More than double

Much has—and hasn’t—happened since the February 17 entry. Here’s an update.

Sunday, February 18 — My husband’s mother threw a fun party, inviting the two of us and his “Uncle” and “Aunt.” We proudly unrolled what we thought were the close-to-final drawings, pouring over the details. They gently inquired whether we could afford all of the cool features: lap pool, hot tub, roof deck, passive solar collectors... As we flipped through page after huge page, we figured, “sure,” otherwise, why would the architecture firm work so hard on providing a progress construction drawing set—a dozen PDFs worth of details?

Monday, February 26 — Rods and cones were actually part of the discussion on lighting. Jason from High Tech Applications and Steve, another knowledgeable consultant, gave us an executive lecture on lighting. “Integrate sensational lighting” is a key element of this project. The team left us with six thick catalogs of fixtures and we went through each, applying heart-shaped stickies to the looks we loved.

Friday, March 9 — The call came late in the day. Luckily, work had kept me chained to the desk so I couldn’t leave early as planned. It was Jimmy the architect with a cost estimate. More than double. The house was coming in at more than double. This didn’t include the considerable cost of his firm’s drawings. Nor did it factor in a key budget line-item: contingency. Something expensive and scary was sure to be found once we started opening walls and making other holes. As we drove to Atlantic City, I broke the news to my husband. He began singing the “Roofing, windows, siding and decks” jingle. Luckily, our Pennsylvania friends had drinks and eats ready to greet us at their timeshare. Later that weekend, we unrolled the very same drawings we’d shown our Uncle and Aunt, but this time, we introduced each feature as: look what we cannot afford to have!

Friday, March 16 — We got the Preliminary Construction Cost Breakdown and it was only the slightest bit helpful. It showed the number Jimmy had originally given us was actually too low by tens of thousands of dollars. But that is about all it told us. The numbers were in a spreadsheet in confusing clumps. Nothing was broken down to facilitate decison-making. (It actually felt like they were holding back key details for some sinister reason.) So we swung the ax. We weren’t getting a pool. The roof deck was probably dead, too. As was tweaking the existing bathroom to include a proper-sized soaking tub. For good measure, we eliminated the curved roof.

Friday, March 23 — Jimmy joined us at the Casa for a face-to-face meeting to discuss scaled-back plans. It left us feeling better. Nonetheless, for good measure, we followed up on Tuesday with an e-mail to confirm what we’d agreed to, like not moving the stairs, and to spell out our persistent priorities. For example, we articulated such ideas as having a groovy dormer with an operable window to improve curb appeal and replace the leaky skylight in the bathroom.

Friday, March 30 — The scaled back drawings arrive and they are… well, I’m too much of a lady to say. The front elevation included instructions for the skylight to remain and had the look of a defunct Grand Union grocery store—featuring, gulp, asphalt shingles. As if! The curved roof over the bedroom was cut in half, making it 100 percent pointless. The front section of the roof was now flat, but without benefit of the roof deck. Inside, the stairs still wrapped around the fireplace. For an incomprehensible reason, the bedroom now opened completely to the deck using the high-priced NanaWall® system—but no NanaWalls were shown by the hot tub, as needed. Speaking of which, getting to the hot tub room required hiking boots and GPS. Instead of flex space downstairs, the area that had been a pool room was now some sort of useless loggia.

Sunday, April 1 — After two days of working on them, we submitted “Casa de Roo Priority Sketches” (onscreen in image above). The four PowerPoint slides showed the front, left side and two interior floors. A photo of a dormer that was featured in the “Manifesto” was plunked onto the “as built” sketch of the front elevation. I even put in images of the dining table and L-shaped couch to make sure our drawings would fit our lifestyle needs. The downstairs featured a hot tub we’d actually enjoyed at Elements Spa, pasted over an earlier drawing the architecture firm had provided. We felt much better. Even though we didn’t yet have the permit bid set (due on Valentine’s Day per the architect’s schedule), I began interviewing builders by phone. I felt better still. We discussed the drawings with Jimmy and Anthony on Wednesday (they seemed rather insulted by the presentation at the start of the conversation). Now we wait for the revised drawings.