Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Two Years Ago almost to the day

I am trying to get down the record of the studio progress in one chunk here and then I will go to more interesting things like my first ever Poetry Wednesday post, etc. But as the contractor is suing me for money I don't think I owe him it is very important to preserve these records from my Y!360 posts.

Yes, they are all preserved on Profiles now but going through and sorting them out has been great for me. It has been two years since this all began and one forgets a lot, ergo it is nice to have a photographic and blog record of just what I was feeling and doing at this point.


The plan! There is always a plan. Entry for June 4, 2007


The question is whether or not it is the same plan.

When you dream of something for ten years you get to amply develop your plan. I wish I had put every sketch upon a napkin, or in my day planner while waiting for an appointment, or sketch made for benefit of a friend on the back of an envelope into a folder. It certainly would have been an interesting review of how the mind works and a plan metamorphoses. I could scan it all in, set it to music and put it on YouTube to torment everyone else. But I digress. My rants about YouTube later.

By the time I marched with my latest plan to a professional draftsman to have them translated into "contractor speak" to present to the licensing board I figured those plans were done. Ceased to evolve. Then came winter. A horrid winter of much snow and much wind. And on a snowbound day observing the heaps of snow sliding off the pitch room and building barriers first under my windows and then over I got out those set in stone plans and began moving windows and doors. And this was good.

Then my contractor saw my plans. (Just a side note here: Contractors hate draftsmen and architects because they don't build the plans they draw up. i.e. Don't live in the real world as it were.) So the contractor had changes.

Meanwhile the electrical plan has stayed the same. Well, at least until I stood in the structure which is to be my future studio. And imagined where the furniture and art work tables, computer, art, etc would go. We always tell clients to do this. I don't know how many do. Walk across the room - where would you expect a switch for lights to be. Go outside and come inside - where would you reach to illuminate the room and what and how much. All the lights with one switch? Just one so you can tiptoe around and look at the dawn as it begins to illuminate the eastern sky.

As a resident of the high country in winter I can tell you one thing - there is never enough light. As an electrician I know one other thing for sure - if the light isn't there wired in you can't ever turn it on. And lastly retrofits are really pricey.

And this was not what this blog started out to be about. I was going to mention the existing wire I drilled through. Oops. Well, and another oops. I should have had a plan for this blog. But I did. But on the way to the conclusion. . .

Retrofits. OK. It was going to be a really easy task to and another much needed circuit to my kitchen because the new studio butts in part up to one wall of the kitchen. So just drill through, cut out for a remodel box and run the circuit. The drill through killed one of the circuits I do (oops, did) have. But no worries. I have the technology, and a plan. (Another side note: This is why you never get a hard bid price on a remodel. They all want time and materials). So an hour later after patching the oops I was back to the original plan for the day.

So best laid and all that rot about mice and men. Plans should be flexible. But not so flexible they break the budget. You think that custom home is going to cost you X then immediately add 20% for all those changes of plans. Don't be so foolish as to think you won't have them.

Still am on the basic path. Eight of the nine windows will arrive today to be installed. (There is always something dragging.) The doors tomorrow. All electrical finished today. Then we wait for inspectors - electrical and framing. I hate that part. Because the next part is the fun part: sheet rock, flooring, paint and trim, hang fixtures and switch all those previously imaginary switches and illuminate my new castle. Ta Da!

No comments: