November 2011
We started making serious inquiries about the actual
construction. Neighbours Barry &
Sharron Oke had built approx. 10 years ago, and really had some great ideas and
contacts they were able to put us in touch with to get the ball rolling. Through them we found our architect Russ
Gibson and he started drafting the plans.
Big shout-out THANK YOU to Barry & Sharron!
We were able to give rough plans with our ideas to
Russ. It really helped to sketch out the
existing cottage, our existing home, and the maximum footprint (given lot
setbacks) and then work from there. For
example, when we saw the kitchen would be X’ by X’, we compared that to the
size of our current kitchen to get a feel for if that would be big enough. My original vision had our Master Bedroom at
the back of the house on the main level (this is after all our retirement
home), but when we found out about the hydro clearance that all changed. Guess I’ll just have to get one of those
little chairs that mount on the stairwell when we’re old!
In fact, I found the stairs the hardest component to envision. Each floor was fairly straight-forward to put
together, but vertical space for stairs added another dimension that was
difficult to overcome. For example, floor
space on the upper level could go above some of the bottom stairs. Russ was able to translate our rough idea
into a wonderful plan. He even planned
space for the original clawfoot tub in a bay window looking out over the lake!
And during this time Mike our realtor was still showing us
homes as they came up. We really
narrowed down our search to specific streets and complexes that interested us.
November also saw Ibby & I making a quick trip to my
parents in Wisconsin. My Dad’s
Alzheimer’s was getting worse. I’m
probably able to see the decline more acutely because there are such long
stretches between visits. At the group home
Jaime was also becoming more aggressive, punching classmates, tearing clothes
to absolute shreds, throwing all his belongings out his 2nd floor bedroom
window to the snowbanks below. Starting
to do more sewing as a result (mending actually, where I could) and realized
how much I missed sewing! The honeymoon
is definitely over at his group home…
No comments:
Post a Comment