Plan comments

Dave and architect went to the city's building department today at 4:15pm, ready to pick up comments on our plans. Comments were ready!

One department had signed off, but that hadn't been entered into their records. The comments from Building were extensive, and involve a fair amount of work to meet their requests. They insist on five new sets of complete full-size plans (at $50 a pop!) for re-submittal.

One piece of good news: USAA's upgraded property valuation put our house value higher than it's ever been (? huh? In this market?), so we can increase our credit line without any trouble. (Turned out USAA couldn't understand why we'd want to increase it when we hadn't used it yet and it had a zero balance....umm, because, doesn't it make more sense to line up all the financing before you start the project?)

Living room window

Met with window salesman and architect to review window selections. Windows almost ready to order, pending a few questions such as about operable awning windows with grilles.

Apparently it's tricky to size, install and level a bay window with a countertop flowing into the bay, so it's great when your architect and your window person are talking to each other, instead of through you (well, me). Lots of other problems prevented too (only one of those $800 windows needed, tempered glass in a stairwell, hardware finish selections, knowing left from right in hinge-speak).

Our talented Architect has designed a most beautiful living room window, based on the original dining room window.

Working together

Super productive meeting w/ contractor and kitchen designer together. Together! Verify measurements, do floors or cabinets go in first, who installs cabinets, when to order...lots of great stuff. It's so comforting when your main resources cooperate.

This too: architect and contractor scouring the plans, preventing one problem after another, catching things, deciding things, finding things. Together. Before demolition. Yay.

Rental lease signed

Lease signed for rental house, 9 months, starts May 23. 4BR/2BA, yard,nice neighborhood...not bad. We'll live. We'll move early June.

Contractor signed

Yay! We have our contractor! I'm delighted with him, so organized and thorough. It was nice to hear him say, "I'd really like to do this job." It really got old begging contractors to take our money and completely disrupt our lives.

May Construction is known for keeping schedules, and that's because they manage in both directions. I'm on notice to select all our finishes, so I don't delay the project. Demolition doesn't start for another month, but I need to be picking tile now!