Thursday, September 23, 2010

Planning and Projects and Spreadsheets, Oh My!

We’ve got projects!

The most recent is my and Todd’s first wedding anniversary! What to do, what to do? We’re thinking a night in a swanky hotel downtown and maybe, if we can swing it, a show at Teatro ZinZanni.

This is one of those things I must do in my life. Like Cirque du Soleil. It’s a splurge, but what better time than our anniversary?!

I’ve started the spreadsheet compare the hotels and their amenities, complete with Water view? Soaking tub? Hot tub? Room service? and Late check out? Because if you’re going spend a wad of money on a local hotel room for one night, by gawd, it better have a hot tub.

And the friend who made our wedding cake is going to make us another little one just for our anniversary. Isn’t that sweet?

Next on the agenda is another organizing project at Ann and Doug’s place. I love going out there and helping them. They make margaritas and guacamole and it’s a just a party. While organizing! This time, it’s the kitchen. When we cleaned out the garage a few months ago, we moved a ton of wedding gifts and other packed kitchen gadgets into their kitchen. Which made the garage look amazing, but the kitchen a disaster.

Funny how that happens.

And then the big daddy project! The project to top all projects in Rae-rae’s life…..

Adding a master suite upstairs.

I KNOW!

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but the main floor of our house (living, dining, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms) is 940 square feet. We share a bathroom with Kayleigh, which isn’t so bad, but she’s hitting those teenage years where she wants to shower in the morning and do other girly stuff in there so we’re getting a bit cramped.

We knew this when we bought the house. During the inspection, Todd and I were already talking about adding onto the back or building up. It was inevitable. And it was worth the money and effort, just to be able to get into one of the best neighborhoods for under $500,000. And we do love our neighborhood. And our neighbors (Hi Carrie Ann!)

So, we have now started the planning. We had the first contractor come out and give us a very loose, rough estimate, and more importantly, to tell us if it was even possible.

It is!

The spreadsheet has been started, pictures are being saved, and we’ve subscribed to Architectural Digest. I’m such an adult.

I even found this fantastic website called Homestyler. You can design your house and add furniture and bathtubs and windows and paint the walls and then see it in 3D. AMAZING! And it even gives the dimensions because I’m an idiot and when I drew my ideal master suite and put everything in it, it was totally not to scale and it ended up being 40 feet by 35 feet. Which is bigger than the house itself.

We’ll get a few more contractors out to chat about the vision, just to get a feel for who might best work for us, then hopefully get a formal bid and proposal in the spring. We hope to start construction around June or July and be finished by Thanksgiving.

I figure, if the project of buying while selling while planning a wedding didn’t break me, what’s a little construction on the house?

Remind me of that come next August….

Let the obsession begin!

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