Unless something unusual happens in the next few days, we will be meeting with the architect on Wednesday. Or rather, he will be meeting with us. He will be coming to our house for a walk-through and then we will sit down and discuss our wish list. Then he will work his magic and draw up the plans for the renovation. The drawings of the current layout have already been done, so the process should move rather quickly now.
Timing is becoming an issue
Mom and Dad-in-law will be arriving at the end of May this year and will be staying until September. Therefore, we want to be finished the construction by the end of April to allow us a couple weeks in May to redecorate. I am starting to have some concerns about whether we will be finished in time.
“While you’re at it….”
I have very recently (recently as in yesterday) started considering adding more work to the renovation. We intend to eventually remodel the kitchen and tentatively planned to do it when we have the addition rebuilt. However, I am seriously considering including the kitchen with this phase of construction. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, there will probably be some material savings– one has to assume that costs will increase year over year, so in the long run, as long as we are paying cash, it will be less expensive to do it sooner. Second, all major renovations will be completed in the old part of the house, leaving only the addition for the future. Third, the inspector may frown on the current state of the kitchen which has already had a bit of demolition done to it, so we might as well be preemptive about it and bring it up to code . Fourth, I am simply sick of our kitchen as it is now. The amount of counter space is misleading because of the layout. The cabinets are awkward and are deficient in usable storage. The cabinet doors are hideous particle board (with raw edges), painted a dark green (which is not very washable) and are different thicknesses (some are half inch, others are 3/4 inch). The electrical is a mess. Half the time when we use the microwave we pop the breaker because there are other items on that circuit. I split up the circuit the best I could a few years ago, but I was unable to completely isolate the microwave. Originally, it was one of fifteen items, including the fridge. One of the counter plugs doesn’t work at all (it had been part of the microwave circuit that I split up) so we only have two working plugs, one of which is in a very inconvenient location. I could go on, but you get the idea. The kitchen needs to go. It’s just a question of when.
We’ll see what the architect recommends and what the time frame will be. I don’t even want to think about the budget right now.