I am convinced that one must be a dogged optimist to be a developer, as the actual completion of a project is simply the cumulative result of having solved innumerable problems along the way. If one stops believing that each new problem has a solution, the project dies.
And so it is with this spirit that we have made the most of our time waiting (and waiting…) for our new Development Permit. Here are a couple of big items we’ve been working on:
Interior Design
We hired an interior designer (welcome to the team, Lisa Dunsmuir of Step One Design!). We’d originally designed around the existing interior walls of our house because we were going to keep them. With that constraint gone, Lisa did a major redo that we think is a big improvement. She still had plenty of constraints to work with, mind you, given that all the windows, doors and ground level plumbing connections were already installed.
The biggest change to our half was to create a more distinct “front of house” (kitchen, living, entry) and “back of house” (bedrooms, bath) on the upper floor:
She also reworked our “mom suite” layout to be more functional:
On the other half, the biggest change was to rejig the upper floor to add an ensuite bath for the master bedroom (which we’re told people like):
We are now in the process of finalizing all finishes (carpet, tile, flooring, toilets, sinks, lighting etc). This has taken a surprising amount of time and now that we’ve gotten through most of it, I am grateful that we won’t be making these choices on the fly and trying to visualize how it will all work together on our own. The number of options in any one finish category is mind-boggling, and having Lisa funnel us into a just a few good ones has been incredibly valuable. Once we do get back to work on site, Lisa’s spec book and detailed drawings will allow the crew and contractors to move a lot faster.
Cabinets
Matt is now a cabinet maker! He’d allocated a chunk of his time over the winter and spring to work on our project. Since we can’t work on the actual house, we figured we could get a jump on interior finishes by making all of the mill work for our half. Working off Lisa’s drawings, Matt’s making the cabinet boxes out of plywood and will finish the drawer/door fronts and cabinet ends with processed fir from our old house. I think it will look beautiful. Here are some images of the process:
