do we need an architect?

In May of 2006 we adopted a dog.  She was a beauty, sweet with the baby and a real desire to please.  She was training well, v. obedient.  Walter and I agreed our family was growing.  Between the dog and our baby quickly becoming a toddler, our enclosed back yard was more important to us than ever.  

We had felt a little crowded in our home since we moved in 6 month earlier.   By summer we were in full discussion mode about what to do to about this.  

This in itself was a funny process.  Because Walter owned and had lived in (on & off) the house for the last 17 years, and I had been here 6 months.  He called it 'our home.'  But regardless of how much I believed him, I still really felt like it was his and that I should be as respectful as I could be about any drastic changes.  So I was really wanting his opinions, his dreams, his desires of change or transformation for his home.  This of course was in contrast to my already hugely developed ideas of where we might go with this house.  

Walter had already considered some improvements over the years.  

He has always been 'the cook'.  Whether it be necessity or because he really enjoys it, the kitchen is his domain.  The cook, and as unfair as it is, he is also the cleaning crew.  He cooks a lovely meal, then is also the one that cannot tolerate leaving the kitchen messy for the next morning, meal or moment.  And so when we entertained, after dinner I was in the dining room with our guests, while Walter was back in our tiny counter-shy kitchen cleaning up. 

It really bugged me.  I wanted him out there with the rest of us.  But he couldn't leave it alone, and there was no room for us to join him.  

It really was too small to leave messy.  If you left a stack of dirty dishes or pots or pans anywhere you used every bit of prep space we had.  No room for dessert preparations, certainly no room for a cereal bowl the following morning.  We even dried our clean dishes in a drying rack that sat down inside one of the two sinks.  It was high priority to create a kitchen that had storage, counter space, and space for kids and/or guests to join the Cook in the kitchen.  Not leave him back there to himself. 

He had considered opening up the kitchen into the adjacent bedroom long before all this.  It was an odd place for a bedroom, right off the kitchen.  But then you would lose a bedroom.  They always had used the back add-on room (which I call the 'family room') as a master bedroom.  It was a nice sized space, but a midnight trek to the bathroom meant you  either went through the smaller bedroom or around and through the kitchen, the dining room and the guest bedroom.  

So he also had hopes to reconnect the upstairs apartment to the house.  Move the sleeping space upstairs.  But it seemed almost too luxurious.  That apartment's rent was such a nice consistent contributer to the mortgage.  Ahhh, dilemnas!

I am a "in the closet" designer/decorater/architect.  I have no formal education unless you count the year of textile design classes I took at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in NYC just before our daughter was born.  I also worked 6 years for the Pottery Barn first in SLC, then in San Francisco and finally at the SoHo store in Manhattan.  My childhood was full of drawings, fashion and floor plans.  But my scholarship money came from the University of Utah ballet department, so that is what my BFA is in... ballet.  I follow HGTV, all the DIY magazines, the home decor retailers with a quiet desire to be a part of the club.  To create my own fabrics, furniture, decorative accessories, stationary and cards would be a dream.  But that is probably another blog.

So let's just say I was full of ideas. 

We refinanced the house in July for a sum of money we thought we cover the renovation.  At least the first major portion of it.  Future garage with loft space above can wait.  Even the master bedroom suite upstairs could wait.  Our goal was to make our house function for our immediate family and our current needs.

I began having discussions with my Block's 'Contractor Extraordinaire' Doug Rosenbaum.  He specializes in gorgeous historically respectful renovation with beautiful attention to detail, here in the Avenues.  He did the house to our right and he did the house to our left.  And my mother-in-law used him for handyman jobs on our home while Walter lived in California and New York.  

I trust Doug.  He loves to talk.  But he also listens and he is really great for advice.  We considered him to general our future projects.  The first major advice he gave us was, "Get an Architect!"

I thought we didn't need one.  I thought with all my ideas and attention to detail we'd be fine without drawings.  (Little did I know.  I was so naive and over confident.)  

"How hard can it be?   I've been drawing floor plans my whole life."  But I was nervous about the structural stuff, the stuff requiring math.  

Not really interested in blowing something like that.

So we contacted architect Sandra Hatch at Doug's recommendation.