No News is No News, Sorta (Or, I've Been Bad at Blogging)

As you may have guessed from the tumbleweeds rolling across this page, it’s been a slow summer here at le casa de caca. We more or less knew this would be the case; we had a short list of high-priority fixes and improvements to make quickly (plumbing, AC, carpets), all of which made hilarious blog fodder, but the horizon of the next project, The Whole House, is quite a bit further away. The story well is drying up, the pithy anecdotes fewer and farther between, as life in la maison de la merde has become… actually pretty normal. But, to be fair, we have been making progress, and I DID start this damn blog to keep you updated, so:

We found an architect!
Getting to work with an architect might have been the part of this project I was most excited about. Sketches, plans, 3D renderings? It all just sounds so… cool. (Spoiler alert: it is.) But we soon understood that architects do more than just design cool shit. They manage the permitting process with the city, will often oversee the bidding process with general contractors, and can act as onsite project manager and liaison to contractors and subs. It was going to be important for us to be more selective about the architect we chose to work with.

I’d like to think we’d be easy clients to work with (We’re fun! We’re easy-going!) but truthfully we knew that our scenario was not the easiest, and we had to figure out how to translate our requirements into professional qualities that we could select for.

• We’re picky as hell and we have strong opinions, but we’ve also never really done this before. (Tell us what to do but don’t tell us what to do.)
• This house needs everything, but our budget is not that big. (Fix everything but don’t make us go broke.)
• We don’t know if we’re in the house for 5 years or 50, so we need to balance the choices that will make us happy with those that will be best for potential resale. (Be patient with us as we attempt to forecast out the potential return on each decision we make.)
• We’re pretty adaptable, but the place is a mess and we can’t live like this forever. We need to move quickly. (Seriously - hurry up.)

It became clear there were architects who simply wouldn’t work well in those conditions. Like the one who told us his design process typically takes 6-7 months (Sorry, dude, do you see what this place looks like? We have to live here!). Or the one whose devotion to historic preservation hinted at a potential unwillingness to consider a more modern aesthetic (I know you love the bathroom with the skeleton key, but...). Or the one who hinted that his typical clientele has way higher budgets and subtly recommended we look elsewhere (Bye, Felicia). Or the one who wouldn’t even come to see the house in person unless we paid him a deposit (Srsly?). 

But, we Goldilocks’d our way to an architect that we feel awesome about. His explanation of the process was clear and well organized, his terms were transparent, his ideas have been flexible and creative and mindful of our budget. We’re well on our way to a plan that we truly love. And, when we finalize the design he’ll do a 3D fly-around rendering of the whole house, which… cool. 

We learned that yard work is hard! But also awesome!

If you follow our Instagram feed, you saw the progress we made mowing, weeding and mulching our backyard. We were proud! It looked awesome. But then the weeds grew back. And part of the lawn turned brown. And some of the bushes died. And we realized that yard maintenance is a marathon, not a sprint, and boy do we have our work cut out for us back there. But, on a positive note, I learned that I love mowing the lawn. I also discovered that pulling weeds is deeply satisfying (TAKE THAT, WEEDS) but also relaxing and therapeutic. The yard giveth (weeds) and the yard taketh away (bad moods). 

We don’t have a third thing!

But lists of two make me itchy, so there you have it.

What’s next? Well, we’ll continue to work with our architect to finalize the design plans. Then we’ll start vetting bids from general contractors (where the rubber of our design plans meets the road of our budget). Then, it’ll be permit review with the City and the Landmark Commission (where the rubber of our design plans meets the road of bureaucratic oversight!).

So, listen, there’s lots of road ahead before we actually get anywhere fun, but I’ll do my best to keep things fresh for you here at de huis van kak. Thanks, as always, for stopping by.