I Aint No Architect...

...but I did stay at a Red Roof Inn last night. Yeah, whatever.

Updates have been slow to come recently, which reflects the slow progress we've made. It's hard to believe, but people do have lives and important things they must tend do beyond working on my drawings. Additionally, I think we are becoming that nightmare client. Everyone who does custom work for others knows what I'm talking about -- the one where you just can't wait to get the project done because it's never going to be good enough. I don't think that's us, but...if the shoe fits... I do have some specific things in my mind's eye and so does Liane. We are very close.

To try to "help" I dropped a few lines on one of the old sketches, which was pretty much the first serious drawing we had.

As usual my lines gloss over a lot of details about how things will really fit together and work, but I liked how the garage fit in on it, and Liane liked the kitchen layout the best (although I wish we could have a bigger pantry). There have been a couple since then that I could have lived with, and I liked certain things about them better, but when Liane didn't like the kitchens on them it kind of blew them up. And in looking I realized there may be a way to do everything we want with the garage nestled up into the front of the house more. The big problem with that design had been the layout of the bathroom and trying to keep it all around 2400 square feet. Since then we've realized the 2400 number is not going to be attainable, so with that loosened there are other things we can do.

We'll see where it all goes.

It is difficult because not only do Liane and I not agree on everything, but we sometimes change our minds about the relative importance of various factors. So it is a bit of a moving target, and to some extent it changes depending on who you're listening to.

I wonder if anyone finds this humorous? I do. I am perfectly willing to step back and see how nutty we are at times. And that's the idea of the blog.

Patience of a Saint

We got some more ideas and drafts from Nicole the other day. Much of it was based on the last round of changes and input from us after stewing over the last drawing. We're still unsettled on the kitchen layout, master bath (though we're very close there, I think...), and the whole garage, laundry room, half bath area.

We talked to her today based on these drawings, and at one point I recall words being uttered that both annoy and amuse everyone I've known who's been in the business of creatively designing things, whether that's building projects or mixing records. Yes, at one point Liane actually said (in regards to an aspect of the kitchen) she wanted to go back to where we were on the first (serious) drawing. AAAAAAHHHHHHH! And Nicole, to her credit, didn't even blink. Well, maybe she did. This conversation was over the phone. Now that I think about it her eyes could have rolled out of her head, but if they did we didn't know. This kind of thing used to drive me nuts mixing records. Once the recording was complete I'd always start the mixing phase alone, spending time to clean everything up and get organized. I'd get the mix to a reasonably complete and good state, then I'd bring in the artist, which usually resulted in spending days zeroing in on the little details that would be in their mind's ear. And after two or three days of this they would sometimes declare that it sounded better when they first arrived. ARGH. Of course I agreed, because when they first arrived it was my mix and all my ideas we'd be listening to without their influence mucking it all up. Nowadays, with computers, it's pretty easy to get back there, but in the old days it was almost impossible to get all the way back.

So I laughed on the inside when Liane said that. Poor Nicole. She really has the patience of a saint.

For those who are following along here is a brief tour of the drawing updates.

This is a partial front elevation drawing. Not much detail yet. She's just trying to get a feel from us what we like. Of course the right half of the house is still up in the air so she (wisely) hasn't tackled it yet.

Rear elevation. This drawing, more than any other one I've seen, really starts to show how over the top it is. Holy cow. No, we don't really need this much room, but when we plug in our various wants and desires this is what we end up with. What can I say?

This is the upstairs loft area. Assuming we even do this at all, not much of the upstairs will be finished. Most of it will be storage; space that can be constructed and turned into living space later if anyone wants to. Part of my reasoning for even having an upstairs is to make the front facade look more stately. Imagine that front elevation drawing without the upper window and a lower roofline. The other big reason is that the upstairs area should provide a much better view of the lake at the back of the property...although I'm now gathering that the windows on the back of the house may not be high enough to allow this. Hmmm...I'll have to think about that.

New revision of garage area, with changes to laundry room, half bath, and master bath. Still not quite settled on this. I am deeply concerned about how far the garage sticks out in front of the house. At this point this is probably the only thing about the design that is "bugging" me. Other concerns are minor and I think can be dealt with pretty easily. Liane isn't bothered by it at all so this one is entirely my hang-up. We're going to try swapping the two car bay with the one car bay, and making a few other changes to see if we can push it back a little more. The master bath has been reworked again, and we like it even better. In this design the tub and shower would share a raised platform, not unlike the one we saw at the Parade of Homes. This alleviates the problem of having to have the bathroom share the same slab as the garage because of my no-step up or over anything criteria.

Kitchen variation. It turns out Liane couldn't get comfortable with how far the sink/dishwasher area protruded into the space in front of the dinette as it was in the last drawing. I liked it a lot, but she just couldn't get her head around it. So this is a variation that minimizes it some. We'd probably still have to make some changes to this, mainly because we can't see the oven/microwave area not having a counter next to it. Maybe swap fridge and ovens. Not sure. This drawing shows what I think is the winning idea for the master closet. We had to give up on the island, but I think I'll like this peninsula better in the long run.

Kitchen variation #2. Liane and I got the idea of putting the dishwasher at an angle from the sink at the Parade of Homes. Don't think it's going to work for us though. I think it causes more of an egress problem than the straight design did. This drawing shows the first idea for the master closet peninsula idea. We like the other one better though.

This is one of two basement ideas worked up (the other is nearly the same). Hard for me to even think about this while the upstairs is still in flux, and who knows how much of it we'd be able to afford to finish anyway. You'll notice the studio is carefully positioned under the spare bedroom upstairs, which should minimize sound transmission issues. That drives the position of the main TV to the opposite wall. My idea is to be able to see it through the studio doorway. Most of my best work on the computer is done with a sporting event on TV. The rest of the layout is pretty much in flux right now. The doors at the bottom of the steps may seem weird, and we probably do need to rework that area, but Liane and I agree that for the sake of sound transmission we want to be able to close the basement off from upstairs.

If we do end up with the master shower and tub on a platform together it means the retaining wall can be moved/simplified accordingly. So in this drawing it would move up to follow the contour of the garage, which will mean less backfill of dirt needed to support it, and should save a little money.

The ball is in our court. We've given Nicole our input on the kitchen and laundry/garage areas. But she wants more input on the basement so she can tackle it all at once. We need to sit down and think through that part a little more.

Whew, this is seriously hard work folks. Big, big decisions that we know we'll have to live with for a long time.

You've got to be KIDDING me!

One I neglected to post from the Parade of Homes. Another disco ball.

Is this is competition for the Columbia City Discotheque? I guess everyone wants to be a DJ these days. They did throw a gratuitous guitar in there. Oh, and don't forget the trumpet on the bed...because anyone who plays a Randy Rhoads style Jackson guitar is bound to also be interested in trumpets and mirror balls. Seems like they should have gone all the way and put a Copter-Sphere in for the lighting fixture. And how about a fog machine? Jeez...

The Parade of Homes

An annual event in Fort Wayne, and probably a lot of other places, the Parade of Homes is put on by the Homebuilders Association. When Liane worked for the architect she used to have to work the booth for it, and one year I helped her (still wondering how I got sucked into that). We thought it would be prudent to check it out this year.

There were seven homes in it this year. Admission has gone up to $9. I'm still trying to figure out how they get so many people to pay $9 to walk through houses and be sold to all day. Gotta' hand it to 'em there. And we did, $18 for the two of us. A lot of other people did too. It seemed very crowded to me. Almost difficult to walk through and see the houses. You'll notice a line to get in one of them above. It turned out that was mostly caused by the lady with a builder working the door who had to tell everyone ALL about it as they walked in.

We've seen some pretty spectacular houses in the past at the few of these we went to. This year, not surprisingly, the entries were a little more down to earth. It struck me this time that it seemed like more of an interior design show. The houses were nice, but for the most part pretty basic in terms of their design and construction. What appeared to set them apart from one another in many ways were the little things that had been done -- the extras, and the decorating. I can look past most of that pretty easily though, and get right to the design of the house while still enjoying the decorating ideas.

A few highlights below...

A fairly attractive kitchen. I especially liked the hood over the stove top. Not sure I'd want that one for me (glass hood, hard to keep clean?), but it looks cool here. Undecided, but I think I might like the high contrast colors.

I had mentioned a while back, when we were first struggling with how to keep my shower flush with the floor, that both the tub area AND shower could be raised, and I was okay with that. I even did a mock up showing the tub at an angle like this, with the shower off to one side (as this one is -- to the right) and Liane didn't like it. But she liked this bathroom. Go figure.

Not totally dissimilar to the way part of our kitchen may work. For us the sink will overlook the dinette, but I wonder if we should consider the angles like this, and maybe even the bar vibe? Ahh...decisions.

I kinda' dig the three side fireplace. Liane isn't enthused. Guess that will be another debate at some point.

I like it. Liane didn't. Big surprise!

Cool sidewalk. Practical?

Kind of a nice vibe here.

Seems like a smart and functional way to use the area under the steps. This idea might be worth stealing, except I think my studio will be in that area on our design.

Ultimately I didn't see a house I would want to buy, even if the price wasn't as over-inflated as these were. However there were aspects of each of them I really liked. I think we got a few good ideas.

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding...

I think we've arrived at a workable plan! Nicole really is good at this stuff. She's done the impossible, and gotten us everything we asked for with minimal compromises. She even came up with some other really good ideas in the process. Hooray!

Click on the image for a larger view.

It looks like the garage had to be moved out some, and the closet shape is slightly weird, but those are things we think we can live with. There are still some minor things we want to move around and change, and still quite a few little details to be worked out, but the basic floor plan is finally ready...we think. We do want to sleep on it a couple of times first. I've started a list of little things to think about and change. For the most part it's not stuff that would cause any major walls to move or anything.

After a few weeks of getting increasingly discouraged about this project I'm excited again, and looking forward to pushing this train down the tracks to the next stop, whatever that is. Obviously the next step is to get the floor plan for the loft and basement done.

If there are any opinions, thoughts or concerns from the peanut gallery it's time to start submitting them as we very well could be just a few weeks away from submitting this thing for bids.

Cannot Defy the Laws of Physics

The meeting with Nicole went well. The good news is that she really does seem to understand what we want. The bad news is that doesn't change the problem. I think she wants to tell us, in the voice of Scotty from Star Trek, "Captain, you cannot defy the laws of physics." We're trying to feed three rooms (bed, bath, closet) from one point (the end of the hallway) and we have an arc of about 110 degrees (more or less) in which to do it. That's going to make for some odd shaped rooms or a longer hallway. If we push the garage forward the job becomes easier, but I'm not a fan of houses in which the front facade is dominated by garage so that concerns me. I'm also somewhat hesitant to push the rest of the house further down the hill on the lot because it will make it harder to be able to see the lake at the back and cause more dependance on a retaining wall between the front and back yards. We could also maybe look at a way of moving the kitchen out of there to make more room, but that pretty much blows up the rest of the design and causes a total do-over. So that would be a last resort I guess. If either the kitchen or the garage moved out of the way the available arc of space at the end of the (short) hall could be a full 180 degrees (like most normal houses) and it would be a lot easier to get it all in there. Barring any change in the laws of physics the answer may lie in some compromise involving all of these things: slightly weird shaped rooms, slightly longer hallway, slightly more garage on the front, and somewhat moving the kitchen.

The ball is in her court now, so we'll see what all she can come up with.

Workin' Them Pixels

Don't pay the ransom. We're still here. Liane started school a few weeks ago, and we've had a few other things happening that caused the house to go onto the back burner for a bit. We're back at it now. In fact I've been doing some drawing of my own. We came to a standstill on a few issues, the most difficult of which has no easy solution in sight. The east end of the house has to hold the garage, master bedroom, master bath, and a huge walk in closet. And the only way to get to it all is through a hallway near the front of the house.

It makes for a really long hallway and some odd shaped rooms, the latter of which doesn't bother me...up to a point, but the long and circuitous hallway gets me down. It's a problem that likely can't be entirely solved unless we blow up the house and go in a different direction. But we're trying.

Rather than continue to have Nicole go through gyrations I wanted to try a few ideas myself, just to have a better handle on it, and also to let her see a little of what's in my mind's eye. We meet with her tomorrow to go over my drawings. I hope she can come up with something better than I've been able to. I'm really not that happy with any of it. This is really a tough challenge. And it's frustrating because otherwise we're very close.

Boogie Nights

This takes the cake. We're continually fascinated and amazed at the things we see in people's basements. This house we looked at today evidently serves as the Columbia City Discotheque. What you can't see very well at the bottom is there is an actual hardwood dance floor built in. We were pretty much speechless when Chris fired up the lights and disco ball motor.

We looked at several houses today. All of them had potential on paper, though in the end only two stand as contenders. And like all the rest they have their faults. They could be made to work after several tens of thousands of dollars in remodeling and fix up. We'll keep them on the list while we try to finalize a draft of the house we want to build that will be suitable to find out how much that's going to cost.

Today, for the third time since we've been looking, we arrived at a house only to find the owners still home. Today's incident was by far the most exciting. We had been walking through this house for about 10 minutes when we made it to the master bedroom. We heard a radio on in the bathroom so I let Chris take the lead...and sure enough, you can about guess what happened. Ooops!! The owners and Chris shared a moment you can only imagine. They thought we weren't going to be there until 2:00. He had arranged for us to be there between 1:00 and 2:00. This type of time discrepancy has occurred twice before, far less dramatically. Not sure where the communication breakdown is, but suffice to say we were extremely careful entering the rest of the houses today.

Not too Soggy

Drove out to the property we are considering at lunch yesterday. It had rained like cats and dogs the day and night before so I thought this would be a good time to check and see how warranted our concerns over the drainage are. I haven't mentioned this before, but after the initial drop-off the property is pretty flat all the way out to a common area behind it, then it rises again before getting to the drop off for the small lake. We wondered if water might stand in the lawn after a rain. I am happy to report that it didn't. Well....it may have for a while, but by the time I got there (several hours after the rain stopped) there wasn't any standing water. This is very good sign considering I still saw water standing in quite a few other places in town.

As a side note, I finally measured the distance and time between it and Sweetwater. There are several slightly different routes that can be taken, but on the one I think I would take most of the time it came out to 9.6 miles and took me about 13 minutes. Not bad considering it will shave about 20 minutes off the drive for Liane.

Something is Missing

Notice something different?

(Don't you guys love it when your wife asks you a question like this? Nothing will freeze you in your tracks faster, because of course the real answer is, "No, but if you'll give me a minute to look around and think about it I might be able to come up with something." Guessing is a pretty dangerous undertaking though.)

We're in the process of making our house ready to put up for sale. Of course we still have no idea when it will actually go up for sale. Too many steps in the puzzle have to happen before we get there. Those of you who've been here before will recognize that we tore out the two cabinets over the peninsula. There's still some finish work to be done, but this is close to what it will look like. Definitely more open.

Funny thing about selling a house. That seems to be the time where you're supposed to fix and upgrade all of the shortcomings. I don't get it. We've been living here for years and it's been fine, but now that we're thinking of putting it up for sale we have to spend thousands of dollars upgrading things. Why wouldn't we have done this stuff before...so WE could enjoy it? It's like company is coming over and we have to suddenly clean up and fix everything.

Whatever. I go along because the prevailing opinions of the experts is to do this stuff. New countertops are next.