Convergence

I am a renovation black-hole. It’s the best way to describe my life at this moment.

And I don’t mean “black hole” the way people (including myself) inappropriately use the term, as in “making shit disappear.” I mean, all-of-the-matter-in-the-universe-pertaining-to-house-building-is-being-hurtled-at-my-brain-by-the-large-gravitational-force-that-is-my-life.

On one hand, cool. On the other hand, SUCK.

The good news is:

1.) We have house plans
2.) We probably have the money to “put the walls up” so to speak
3.) MysteryMan is o-ffically a professional engineer in the state of Michigan and can stamp our plans
4.) One of our families owns a foundation company, and the other of us runs it, so that part is in the bag
5.) We’ve got a line on a guy that will help us DIY the hell out of this thing

The suckness:

1.) We need a building permit
2.) We need to finalize financing
3.) WE NEED TO ERECT WALLS AND A ROOF IN TWELVE WEEKS OR LESS

Just to put this in perspective, it’s taken us 22 weeks NOT to finish the 250 square feet that is the Station. And essentially we had 5 things to do. Remove a floor, remove a ceiling, re-do the plumbing, replace the floor, build windows, and drywall.

But we’re going to put on a 900 square foot addition in half that time?

Um….

So basically our plan is, don’t sleep, eat powerbars for every meal, and pray. Oh yeah, and squeeze in time to do the jobs we actually get paid for.

The second part of the plan is getting all of the details taken care of ahead of time so we’re not ho-humming over things or waiting for materials to get to us when we could be building. Most of those are easy, but the one I can’t wrap my head around at this moment is WHAT THE HELL THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE.

I’m uh, particular about these things and if I can’t envision them ahead of time, there’s a huge roadblock on the path of getting-things-done.

I’ve been playing with color schemes in photoshop…

exterior_colors6 copy

exterior_colors5 copy

exterior_colors4 copy

exterior_colors2 copy

exterior_colors3 copy

…and in general not sleeping.

Also, I’m not fooling myself into thinking we’re going to re-side the entire house this year yet. Maybe. But the siding informs the window color, which informs the roof color, which informs the trim and beams we use, which means I need to know the answer to these questions, um, now.

I’m also looking at things like live-edge wood siding:

And where in the heck a person can get hand-hewn beams without owning and tearing down a 150 year old barn.

And MysteryMan is doing a hell of a lot of math.

There is a Plan B though. It’s called go to bed, and don’t wake up until Spring.

6 Responses

  1. Meagan… You. Are. A. Genius. I found a number of great pictures on there showing the wood, white, shakes, color combo I’m looking to figure out. Big thank you!

  2. Not sure about where you are at, but when I lived in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, you could find hand-hewn beams at some architectural salvage stores.

  3. If I lived closer I’d come help. California to Michigan is a bit of a trip, though, and my wife would kill me if I did it before finishing work on our house.

  4. ooh the old beam look is very cool. I’m sure whatever you decide on will look fabulous. Your list of things to do actually makes me feel much less overwhelmed with mine- probably not your intention, but thanks and good luck with everything!

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