Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Honeymoon is Over, but We're Still in Love
The white of cascading apple blossoms has replaced the feet of snow at the River House present at my last writing. The demands of the house grabbed me and the month of March and threw me into 10-hour workdays once again (thought those were over); April was financial aid applications, more house and a trip to Italy to see Minnow; May was a labor-intensive talk on our Walkabout last year and a big party here for a host of elegant and charming Kenyans, and now I am free to begin again on the house, but before I do…pleasure time to write about it.
Turns out in order to move ahead on a building project you have to configure the project: write the spec, the specifications, that builders can bid from. That means about 100 heavy decisions, from the insulation materials and wall structure to receive it, to where the stairs will descend to, to good God, the bathtub blocks the window if we put it into that perfect spot if we put the washer/dryer on the south wall and sink on the east...and I can't change those! How many kitchen cupboards will we need? Where will the refrigerator go? And Mark slaving away on the permutations and costs of too many energy possibilities...And a thousand lighter decisions such as what material will surface the kitchen counters.
We relish a saying from our friend Jake Jagel: five will get you one. It means, to get one thing done, you’ve got to do five others to get things organized enough to go at your designated task. Whew. Is that ever true! To tackle how many kitchen cupboards: I measured all the linear storage space we have here at Dragonback and made a chart with what goes on each, what needs to be close to hand, what can be less accessible, and so on. Then I went to the River House and measured all the shelves in the wonderful pantry and where new ones should go. After that, I went to the plans and calculated the space we will have in different kitchen configurations, including a large center island that must still allow space for the sitting area portion of the kitchen and foot traffic throughout. Don’t forget the patterns of cooking—where you stand, how many people will cook at the same time, where you want to face when you do what, and all that work-triangle stuff. I read a whole book about kitchens. Then I took my ideas to Bruce, our architect, who is a volunteer, after all, and not to receive too many demands, and to my enormous relief, he said, “Good!” That was in March, and we got far enough to send out the specification to four builders for bids. I don’t even remember how many kitchen cupboards we said! Starting tomorrow comes the time of REAL decision. And I have rejected Formica countertops, I think, but will the budget allow Vermont slate?
Okay, so we’ve got an increasingly-ramshackle house to transform—beware of “home inspectors”, those creeps you hire to assess the soundness of the construction before you buy. They work for the realtors. (Get one from out of state!) Some key sills and beams and such are kaput. The foundation on the south side, while steady enough to hold up a cute 1880 addition, is not stable enough for a two-story wall of windows. Bring in the jacks and the excavators. And while you’re at it, demolish the kitchen floor down to the dirt. I never liked that mend of a rat-chewed hole anyway (at least that’s what it looked like to me). Tear down all the walls and ceilings on the inside. Get the wiring out, the plumbing out, of course. We are way over our hoped-for budget, and that's when I said "the honeymoon is over."
The big expenses are in what we won't be able to see. What we will see and love are as follows: A two-story isolated-gain sunspace on the south side, with little bistro table for morning coffee, and French doors opening into the kitchen. Kitchen will have a large island with the cooktop on it which will face the sitting area that has two windows toward the river, windows surrounded by shelves for pottery and books. Kitchen also will have a large and legendary Russian stove to cozy up to-- main non-solar heat source for the house.
Dining room will have our current dining room table in a side of the room with three windows toward the river and morning sun and wall space for art. Living room similar. Interesting architectural details will separate the two rooms--designed but not finalized. We'll have a root cellar off the kitchen. The downstairs bathroom will have a tiled steam shower, hopefully as nice as the one we have at Dragonback.
Upstairs we are building a lovely steep dormer on the west side, like the one on the east. It opens up the view to the west from the master bedroom. We are throwing two rooms together to make the master bedroom, which will have both dormers in it plus a not-too-high cathedral ceiling and a glass south wall with a balcony over the sunspace below. A new stairway off the bedroom will go up to a capacious attic for storage. Mark gets an office on the second floor, off of a new hallway with a fine linen closet near the new stairs. Mike's old gunroom becomes a spacious bathroom/laundry with a beautiful heavy fabric curtain in front of the washer/dryer. I'll have a freestanding bathtub. The daughters, to the extent that they are there, will each have a room which will also be guestrooms. Those two rooms have the wonderful, original 7" board floors which will be painted.
I'll write more often now, if I have anything good to share. Demolition scheduled for beginning of June. The photographs for this blog were taken May 19th. If you have read this far, your interest is very touching. I appreciate it!
Josie
Turns out in order to move ahead on a building project you have to configure the project: write the spec, the specifications, that builders can bid from. That means about 100 heavy decisions, from the insulation materials and wall structure to receive it, to where the stairs will descend to, to good God, the bathtub blocks the window if we put it into that perfect spot if we put the washer/dryer on the south wall and sink on the east...and I can't change those! How many kitchen cupboards will we need? Where will the refrigerator go? And Mark slaving away on the permutations and costs of too many energy possibilities...And a thousand lighter decisions such as what material will surface the kitchen counters.
We relish a saying from our friend Jake Jagel: five will get you one. It means, to get one thing done, you’ve got to do five others to get things organized enough to go at your designated task. Whew. Is that ever true! To tackle how many kitchen cupboards: I measured all the linear storage space we have here at Dragonback and made a chart with what goes on each, what needs to be close to hand, what can be less accessible, and so on. Then I went to the River House and measured all the shelves in the wonderful pantry and where new ones should go. After that, I went to the plans and calculated the space we will have in different kitchen configurations, including a large center island that must still allow space for the sitting area portion of the kitchen and foot traffic throughout. Don’t forget the patterns of cooking—where you stand, how many people will cook at the same time, where you want to face when you do what, and all that work-triangle stuff. I read a whole book about kitchens. Then I took my ideas to Bruce, our architect, who is a volunteer, after all, and not to receive too many demands, and to my enormous relief, he said, “Good!” That was in March, and we got far enough to send out the specification to four builders for bids. I don’t even remember how many kitchen cupboards we said! Starting tomorrow comes the time of REAL decision. And I have rejected Formica countertops, I think, but will the budget allow Vermont slate?
Okay, so we’ve got an increasingly-ramshackle house to transform—beware of “home inspectors”, those creeps you hire to assess the soundness of the construction before you buy. They work for the realtors. (Get one from out of state!) Some key sills and beams and such are kaput. The foundation on the south side, while steady enough to hold up a cute 1880 addition, is not stable enough for a two-story wall of windows. Bring in the jacks and the excavators. And while you’re at it, demolish the kitchen floor down to the dirt. I never liked that mend of a rat-chewed hole anyway (at least that’s what it looked like to me). Tear down all the walls and ceilings on the inside. Get the wiring out, the plumbing out, of course. We are way over our hoped-for budget, and that's when I said "the honeymoon is over."
The big expenses are in what we won't be able to see. What we will see and love are as follows: A two-story isolated-gain sunspace on the south side, with little bistro table for morning coffee, and French doors opening into the kitchen. Kitchen will have a large island with the cooktop on it which will face the sitting area that has two windows toward the river, windows surrounded by shelves for pottery and books. Kitchen also will have a large and legendary Russian stove to cozy up to-- main non-solar heat source for the house.
Dining room will have our current dining room table in a side of the room with three windows toward the river and morning sun and wall space for art. Living room similar. Interesting architectural details will separate the two rooms--designed but not finalized. We'll have a root cellar off the kitchen. The downstairs bathroom will have a tiled steam shower, hopefully as nice as the one we have at Dragonback.
Upstairs we are building a lovely steep dormer on the west side, like the one on the east. It opens up the view to the west from the master bedroom. We are throwing two rooms together to make the master bedroom, which will have both dormers in it plus a not-too-high cathedral ceiling and a glass south wall with a balcony over the sunspace below. A new stairway off the bedroom will go up to a capacious attic for storage. Mark gets an office on the second floor, off of a new hallway with a fine linen closet near the new stairs. Mike's old gunroom becomes a spacious bathroom/laundry with a beautiful heavy fabric curtain in front of the washer/dryer. I'll have a freestanding bathtub. The daughters, to the extent that they are there, will each have a room which will also be guestrooms. Those two rooms have the wonderful, original 7" board floors which will be painted.
I'll write more often now, if I have anything good to share. Demolition scheduled for beginning of June. The photographs for this blog were taken May 19th. If you have read this far, your interest is very touching. I appreciate it!
Josie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)