Archives for the month of: March, 2010

Taking Sides

March 25, 10 //
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On this beautiful spring afternoon, Richard, Patricia McQuaid and I met with Mr. Morgan to review Patricia’s initial plans and discuss proposed materials for the renovation. As a female, I delight in how much Bunny Morgan adds to these meetings, reminding Bill Morgan of design details and materials he has used in the past, making soft suggestions, and asking questions. When Mr. Morgan discovered that our design/build team is all females, he started referring to the “girls” handling this project. All the sisters out there, ya gotta love that.

A key issue at the meeting was to get his approval of Richard’s cause celebre, the corrugated metal siding we’ve chosen to use instead of replacing the lapped cypress siding. The metal is much lighter, weight being a huge issue with this house, and much cheaper, cost also being a huge issue with this house (duh). Patricia brought a sample of the siding for Mr. Morgan to touch, discuss and consider.

It was pretty obvious to me that he was not at ALL sold on the metal, and Patricia agreed to look into other options that provide the more defined line, shadow, and look of the lapped wood as he originally intended. But I’m taking Richard’s side on this one.

Old black water, keep on rollin’

March 14, 10 //
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In between the stressful moments – another month’s delay while waiting for loan paperwork completion, a deluge of oak leaves in the pool, the snake that surprised me while weeding – there are zen moments. I’m back to outdoor work, which seems to be the only thing of consequence I can add to the house renovation at the moment. I have decided to clear and clean the 400+ square feet of outdoor coquina wall that rambles around the property, and on a sunny spring Florida day I found great satisfaction in methodically picking out itty bitty plants from their footholds, scrubbing off years of dirt, and finding the edges of each rock long hidden and inhabited by bugs of every shape and size. I got about 1/100ths done, but the Doobie Brothers kept me company.

Doubling Down

March 4, 10 //
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Today we met with our team to talk numbers – seven people in all representing architecture, structural engineering, and contracting. We felt like we had a Vegas entourage.

Per Wikipedia’s definition of blackjack options: “After receiving his first two cards and before any more are dealt to him, a player has the option to “double down.” This means the player is allowed to double his initial bet in exchange for receiving only one more card from the dealer. ”

We now have before us a full proposal from our team, which anticipates almost doubling our preferred budget (based on what everyone had told us to expect thus far). We have no idea whether that final card – project completion – will pay off.

I’m risk averse. Richard, he’s downright allergic. If we double down, we want assurances we’ll win big but there are none. If we don’t double down…hmm it’s a house not a card game. Or a house of cards?