Holy Cow

I think we're going to do this remodel thing.  Last week, after the Kumbaya post and the meeting of Squiggle and Peanut, we met with our architects and the man who is more than likely going to be our contractor.  He came back with a very, very reasonable estimate for the remodel.  It involved us doing a non-trivial amount of work and all the extras we said we could cut out, he cut out.  Nonetheless, it was still about $50,000 more than we could afford.  

We decided that although we loved this plan, we needed to go back to the original plan, Plan A. It had the square footage we could afford, but did not have the extra bedroom we needed.  We figured that the architects could just get rid of the loft (a "landing area" off the stairs) that served as an open room, and just add a bedroom there.  It would not be nearly as cute, but it would be functional.  

Folks, this is why you hire architects.  Tonight, we had a charette with our architectural team.  Although one might imagine that a charette is a short game of charades, it's actually a intense design meeting to figure out our home issues.  Our architect's goal was to keep Plan B but to reduce it in size to meet our budget. At that point, she had easily been able to delete about 150 sq feet for a $20,000 savings.  However, one might note that $20K NE $50K.  So although that was nice, that wasn't going to cut it.  I actually was feeling disappointed because I had in my head that we had to go back to Plan A and try to make that one work.

Then....Then....THEN!!! Dave suggested a new location for the master bathroom and everything fell into place.  She figured out how to arrange everything and cut off 4oo sq feet.  Our closet will be a little smaller than before, but still a boatload bigger than anything we've had before.  The loft (we still have a loft!) will be smaller, but can still serve as a small bonus room.  The child's bedroom/nursery will have a fine closet *and* the ceilings will be high enough to build  a sleeping loft later on.  Our bedroom will be the same size and will still have a sunroom off of it.  And all this will be within our budget.  It's Plan B writ slightly smaller.  And all because Dave suggested moving the bathroom!  In fact, we needed the entire addition to be 1000 sq feet and at this point, we're looking at about 972 sq feet.  

Holy Fracking Shite.  I think we can do this!!

In fact, I think we're ready to call our neighbors and move into the rental behind us March 1st.  

!!!!

Yes, there's still the whole business of getting the remodel funded.  But so far, all the signs point to yes.  And now that we have a realistic plan with a realistic budget and we're still going to have everything we want, (holy cow!), this may work!

Ok, yes, we are only going to have one bathroom upstairs.  This means that middle of the night pitter patter to go piddle pee is going to go through our bedroom and is likely to end up the rest of the night in our bed.  But really, how is that different than now?  It's not.  And when whoever is sleeping up there is older, I have no doubt he/ she can figure it out in a way that keeps everyone's privacy.  (There will be stairs down to his or her own bathroom.  Take them.)

Oh my goodness.  I think this is going to work out.

Hooray!  YIKES!!!