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.
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?
Our architect Patricia has unveiled her first set of plans, which primarily consist of returning the home to its original floor plan. The one big change is an expanded back deck – it seems that it will be more cost-effective to build a glorious back deck overlooking the pool and river rather than ripping up and rebuilding the entire dining room floor for structural reasons. A bright spot in our structural miasma.
Unfortunately, my ongoing fantasy of doing yoga on my back deck gazing at the river, followed by a movie star bubble bath, has been interrupted. There is no bathtub in the plans we have just seen. And I have already purchased the rubber ducky. I’m off now to fight for my right to soak.
Unanswerable questions spring to mind…how does one replace every single outer beam and column in a four story home without it falling down like a pile of matchsticks? How does one remove and return a single pane of 12′x12′ glass without it breaking? How does one just remove posts from under the corners of a once-cantilevered structure without the whole thing tipping over?
Magic. Must be.
We just had our first meeting with Patricia (show planner) to discuss structural repairs and take our first gander at Tamara’s (magician’s assistant’s) drawings for the contractor (magician). Four pages of “replace beam at intersection of g.l.(s) a & c, replace beam at intersection of g.l.(s) b & c, replace column at intersection of g.l.(s) 5 & c, replace column at intersection of g.l.(s) 6 & c….” Ack. Maybe we should have just knocked it down and rebuilt. As far as I can tell, every last column and beam needs replacing.
I am now in need of a magic elixir to untie the knots in my stomach.
Nothing is happening with the house on Richard’s and my end. I sat thinking about this today and wondered why I’m not bothered by that. We’re paying for a house we can’t live in, we are paying people to create plans and work on the house we can’t live in, we’re paying for a house we CAN live in that we keep freakishly clean and tidy in the hopes of selling it, but I’m unconcerned.
Why? Because our team is pondering. I love that. Patricia has gone away to think and plan and research and think more. Tamara has been solving puzzles regarding how to construct, repair and renew our house with careful respect for its origins. The contractor is pricing materials and labor and creating a timeline and budget based on Patricia’s and Tamara’s plans.
Life is so fast-paced here, there is so little thinking time. Or at least it is in our household. And for me it makes life a little flat. I treasure my time to ponder, to be creative and silly just to myself, and although I do have my moments when I get butterflies in my stomach because “nothing is happening” with the house, I know…I remind myself…that the pondering is the most important part.
I cleaned six outdoor steps. It took only six hours. Well, I also did some weeding around the steps. And they’re wide steps. Sideways and lengthways. With little tiny mossy sort of plants growing on them. And they were really dirty. Now, if you only look at the steps, oh, and the pool, the place looks really, really nice. Just don’t look at the other steps. Or the pool deck. Or the yard immediately adjacent to the steps. Like putting toenail polish on a troll. Richard spent most of the same six hours killing fire ants, mostly watching them with admiration as they piled up their dead, moved, and began rebuilding. I was reminded that when I met him he used to spend hours watching the ants outside our flat. Huh.
My goal for next weekend is to remove the vast field of Mother-in-Law’s Tongue before the kids skewer themselves. I keep telling myself “one step at a time” but today I’m tired.
We need to decide whether to apply with the city, state or federal government for a historical designation. What we hear is that getting an historical designation may help in the renovation to keep property taxes down, and even provide funding sources. The downside is that it could restrict what we do now and in the future with the house and property. I got online and reviewed the municipal and state rules and it doesn’t look like something we want to put ourselves through for the small gain we might get from the process. We’ll wait to get a final opinion from our team, but I encourage anyone else with a historical home to at least review the options. It doesn’t make sense for our particular situation, but I can see how it could help a lot if our house were in a different neighborhood or had more significant repairs necessary.
I’ve made it pretty clear to all involved that I want a bathtub. A four story house and no bathtub?! But as we went through the house today with Tamara, Patricia, and contractor folks, and I listened to them talk about the various problems with the structural integrity, all I kept seeing was the scene from The Money Pit where Tom Hanks just wants a hot bath but when he fills up the tub it goes crashing through the floor and he finally, finally goes insane. Perhaps I should start practicing that laugh now.
But I think I’m getting an inkling of how the team works…Tamara will draw up structural plans for the contractor, who will price the plan to repair the structure and implement Patricia’s design. Yep, that’s pretty much all I understand so far. They discussed a work start date of mid-February. Fingers crossed.
The one saving grace, the pool, is blue and beautiful. I need to call and thank Parry Pools for giving us one operational feature to enjoy. Y’know the pool sorta looks like a big bathtub…
