Solid Ground Construction

10/05/2026

In Los Angeles, work valued at $2,500 or less can be exempt from a building permit — unless it impacts the structural stability of a building.

That second half is the whole story, and it's the half that gets left out.

LAMC 91.106.2 attaches four conditions to the dollar exemption. The work is not exempt if it:

impacts the structural stability of a building
affects public safety
is performed to comply with a Department order
involves a change in the use or occupancy

Read it that way and the dollar amount stops being a threshold you can price your way under. It's a ceiling that only applies once you already know the work is none of those four things. Opening a wall between a kitchen and a living room is a structural question before it is a budget question — and if that wall carries load, no invoice total makes the exemption reach it.

This is the follow-up to the project we posted last week, where two boxed posts and a beam were doing the work a removed wall used to do. The structure came first there too.

If you're planning a remodel in West LA and there's a wall you'd like gone, the cheapest hour you'll spend is the one where someone works out what it holds up.

More on how we sequence design and construction together: https://solidgroundconstruction.us/design-build/

Call (310) 421-8821

10/03/2026

You can take the wall out. You can't take the load out.

On this Brentwood remodel on San Vicente, you can stand at the kitchen counter and look straight through to the travertine hearth at the far end of the living room. That is the part everybody wants.

The part nobody photographs is what makes it legal and safe: two boxed posts and a beam spanning between them, carrying what the old wall used to carry. The counter steps around the base of one of them — which tells you the post position and the cabinetry were worked out together, not one after the other.

That is the real lesson of an open plan. The wall can go. The weight it was carrying still has to reach the ground, and the path it takes is decided at framing, not at finishes.

Before you open a wall:

Confirm it's bearing — an engineer or architect establishes what it's actually carrying.
Size the beam and posts — span, beam size and where each post lands get drawn before demo.
Treat it as structural — removing a bearing wall is a structural change, not a cosmetic one.

That sequencing is exactly why we work design-build: the structural drawing and the kitchen layout get resolved in the same room, before anyone swings a hammer.

See how we approach it → https://solidgroundconstruction.us/design-build/

Serving Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Westwood, West LA, Venice, Marina del Rey, Culver City, Mar Vista, Playa del Rey, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Sherman Oaks and West Hollywood.

Call (310) 421-8821
#890624 · Licensed & Insured

10/02/2026

California just changed the arithmetic on ADU fees, and most of the coverage is getting it half right.

SB 1117 was signed on September 29. From January 1, 2027, a local impact fee on an ADU larger than 750 square feet is charged only on the floor area above 750 square feet, not on the whole unit. On a 1,200 square foot ADU that removes 750 of the 1,200 chargeable square feet.

Two things almost nobody is mentioning. First, the subtraction is capped at two ADUs on a lot; put up a third and the larger units lose it. Second, in the City of Los Angeles the largest impact fee on a new dwelling, the park fee, is already waived for ADUs at any size, so the practical benefit here is narrower than the headline and lands mostly on the school fee.

We priced it for a West LA lot, with the statute quoted and every figure checked against the primary source.

Solid Ground Construction. Design-build and high-end remodeling in Los Angeles since 2007. CA Lic. #890624. (310) 421-8821.

SB 1117 changes how ADU impact fees are calculated from January 1, 2027. What the 750 square foot rule is worth in West LA, and what it misses.

09/15/2026

Until now, a coastal appeal in Pacific Palisades or Venice had no deadline on it. The Coastal Commission’s own appeal guidance says there is no legal deadline for it to act once an appeal reaches a full hearing.

SB 963, signed in July, changes that on January 1, 2027. Thirty days for the Commission to tell you what it needs. Thirty days to review what you send. One hundred eighty days to hold the hearing and decide. One extension, by mutual agreement, up to ninety days.

It does not make appeals less likely. It makes the calendar knowable once one is filed. Our new piece covers which West LA addresses are actually in the coastal zone, the six ways a remodel loses the single-family exemption, and why a 9 percent addition and an 11 percent addition are two different projects.

Solid Ground Construction — high-end residential design-build in Los Angeles since 2007. CSLB License #890624. (310) 421-8821.

SB 963 puts hard deadlines on Coastal Commission appeals from January 1, 2027. What it means for Palisades, Venice and Marina del Rey remodels.

09/11/2026

Nine months in, most West LA homeowners still do not know that the 2025 California Energy Code is already their code. The trigger is not groundbreaking. It is the date the permit application goes in.

Three things that catch people on a Westside remodel. A heat pump is now the prescriptive baseline for space conditioning in every climate zone, so specifying a gas furnace pushes the whole project onto the performance path. Replacing either half of a split system, the condenser alone counts, puts the connected ductwork on a leakage test. And like-for-like window replacement stops being a loophole past about four windows.

One local wrinkle worth knowing: Brentwood is Climate Zone 6 and Bel Air is Climate Zone 9. Adjacent, both hillside, different numbers for duct insulation, reroofing and glazing.

Solid Ground Construction. Design-build and high-end remodeling in Los Angeles since 2007. CSLB #890624. (310) 421-8821.

What the 2025 California Energy Code changed for West LA remodels: heat pump baseline, duct testing triggers, window rules and climate zones 6, 8 and 9.

09/10/2026

A walk through Rivas Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades.

What you are seeing:

Custom millwork — a curved bar, built-in cabinetry and integrated lighting in the great room.
Stone and marble — book-matched slabs, stone stair treads, and a forecourt laid so the joints line up from the entry.
Exterior and lighting — recessed step lights down the hillside stair, glass guardrail, planted terraces.

We also included a frame from the middle of the build — a shower with the calacatta set and absolutely nothing else finished. It is not the pretty picture, but it is the honest one. Stone goes in long before a room looks like anything, and the quality of that stage is what you are actually paying a builder for.

One team, design through final walkthrough. One contract, one point of contact.

We build across Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Westwood, West LA, Venice, Marina del Rey, Culver City, Mar Vista, Playa del Rey, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Sherman Oaks and West Hollywood — whole-home remodels, luxury kitchens and baths, ADUs, additions, new construction and fire rebuilds.

Free design consultation: call (310) 421-8821 or message this page. More Palisades work → https://solidgroundconstruction.us/pacific-palisades/

Solid Ground Construction · CA License
#890624 · Licensed & insured

09/10/2026

The details are the whole job.
Rivas Canyon Road, Pacific Palisades. A curved mahogany bar with built-in millwork and integrated lighting. Book-matched marble with a lit stone niche. A stone forecourt that reads as one piece from the street, and a hillside stair with recessed step lights that only shows itself after dark.

We also left one frame in that most builders cut: the shower with the slab set and nothing else finished. That is what the work actually looks like most of the time. The finish is the last two weeks — everything before it is layout, substrate and patience.

Planning a remodel, ADU, new build or fire rebuild on the Westside? Call (310) 421-8821 or send us a message for a free design consultation.

Solid Ground Construction · CA License
#890624 · Licensed & insured

09/09/2026

Two ADU bills are sitting on Governor Newsom's desk. He has until September 30 to sign or veto them.

SB 1117 would charge impact fees only on the floor area above 750 square feet, instead of on the entire unit the moment you cross that line. AB 956 would allow up to two detached ADUs on a single-family lot, and would limit what a planned-development HOA can restrict.

Neither bill touches the two things that actually gate a West LA project. Inside the coastal zone, a certified Local Coastal Program still supersedes state ADU law. In a Fire Hazard Severity Zone, the 2025 Wildland-Urban Interface Code and the LADBS checklist apply to a detached unit exactly as written. If your parcel is in the Palisades, Venice or a Brentwood hillside, that is the conversation to have before you design anything.

Solid Ground Construction. Design-build in West Los Angeles since 2007. CSLB #890624. (310) 421-8821.

Two ADU bills sit on the Governor's desk until Sept 30. California ADU law 2026: what SB 1117 and AB 956 change for West LA owners, and what they don't.

09/07/2026

"Your city is now on a clock"
Four laws that took effect over the last year quietly moved the deadlines from your side of the table to theirs.

AB 253 — if plan check runs past 30 days, you may bring in a certified private plan checker. The city then has 10 days to act on that report, or the permit is deemed approved. Residential buildings of 10 units or fewer.

AB 1308 — the building department must complete your final inspection within 10 business days of being told the work is finished. Missing it is a violation of the Housing Accountability Act.

SB 543 — an ADU application has to be ruled complete or incomplete within 15 days, and you now have a statutory right to appeal an incompleteness finding.

AB 462 — a completed coastal ADU application must be approved or denied within 60 days, or it is deemed approved. The appeal to the Coastal Commission is gone.

Here is the part most homeowners miss: these clocks only run once something is in writing. A completeness letter. A dated notice that the work is done. If nobody on your job is tracking those dates, the deadlines protect nobody.

We put them in writing on every job.

Call (310) 421-8821
#890624 · Licensed & Insured

09/06/2026

The Supreme Court struck down a large share of US tariffs in February. The ones that reach your remodel were not part of that case.

The duties on steel, aluminum, copper, softwood lumber and kitchen cabinets were imposed under Section 232, a different statute, and they are all still in force. One of them got quietly more expensive in April, when the metals duty started applying to the full customs value of an imported product instead of only its metal content. That is why some plumbing, lighting and hardware lines repriced this year while their headline rate never moved.

There is also a date worth knowing. Kitchen cabinets and vanities carry a 25 percent duty today, scheduled to rise to 50 percent on January 1, 2027. If your package is imported and your design is settled, that is a real planning window.

New on the blog: what 2026 actually did to a West LA remodel budget, with every rate and figure verified against the Federal Register, trade counsel analyses, NAHB and the California Energy Commission.

Solid Ground Construction. Design-build and remodeling in Los Angeles since 2007. CSLB #890624. (310) 421-8821.

Verified 2026 duty rates, price data and code changes behind West LA remodel material costs, plus the imported cabinet deadline of January 1, 2027.