided on the fly, 'cause I know the contractors are willing to improvise. They're willing to- Right ... freestyle a little bit. When we do things like that, did you, were you required to do any new supplemental designing with the city before you can shrink the door, or add the clerestory windows? No, no. There was, uh, the, the inspectors have seen all the changes, and there was, there was no concerns about changing the door size- Awesome ... or the window. Awesome. Yeah. The, uh, the design phase with Michael, Michael, uh, Koromokas was your, um, project manager. Mm-hmm. How was your experience with Michael? Fantastic. Michael has been a great advocate. Always available. Um, responsive, very, very responsive to phone calls or texts. Mm. Uh, we couldn't have had a better advocate. Even through, you know, the very end of the project, um, whenever we called upon him for support, he was there. Awesome. Yeah. Now, when you're done with permitting and planning, I know the permitting w- took a long time. It's, it's, it's maybe the only negative- Yeah ... part of the process, 'cause there's nothing we can see or touch or feel, so we're just waiting and waiting and waiting for the city to stamp their approval. Mm-hmm. Was that a struggle? Was that a long- Yeah. Yeah, it was a struggle. The, uh, the city of Claremont's been fantastic- Yeah ... and very responsive, but, um, for one example, we had a concrete patio laid. And, um, when the city came out to view it, you know, to my wife and I, it was beautiful, but it was two inches too high, and it had to be ripped up. Oh, wow. And so, uh, the city is very, very particular about, you know- Right, right ... their guidelines and standards and measurements. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, they were worried about water getting into the house, and so the- Makes sense ... that, that concrete patio was, was torn up and we have to put a new one down soon. When it was all done and you hit the finish line of planning and permitting, then you trans... We, we now transform into the, uh, uh, the construction phase. Was the hand-off a comfortable hand-off? Yeah, it was a pretty comfortable hand-off there. Yeah. Um, again, you know, as someone who is not involved in construction, understanding the permitting process and the ins and outs and the timing of everything can throw you off. Inspectors, you know, come during blocks of time. You're trying to figure out if you need to go into the office or not. Right, right. You're also trying to figure out if the, if the, the workers on the ground are gonna be present that day. Often, they don't show up. Right, right. Not because they're being irresponsible, but because they're working on 20 other projects. And they're also waiting on inspections too. And waiting on inspections as well. Yeah. So I think the construction process is a funner process than the planning because we can see- Yeah ... daily progress, you know? Right. When they head out for the day, you guys can snoop around and go, "Let's see what they did," right? True. At least we have feedback every day. Right. Right? Right. And I believe Merrick and Brian were your contractors. Mm-hmm, yeah. How do you feel about them? How was the process? Uh, Brian is... Brian was amazing, fantastic. He was, uh, kind of the guy in charge, uh, on site here. Uh, Merrick was, uh, available. Um, you know, he's kinda more like, uh, I guess the, the- He's oversight ... oversight. Yeah. And, uh, uh, accessibility not the same as Brian's. Brian is the superintendent. Superintendent. He's in charge of the project. The day-to-day project. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so... But yeah, Merrick, Merrick's been great. Um, you know, so, um, you know, LA Developing, uh, they, they helped us get through this whole process. Now, I told you kind of off-camera that there... The, the story in... with construction is there's no happy stories. Mm. There's only disaster- Mm-hmm ... and not so bad, right? Yeah. So we're h- obviously trying to avoid disaster- Right ... and shooting for not so bad, but in your case, maybe we had a pretty good experience, right, with construction? Yeah, we really did. Again, it's just, uh, you know, trying to understand what's normal- Yeah ... in, in terms of timing and attendance, and, um, you're working with so many moving parts. You got the weather's another factor that can really delay the project in many ways that you never figured out. Sure, sure. So, um, you know, but, uh, it's been a year now literally since we broke ground April of 2023. Yeah, and that's a little longer than normal. Yeah. We talked about that, and I think that you admitted that you had some ideas that you wanted to change, and I think they're welcomed ideas, right? Yeah. But that does add to a little bit of delay, right? Right, right. And the windows are large. I think those windows, they're probably not something you can just grab off the shelves- Correct ... at the supply, so they had to be ordered- Right ... so we're waiting on those things. Special order. So, you know, the lesson learned from that is if you're going to put nice, big, glorious windows, maybe we'll, uh, we can tell our, our consumers, um, maybe order them a little, a little before you need them, just to allow that wait time. Yeah, you just triggered another thought that I wanna share, and this is really critical. I wish we had had more education given to us in terms of when we need to order appliances and when we need to order molding, when we need to order this so it can be installed, and, um, that's something that, that I think, you know, there can be improvement in that area of, of educating people and telling them, "Hey, you know, we need to have these utilities in place, a p- dishwasher, dryer, stove, by this date." I'll tell you there's a reason for that, and there's two... There's a fork in the road. Mm-hmm. And anybody watching this video, you think about it, everything that the contractor is going to invoice you for is- Mm-hmm ... typically based on inspections. Mm-hmm. So in other words, they do one s- inspection. Okay. The g- the guy comes out, then goes, "Yes, you're good. Continue." Now you pay them for that phase. Right. They take that money- Mm-hmm ... and they buy the supplies for the next phase. Mm-hmm. And then we're sitting around waiting, right? Mm-hmm. But a lot of customers says, "You know, if there's gonna be 10 fa- 10 inspections possibly- Mm-hmm ... and milestones, if you will, and we have to wait for each interval- Right ... that could be a lot of downtime. Yeah. Is there any way we can fast track it?" And one of the ways is, but it's a little bit risky, is some people go, "I'm all about it," and that is to pay larger, uh, payments so that they can buy everything in advance. Right. Some customers are all, all, very comfortable with that, others are not. Right. So it just really depends. And the contractors, quite honestly, they'll do whatever you're comfortable with. Right. So I don't know if they said, "Hey, we have an option to fast track it- Mm-hmm ... but we... it'll mean you writing bigger checks, but now we can- Yeah ... have everything stacked up over there. Right. We're not waiting around for anything. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, and there's some nuances about, um, again, us not being clearly... uh, us not fully understanding that there were appliances that could be purchased by the, um, the team of contractors, um, or we could a pur- we could purchase the appliances. Right. In our case, we did a purch- purchase every appliance on our own that could've been purchased through... If you did it over, would you have done it the o- opposite way? Um, I'm, I'm not sure because, um, again, uh, we really didn't s- get to see what those appliances were and what they looked like, and I think that's another process that I would like to, uh, redo if I could. Our, our rule is this, and it's not because it's a rule. It's just our discovery. Mm-hmm. If we let the contractors go crazy and pick everything out, they, they run the risk of picking something out wrong. Right. The customer goes, "Oh, I don't like that." Yeah. So we decided, let's not make any mistakes. Let's let the customers pick out everything. You supply it, get it delivered, they'll install it for free. Right. And that just seems to be- Yeah ... for convenience so that we don't make a mistake. Right. Maybe it doesn't have the best outcome on timeline- Mm-hmm ... but everybody's happy with what it, what delivers. Yeah, yeah. You know? Exactly. O- so the people that are gonna be watching the video, they're, they're novices, they're beginners. Right. They're about ready to throw the switch like you guys did- Mm-hmm ... a year ago. And they're looking for encouraging words- Mm-hmm ... to give them confidence. Right. They don't wanna make a mistake. I'm sure you felt the same way in the beginning. Yeah. Is there anything that you could tell, um, someone watching the video, "If I could do it all over- Mm-hmm ... and give you some wise old owl advice- Mm-hmm ... what advice would you give to them starting out?" Um, I would probably say be very, very assertive in asking for understanding and clarity, and also to have a sense of humility, to be willing to be educated, and be willing to be flexible- Mm ... um, with your schedule, and expectations and demands. Um, with regard to budget, when everybody starts- Mm ... obviously, it's a scary thing. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of zeros, right? Right. And, and we, you know, our normal human condition is to get sticker shocked in the beginning, and we always wind up saying, "Well, okay, in the beginning we don't wanna s- we don't wanna spend too much money." Mm-hmm. But we always wind up justifying it in the end. Yeah. Somehow or another, as you get educated, you go, "Well, no, I want a little nicer than that, so we're gonna get something. We're gonna s- Right. W- w- you may up the budget. We won't adjust the budget, but you guys- Yeah ... as the homeowners might. And did you pretty much stay in line with budget where you were targeting? We did, but, um, we did, um, increase our budget with some add-ons and, o- with things that we really wanted to see inside the ADU. Mm-hmm. So I'll give you a quick, quick example. Uh, we had a standard, uh, baseline molding for all the rooms, and, uh, we had it installed in the, uh, family room area. And then, um, upon looking at it installed, um, w- we didn't like it as much as we thought we would, so we had it taken out, and we chose our own molding. That cost us, uh, you know, a few extra dollars, but, um... Well, was it? Yeah, it was worth it. Yeah. So the thing is- I'm glad we did it ... obviously, you know, we don't wanna go broke- Right ... building the thing, but there are certain times when you justify that, "Look, I... This is for me now." Yeah. Right? "And I gotta have what I gotta have." Right. And as long as you feel happy afterwards- Yeah ... I, I, you know, I rarely have I ever heard somebody do something nice for their ADU and regret it. Yeah. It's when they underwhelm themselves- Right ... by trying to stay within a, a thr- a targeted threshold of budget. Right. Right. And, and that's a very good point you bring up. Yeah. I, I couldn't imagine living with the thought of walking into that room every day and not liking the molding, and wished I had taken it, switched it out. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you have to take that, that step to do that. Yeah. Okay, uh, one final question. Uh, thank you for letting us do the, uh- Thank you ... ADU open house today. Of course. And if you did it all over again, would you still have used ADU Resource Center? Absolutely. No doubt. Thank you, Warren. Thank you. Appreciate it. You bet. And if you would like to build your own ADU, call the number below.