Hi friends, it's Danny with ADU Resource Center, and today we are with Tony in Huntington Beach. Tony, thank you so much for- Appreciate you coming ... inviting us out. Today's the big day. We're doing an open house, and we are gonna showcase your 500 square foot, one bedroom, one bath ADU. And one of the things that we're gonna show in the pictures that we're gonna insert is you have an incredibly close setback. That's question number one, right? Correct. So normally the city says for fire safety, there's gotta be an egress, there's gotta be a way to get, uh, fire pe- fire people in event of an emergency or whatever, people have gotta be, get out without getting burnt alive. All those things make perfect sense. Yet, if we did that with your project, as I remember us talking about, that would leave very little living space room. So you wanted to maximize or optimize the amount of square footage. And tell me, I know that we had to get somebody to sign off for that with the fire department. Was that a difficult task to get that done? All right. Well, your designer, first of all, he knew the laws, he knew who to talk to, and he knew what, what needed to go on to make things happen. So a standard height home would have matched up and actually touched the main dwelling. Right. So what he did as we, uh, were going through it, we decided to go with a 10-foot ceiling, which raised the eaves up over the other home- Right ... but they don't touch. And then, uh, as a fire, uh, safety feature, stucco and even up under the eaves, so there's fire retardant built right in. You know, and when I was driving over here today, I was trying to remember. I think you and I spoke first before Mike Vitito got involved with you. I'm trying to remember, was that two years ago? Was that about two years ago? Uh, we're probably three years back. Okay. It's- And this, and this is well before you and Christian came to the open house in Glendale. Right. Yeah, this, this project's been in my head probably five years. So let me refresh your conversation that you told me. Your inspiration may have changed, but back then, I know you're in real estate, and one of the conditions in real estate that I thought was awesome, people sometimes sell their home, and they don't have their target home ready. They can't move in right away. So there's this awkward limbo in this where they can't close on the sale of their home because they have nowhere to live, and this and that. So your initial thought, at least back then, was, "Well, I might rent it out to some of those, uh, clients of mine, uh, as an interim way so that they can go ahead and sell it at the height of the market, get all the money. And if they're maybe homeless for a month or so, they can, they can rent my ADU." I thought, "Well, what a wonderful, great idea." Is that still on the plan? Is that still, uh, an option? Yeah, it's like, it's still part of the, the plan. What we originally thought is we have a small home, and we wanted to add on to it. We wanted more space for company and such to show up. My mom likes to come out for a couple of weeks during, during, uh, the winter and/or summer. So we're like, "Why don't we build a space that can be used for numerous things? And that way, when you have visitors, you love them, you want to see them- Mm-hmm ... but they're not living right on top of you." So this is not gonna be an, an, a se- an annual rental. This will be vacant most of the time, except for guests or friends. Yeah. We're gonna have guests and, uh, like you said, with clients. It, it made total sense to have a station for them to transition to their next home. I love it. And it allows them to take the most money, get the deal closed. In our market right now, conditions can change instantly. Right. Right. And by getting the money in the bank and getting them out of the home and getting the new buyers in, everybody gets to move down the, down the, uh, track a lot faster. New home purchase ADU project, right? So since you're in the biz, from a realtor's perspective, you know what the valuations of homes are. To buy a f- a, a one-bedroom, one-bath home in this neighborhood if you're able to, it would cost a great deal more than it costs you to build your ADU. Did that have any effect on you deciding to, rather than go buy a separate property, to build in your own backyard? Yeah. Well, we tell each other all the time, me and the wife, is that this is our lake house. It's just beside our house- Yeah ... instead of at the lake. So that keeps the lake as a vacation, and then here, uh, but this gives us an opportunity to entertain without, uh, worrying about what's happening, you know, at home. You just open it up, you're ready to go. So from a realtor's perspective, adding more square footage in the backyard, it adds to the property profile, raising the value. Adding more bedrooms, more bathrooms, that can't help but raise the value of the property, correct? Right. And the valuation right now in the ADUs, it's still a little in the infancy. Uh, if you build the right property, people are gonna pay what it takes to buy it. Uh, from a rental standpoint, the rental is where you're gonna val- get the value from the ADU. Right. Right. We are in a situation right now where a lot of ADUs are sh- a shade underwater, but if you're building an ADU, it's generally gonna be a long-term process. You're not building it to, to sell next year. And the, the trajectory's still going upwards. It's not going down. Oh, absolutely. No. Yeah. There's, uh, you know, easily, you know, I've never seen anybody that it didn't at least raise the value what you put into the project. Right. Right. Nice. And, you know, the, the potential for down the road is always greater where you have two different dwellings. So you have the ability to live in one or live in neither. Right. Right. Um, one of the focal points, when we finally are done with this, we're gonna let the people that are lining up outside to come in. Uh, they're gonna marvel at the ceiling. When you guys first started-Was this on the drawing board? Did this develop as you started thinking about it? Well, you know, everything kind of put together. As I worked with your design team and the architects, everything built on the height. It's like I wanted to have the eight-foot doors, eight-foot sliders. I wanted the windows up high. The transom windows let the light in, but you don't have to see if your neighbor- your neighbors don't have to see in. Yeah. You don't have to see them. And so as we started developing this, we did the 10-foot ceilings, and then we wanted to also do a little bit of a vault and where we came, came is we're at 12 and a half feet, which we were limited by the height of the other home. Right. Right. So boom, we went as high as we could, and then- But how glorious is that? I mean, what... look at the dramatic e- effect it has. When you walk in, people are gonna be in disbelief because from the ex- from the exterior when you're walking up, I think even I was expecting it to be small and quaint. And when I came inside, it looked like a church in here. And I go, "Wow, this is incredible. This is-" Well, we went from square footage to cubic footage. Yeah. Yeah. So you have that feeling of being wide and open, and we've had, uh, groups of a dozen people in here. And we, we kept the island instead of going with a peninsula, so that way you can walk around and everybody, you know, feels like they're part of the action. Speaking of the island, so one of the things that I think I, I wanna talk about first is now tell me a little bit about this f- this finish, this, uh... Is this quartz? Okay. The... So this is quartz, and we all know that that's a mixture of epoxy and ground-up quartzite. But this gives you a finish that doesn't absorb anything. You don't have to treat it. You just have to keep it clean. Right. Right. You can polish it if you want it super shiny. We chose to be a little bit matte, so that way- I love it ... if there was something on here, it wouldn't stand out. And- And the idea of having this extended lip out here, this comes out quite a good distance, so there's gonna be three barstools here where you can sit. So now we don't have to worry about a form- formal dining room table, right? Correct. It's a space-saving idea. I love the idea of the sink being in the island because now that is a more functional countertop back there as well. So this is a brilliant idea, and this is quite wide. So not only is it wide, but it's also deep. I, I love this. This... Whose idea was this? Okay, so the... This is, this is... This was pretty much in my head. And you never, you never have a kitchen sink without something to see. You gotta be able to look out in your backyard or your side yard or your front yard. Yeah. Yeah. So whoever the cook is that's gonna be working- Right ... they wanna be part of what's happening out here. Right. And this gives you the ability to watch TV, watch the game with everybody else, and if you were- if your back was to everyone, you're, you're looking at nothing because there's no windows on the back- Right ... side of the property. Now, was it a coincidence or was it deliberate that there's black tile in the bathroom as well? Because it certainly ties in with the kitchen look. You know what? We had the, uh, the, the team th- that did the counter did an amazing job. Our tile guy was phenomenal, and I really had three tile choices for the bathroom, and he tied it all together. It looks fabulous. And I love the lipless shower where you, you know... A- as I, as I get older, I'm gonna be more appreciative of not having to lift up my s- my feet and worry about tripping getting in and out. We're getting more and more requests for that, and I just think it's a great idea. Yeah, the, the curbless shower, it's amazing. You don't have to deal with glass. I know glass looks amazing, but, you know, if you've trained yourself to squeegee your shower- Yeah. Yeah ... after you use it, yeah, you've eliminated that and that gives you access so that if you have s- special needs, you gotta get in there, you need help, you just pull the curtain back and you're ready to go. Two more questions left. The bedroom, everybody asks us, "Can I fit a king-size bed in there?" We always... Our default answer is no. But you did. Yes. So that was specifically designed in. So you have two feet around the bed, and we want it... If you're gonna be here on vacation or you wanna enjoy yourself, you don't wanna sleep on a tiny bed. So we have the Sleep Number bed. We've got the adjustable frame. There's plenty of room around it, and I, I think that, uh, the design team, they put everything together. We did the, uh... Like, when you, when you walk through the property, you'll see that the wall or the all of the outlets are two feet off the ground. Yeah. So regardless of your age or shoe size- We don't have to break our back bending over ... you can just gently bend over and plug things right in. Right. Now, was that your idea or did somebody suggest that? Okay, so I, I saw a lot of homes at Leisure World in Seal Beach, and I... every time I'm there, I see these plugins, the outlets, and they're at the right height. And it's like I have to bring that over, and as long as you're not in a commercial space, you can pretty much put those wherever you choose. We're gonna steal that. Just, uh, I'm just letting you know. No, it's amazing. And it's like everybody's like, "I don't understand it." I'm like, "Okay, well, pretend like you're plugging in your phone." Like, "No, no, no. Go down to the 12 inches that is standard." Yeah. Yeah. That extra foot makes a lot of difference. It really does. We're gonna copy that more and more. I think it's wonderful. Um, you and I were talking off-camera a bit, and, and with every project, with every project, there are labor pains, there are growing pains, some good. There's some g- some... And we equated it to labor, right? So like you and I wouldn't know, but when you're having a baby, the labor pains are terrible, and the only good news is the joy of the baby afterwards and then the fa- the, the, the, the labor part fades away. Um, there are good parts of your, your journey here. There, there are not so good parts, as we were talking about. But your design journey with Mike Vitito h- and Paul, how was that? That was amazing. And I can... I... And when I, when I met Mike, and sorry, I met you first, and, uh, then you handed me off to Mike, who's amazing.And the, the important thing is with your, your company and what you do is, is if you're gonna build one of these, you're probably gonna build one, maybe two in your life. It's like you don't need to know everybody downtown Huntington Beach. You don't need to know the process. You don't need to, to be able to design it. You find somebody that can pull all those things together and get it done while you get to go on with your life. And I can honestly say that you and Mike took us off the fence after several years of waiting, and I'm like, "Well, I don't really know where to start. I should know, but I don't." And you start looking into it, and it's like, "There's gotta be somebody that knows what... How to do this." I met you guys. Everything is a one-stop shop. You go in, you get it done. You deal with the city. Right. You deal with the permitting. You get everything ready to go. Then you choose your contractor, and away you go. So you got- Now, we, we, we have a new model now. So when you and I first started, we didn't have this figured out yet. Um, we have over 500 projects now in Southern California, and at some point, we decided we needed some helping hands. In the beginning, I think we overburdened a lot of our contractors, one of which you received. So it could've been that part of the problem that you were experience of, of having congestion or communication errors was that contractor was juggling way too many projects, and he was beyond his saturation point. So I think if anything, we want to apologize for that. I think that we, we probably take the blame for that because now our model is, uh, everybody has a certain amount of, of projects that we know their threshold of what they can do. And so beyond that, we know they're gonna get sloppy, or they're gonna have delays. There's already delays because of inspectors and so forth. So anything that we can do to speed that up, I think we've learned from trial and error, you know? So unfortunately, uh, sorry about the delays on the construction. I will say that because you were cracking your own whip, that's why this turned out so nice. So kudos to you. Well, I appreciate that, and, you know, the, the proof is in the pudding. And it's like the project came out amazingly, and it's like I'm just now starting to appreciate what's here. And, uh, everything came out, and it's like this is truly the vision that was in my head for many years and- Did you, did you really visualize it like this? Yes. This, this is... The only thing I, I pictured it more of a, a rectangle, but, you know, we turned it into an L shape because you ha- you can only build what you have. I will remind you of a conversation you and I had. You... When the initial design came out, you contacted me and you said, "Dan, um, I am underwhelmed." That was, that was the word you used. And I said, "Well, look, we're just getting started." So there's a beginning, and then there's a process of editing to where we refine it. And I will say that, um, where we started is nothing like it turned out. I mean, maybe we didn't understand your vision clearly, but we got there. We, we, we caught up, right? So sometimes people... And maybe we couldn't have had you not been able to articulate what your needs were and what your vision was. So if you are able to communicate your expectations, yeah, we'll hear... We'll, we'll pick up, we'll pick up the trail. Yeah. And it's like I think as you go that, that so, you know, regardless of what your job is, you do a good job, you're working on it, but every now and then a project comes along that you're like, "Well, this is a little different. I can kinda stretch my creativity." And I really started feeling that as the design process was moving forward. Yeah. And the ceilings got taller. Was the design process fun for you, or was it- You know what? I, I think it was. It's like once, once, uh, the architect figured out that this just isn't a cookie cutter rental, this is gonna be something- Right, right ... that I'm gonna be staring at till they cart me away. It's art. And everything in here. And then he started making some re- recommendations that really made difference. And I think everything you see here, it's, it was truly in my head. I just pictured it more of a rectangle instead of this. But as the design started flowing, it's like I kinda like this way better because it allowed- I do, too ... this dead space between the house. Well, the corridor outside, the, the courtyard right there and the, the, the, the entry courtyard and then this one right there, brilliant. I don't know if it was just a, you know, a, a be- a, a bonus that came unexpected, but the elbow inside an L shape is an opportunity to create a courtyard, and you did a great job with all the privacy barriers and everything. So I think it's really super cool. I appreciate that. Yeah. Now, you guys, it's like- ... I can, I can say that without you and Mike, very good possibility that this would be a condo at the lake or something like that. So... I appreciate the kind words. All right. Last question, then I know you gotta run. Um, as it comes down to it, I think you have a final inspection coming up, don't you? Oh, we did the final, and we're done. And we just have, like, a few pieces left and under, under the house and the, uh, some more, uh, work outside with gravel and such around the perimeter. But we're, we're... I'd, I'd say we're, like, at 98%. We're so close. Congratulations. So million-dollar question, if you did it all over again, would you still go through ADU Resource Center? Oh, absolutely. Thank you. There is no doubt in my mind. Yeah. You guys, you guys got us off the fence and then, uh, you know, got us to this, and I, I, I think it's really an amazing property, so... Thanks, Tony. I'm here with Tony in Huntington Beach, and if you'd like to build your own ADU, call the number below.