No ORDINARY Signs!

Today we had another meeting with the builder to determine where the new gas lines for the house would be located. In the process we also have to relocate all the services to the old house. The meeting went well and all concerns were addressed. As the meeting ended I told our builder there was one more item we had to discuss.

I know the contractor generally puts up a temporay sign on each construction site. I told him it would NOT be allowed on our site. At least not his typical coroplast sign. I offered no expanation but asked him to come with me to the shop. His face brightened immensely as I showed him the new sign we were building for him. It was to be dimensional of course and featured his long time logo with a whole new look.

Over the next few days we'll be painting it up in the correct colors and it will be ready to hang proudly just in time for Harold and his crew to start construction.

They say a good sign is a sign of good business.

-grampa dan

Creating challenges and then solving them creatively.

Anytime  we do a custom project our unique designs seem to create a whole new set of challenges. Since we are often doing things in ways not done before it quickly becomes obvious that the normal materials and ways of doing things are not going to work. The job we first need to do is solve all the problems we just created.

On the house project we are quickly gathering a group of very knowledgable folks who are willing to work with us. The list will be long. Planners, engineers, heating specialists, carpenters, concrete specialists, window experts, electicians and a host of others. Each will bring their expertise to the table and together we will get the job done.

It is going well already, and we are learning lots in the process. Instead of compromising, the standards are often raised as we look at the options. Often with the help of these experienced people we find we can do things in even more imaginative ways than we dreamed. 

One of the many things we are working on are the windows. The bulk of the windows, although not common, are pretty standard stuff. The large round windows are much more of a challenge. The easy thing to do wold be to change the windows to be much more conventional but that would mean we would have to radically change the design and in the process make it pretty ordinary. It's not at all what we want to do. We went through a number of window manufacturers to find one who said 'No problem - we'll figure out a way to make this happen.' Those are the kind of people I love to work with.

This is going to be a whole lot of fun!

-grampa dan

Open house

Today dawned bright, sunny and warm. It was the perfect day to have a tour through the new house. I brought out the big tape measure, a set of blueprints, some cans of paint, some stakes and some flagging tape, then set to work. I measured and sprayed, pounded in some stakes and measured some more. In less than an hour the basic outline of the house was evident. Then I called Janis outside and we did the tour. We started on the front porch, and it was deemed perfect. Then we went in the front door and toured through the house, looking out each window to check out the sight lines and admire the vistas. 

While we dreamed in 3D, lots of the local folks walked by. Word has spread a new house is coming to Yarrow and everyone is curious. They have no idea yet of what is really coming. It's going to be fun to show them one small piece at a time.

-grampa dan