It's a David Lee!

We found out the gender today! It's a boy, it turns out. More important, but not yet official, the ultrasound guy noted that all fingers/toes/brains/organs/arteries/etc. are right where they belong. There's a movie I'll post tomorrow from my Mac, but here's a slideshow with the stills from the 3D ultrasound (scroll to the bottom left of the little embedded window to see the good stuff):

View photos here if slideshow doesn't load or takes too long.

Architect Contract

The new architect sent the boilerplate AIA (American Institute of Architects) contract for our house. I'm torn. It's very vague, and the only literature, despite Google searches using terms like "warning" and "problem", seems to focus on only the hellish scenarios. I'm going to give it an amateur read and see if there's something someone in internet-land had issues with.

In the meantime, we're plugging away on the old house and the new. My job just changed, and we have a vacation to my brother Charlie's wedding next week, so we're still in "never a dull moment" territory.

Old House Almost Done!

Last weekend signaled the end of most of the work on the old house. The interior and exterior painters jumped into high gear to finish ASAP once we cleared out of the house. Both paint jobs look great, despite setbacks. The funny end to the exterior paint job came via the Mexican crew chief.

He asked me if I wanted to pay taxes. It took a couple times to make sure he was asking what he was asking, and then once more to make sure he was serious. When I finally settled up, he told me I owed one price without taxes, or $350 less if I didn't want to pay taxes. His justification was "We won't tell the government either way". I won't say what we paid, but it was a funny exchange.

We're all moved

Well, mostly moved. 99.9% of our belongings are now in the new rental apartment. All that's left is our desktop computer and some odds/ends. It took 10 hours, $1000, and all the sanity the two of us had. I loathe moving, but we were well-prepared and I'm glad it didn't drag out into a multi-day event.

It's a nice place, plenty of room and plenty of storage. We're going to need to work on getting rid of a lot of what we have as storage. Before moving, it was spread around the basement and clustered in the garage, and now we have filled all permissible space, in all 3 dimensions, of the garage we get as part of our rent. Some stuff is easy to see say bye, other stuff will be harder to part with. What I don't want to do is clutter up the inside, because we'll just be moving again in a year or two and the same nonsense will apply.

Shocking, especially if you've been following my progress with giving stuff away, was how much more we have now than what we moved in with. It's unreal. The move from the CD to Phinney was barely one truck-ful, but this took two trips, and the 2nd trip filled the truck almost half-way. I'm glad we didn't pay by the pound.

The best thing about our new place is its proximity to Green Lake. We're right behind the part where there's a playground and the baseball fields, so it'll be fun to sneak beers down there on weeknights and watch some grown-folk play softball. It's also decent for the dog, since the trail is a little bit of a walk. We can either let her run & sniff or take the trail around the lake. I'm pleased!

Craigslist.org Freebie Dump Run

We're packing to move out of the house this weekend, and I've bilged up so much operational but otherwise useless junk, I had to get rid of some stuff. We live pretty close to a Goodwill, which takes garbage in the name of donations, but I tried posting some stuff to Craigslist's free-stuff site to save myself a trip.

Here's what I was giving away:

• 2 Table Saws - they're both broken, in different ways, and they're different brands, so even a table saw manufacturer would have a hard time Frankensteining one saw out of the pair.
• Helium Tank & Balloons - we bought this to test a balloon backdrop for our wedding, but then common sense took over.
• Lamp - this is an absurd piece, no joke. It is one of those multi-headed jobs where each bulb is on a flexible cable, but it's ugly as death. The shades on each of the bulbs had a purple hazy fabric crunched around it. I bought it thinking it would provide great light in the basement if I took the shades off, but I never took it out of the box. This cost me $15 from a co-worker.
• Stereo - Not a bad deal, but you could get one of these shelf models for $80, and you'd have a guarantee. Mine was old, ugly, and I couldn't remember whether or not it worked and didn't take the time to check.
• Fat Suit - If you're a fan of my Halloween costumes, you know I specialize in the 'fat guy'. Whether he's Rerun or the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, he had a huge butt and deep creases. I'm getting a little tired of the fat guy, so I gave away the understructure for the suit.
  

The responses came in an insane barrage. No exaggeration, I posted the ad at 9PM on a Monday night and received 200 responses before midnight. Some highlights:

Long Distance Packrats
Nothing I was offering cost me more than $50. Still, with gas as expensive as it is today, there are people who offered to travel incredible distances for my garbage. Assuming the price per mile of 25 cents, here's how each of the items topped out in terms of what people were willing to pay:

• Saws: Kent, WA / 25.3 mi (one way) / 1hr 12min round trip / $12.65 (not bad!)
  
• Balloon Tank: McChord AFB / 46.9 mi (one way) / 2 hr 6 min round trip / $23.45
• Lamp: Anacortes, WA / 78.1 mi (one way) / 3 hr 8 min round trip / $39.05
• Stereo: South Tacoma, WA / 41.4 mi (one way) / 110 min round trip / $20.90
• Fat Suit: No one really wanted this
  

Sad Stories
Some people can't catch a break, even with free stuff:

• Stereo: "My stepdaughter's biological dad promised her a stereo for christmas and once again left her hanging, so it would be awesome to surprise her with this. (she's 10)."
• Stereo: "Well today is my birthday.... and my last stero was stolen... I was saving up for a new one.... but free is always a good present... " (his '...').
• Lamp + Stereo: "I am in need of both if you still have them, due to my ex-landlord giving all my stuff to Goodwill without my permission or even letting me know he was about to. "
  

The Multi-Responders
For some reason, the notion of a freebie that you would throw away yourself is enough to have a person up all night obsessing. The best of these by a landslide is a lady named "Tish". Persistence paid off for her, actually. The guy who claimed the lamp didn't show, so I left the lamp and the fat suit in my driveway from her and she grabbed it while me and Eazy were out having dinner.

• "You have some bizarre but freakin funny stuff. I saw the 'fat guy' suit. My husband has a 'puke man' suit that's always a lot of fun. Anyway, I'm hoping to come get your lamp Tuesday eve (7-ish) and it'd be fab to grab the saws while I'm at it. We live on a boat so the size is perfect."
• "It's me, Tish, again. Tell ya what. How about we just take it ALL off your hands for you at the same time?"
• "You'll find I've responded to several of your postings and suggested that we just come take it all off your hands at 7:00 this eve. If you still have it available just give me a call and we're there in our little van to help you clear out your basement in one shot. This is serious!"
• "How do we get these things? You have several things posted that we'd LOVE to get! I mean one can never have TOO many Halloween costumes, right? I responded last night and told you we'll just come take it ALL off your hands in one quick swoop."
• "Hey, it's me ... Tish, again. It's almost 7:00 and I don't know where to find you. But I'm sitting here at the ready. Shoes on and just waiting for your call. In case you're not sure (and I don't understand that at all!) I'm the one that's been stalking your postings."

She came to get the stuff, so we never met.

Summary
I have nothing to complain about. The eventual recipients of the items came and went without any drama. The whole affair took 15 minutes, if it even took that long. Thanks, craigslist!

Long Time No Me!

Some ketchup:

1. Talked to architect & contractor, no decision yet
   
2. Signed lease on rental house, moving before May 1
3. Elissa and David Lee are healthy and happy
4. Financial relief courtesy of IRS
   

We talked to both an architect and a contractor to try and solidify our decision on whether to een use an independent architect. The answer: We don't know yet.

The basic decision boils back to the notion of the friendly animosity the architect would have with the contractor. Long story short, the architect will have a strong impression on what the eventual product should look like, and will work for us to make sure it happens. Not to say a contractor wouldn't, but there aren't a lot of contractors out there with experience building modern houses. That said, any of the contractors we contacted would monopolize the design/build decisions, and we'd run the risk of advocating for ourselves to get our final product completed to our expectations. We still have some time, because we can't really afford to pay anyone until the current house sells.

Number two. We signed a lease on an expensive, but awesome, rental. It's close to $1800/month, but we won't have to rent separate storage ($300/mo). I'm happy. It's less than 2 blocks from Green Lake, and they love dogs. We are in like Fred Gwynne with the landlords, and our deposit is already paid. Our 'move-in' date is April 15, but we're going to take our sweet time moving while the home-stretch renovations are getting done.

Number three. We went for another doctor's appointment yesterday and everything is honky donkey. The baby's heartbeat is like a chainsaw, and Eazy's doctor relieved a lot of my concerns with a potential genetic concern (Down's syndrome doesn't pass genetically, except in the rarest of cases). It'll be after my brother Charlie's wedding until we have an appointment that moves expectations beyond the "everything's OK" mode, but the lack of news is good news unto itself.

Number four. Good news and bad news.

Bad news: Out of almost $50k (fifty thousand dollars, whaaat?!?) in mortgage interest & taxes in 2006. Of that huge number, only $2200 went toward the principal of the loan. The rest was pissed into the bank's pot. Can you believe that?

Good news: Uncle Sam pretends like that $50k is money I never made, so I get back the tax money withheld from my paycheck. Unless they figure out I counted a deduction twice or something, I have $10k coming back to me in cold, dirty cash.

Not good news: The lack of the interest payments for the balance of 2007 will make all the money I make taxable. I'll need to remember to funk with my payroll department to withhold enough so I won't get a rude awakening next April.

That's it. Upcoming events are largely uneventful. We'll be moved by the end of the month and there will be more little kid stuff to report. 5 g's.

New Architect Hunt

The search for a new architect started last night. First things first, we really need to think about the product of an architect and evaluate whether that's something we want to work into the budget.

An architect is really more of a concept aggregator. The usual process requires the sponsor of the project to do little more than loosely guide the architect's direction, and then respond to the proposals with appreciation or redirection. That was the rub with our quitters (see last post). They wanted to be more of a design lead, where we wanted to really guide the design in a hands-on fashion.

The alternative is to work with a design-build company, or to go straight to a construction company and work with their designers. Basically, it's the same workflow, but they vary based on whether the designer or the contractor own the company. This is good because it saves money for people coming in with plans, but it doesn't work as well if your ideas aren't 100% fleshed out.

So last night we talked to an architecture firm that morphed from a design-build shop to a straight-up architecture firm. They are definitely good, they have a good sense of taste and seem to enjoy getting as much input from the customer as possible. We need them. While we have the room divisions and outer structure all conceptualized, the physical space and the interior fixtures aren't my bag. The alternative option to hire a design-builder or a contractor with a design sub-contractor won't work for this. They'd be basically designing what they intend to build, which doesn't provide for us the strength of having an advocate for our design ride out the construction process.

We have an appointment Friday to meet with such a contractor, who comes with strong references from a co-worker, and we'll see whether we want to work with them, and in what capacity. Right now, I'm leaning toward sailing with this 2nd architecture firm, and finding a contractor with an understanding of the more modern construction techniques. More on Friday after our meeting...

First Casualty - Our Architect Quits

You heard it right. The architect quit today. I suppose I'm not dismayed by the news, but I am very surprised. If you're following our plight, you probably noticed that I didn't mention the name of the firm, and I'll stay true to that unless I'm contacted to provide a reference. Regardless, the news was very surprising. This already -expensive process turned out to be a mix of silver linings. With the $5000 we spent, we had the opportunity to flesh out our ideas, and learned a lot more about the process than any class we'd take.

One thing is for sure, if you're reading this for advice on a project: Don't sign anything that locks you into any multi-phased effort until you're over 90% sure that you won't regret your decision later. This architect was actually prescient enough to present a separate 'schematic phase' contract with a full project contract as a rider. I, accidentally brillantly, only signed on for the schematic phase and I'm totally glad I was such a genius when I didn't really know what I was doing.

That said, here's his feedback, followed by my interpretation:

You have very strong design ideas, and many of these are reflected in the design to date. However, as the design develops, per your direction, it has become clear that you are more comfortable generating design solutions, rather than giving us feedback on what the goals and problems are. You may be better served by designing the home yourself, and working with a drafting service or design-build firm

True. The process started with my drawings of the exterior. The first iteration commensed with me submitting layouts of the entire interior. The last iteration ended with me resubmitting the drawings of the exterior (see prior post). I'm definitely going to take his advice and address my needs with a d/b firm.

We took this project on as a challenge, to design a modern home that did not have to be expensive. We have attempted to design to your stated budget, which has consistently left you dissatisfied. We are in the difficult position of having to choose between following your design direction or meeting your budget.

Whatever. When I addressed budget issues with them, they waffled consistently. I offered to make MAJOR shortcuts on luxuries like a master bed/bath to keep this under cost. This firm's creative guidance assigns cost to appearance, rather than innovation or practicality. The 'challenge' that they took on was met by designing the simplest, barebones, least innovative idea available: a drab, featureless box.

As we both know, communication has been difficult for a number of reasons on this project. The stakes are relatively low at this point, but as the project moves into permit and construction drawings, and ultimately construction, communication and a positive working relationship are critical. I am not optimistic that this will happen.

Their communication was neither preemptive or reactionary. They let the drawings do the talking, and failed to respond to my requests to update their drawings when I spoke my language (words) or their language (drawings). When they failed to meet our expectations on things like a back door or, well, a back door, I made suggestions and carefully communicated my dissatisfaction with the negative progress. They failed to respond, and they continued to make changes to the plans that totally violated our requests, which were submitted in spirit, in precise wording, and in inarguable drawings.

Finally, your e mail regarding a face to face meeting on “fiduciary” issues raised a flag. Excuse me if I am making incorrect assumptions about the purpose of the meeting. I will readily admit that a portion of the hours spent by our office to date have led in tangential directions. However, we have consistently tried to respond to your stated goals. The design to date reflects this. 65 hours have been billed to date. In reality, 118 hours have been spent through March 7, 2007. I did not bill actual hours to account for the detours. You would not ever be billed for the difference. To date, we have received $670.00 in compensation. There is a portion left on the contract, (which is hourly to a maximum), that we do not plan to bill. This is a very favorable situation for you.

If they devoted 118 hours to this, my name is Nell Carter. There is no way in god's green earth that they spent almost 3 person-weeks on this, unless they're drawing with their feet. To be honest, I was calling that meeting to have them justify their billing for the 65 hours. With this, I think I'd bite off more than I could chew because they'd run their bills up to the limit, which is another $2000 on top their already high fees.

Truth be told, Eazy and I were already discussing the best way to make a clean break from these guys. There's another paragraph in his email that enables us to make a clean break and still own the schematics, so that's huge for us. I still owe them about $4000, which we don't really have to spare, but I'll find the money somewhere. Long story short, this voluntary break plays right into our hands. It's a surprise, but it's more like finding a dollar in your pocket than it is getting crapped on by a bird.

I replied to them to say that the bills will definitely be paid. We pounded out a schedule with them that had us filing for a permit by this time, having started the schematics in mid-December, and filing the permit before the end of April. That would have set us up with the artifacts necessary to start a construction loan application, and the financials would have flowed smoothly from my bank account to the loan.

New External Elevations Drawings

Z z z z...

These are, at least I hope these are, first drafts. I almost fell asleep looking at them. We're really pulling for a structure that's inspiring and museum-quality, but these drawings are just a dirty box. Take an extra second to notice the color scheme. No offense to the architect, but they look like a standard Pacific Northwest pallette. You don't really see these colors together since the end of the 1990's. They kind of remind me of an outdoorsy guy's clothes. Fleece vest, jeans, and those suede laceless sneakers.

I replied to him with our impression of what we want. It's basically a re-draw of a very early 3D sketch I did to get my thoughts on paper. The main thing is an unbroken line that frames the building and provides an overhang for each run of windows. My drawings are a really rough idea of what I'd like to see, so I'm eager to hear back from him.

First, the elevation drawings I received. Below those are my submissions back to him.

OK Baby!

Elissa went to the doctor's today. We heard the heartbeat, and the nurse practitioner told us that once you hear it, you're pretty much locked in with a much lower chance of "things like a miscarriage". Great news! David Lee's heartbeat is almost exactly twice as fast as Elissa's, which is great.

Another appointment in 4 weeks or something? Eazy is pushing for designer maternity jeans, which I find hilarious. We'll see if she shuns our frugality agreement to get them, I'm going to let her do what she wants.