A Good Meeting

For pictures as of the morning of April 4th, find them in my photos on flickr.

I had a great meeting with Dave yesterday. We made plans on how to go proceed including some concrete discussions for the next couple of days' work. We determined the spec for the stairs and some modifications to ceilings and floors that that entails, and material decision for the new posts and beam. We're going to go with "ugly" wood for the structural demands and then apply trim afterwards.

I've also decided to take out the wall from the middle bedroom upstairs and incorporate that space into the hall. It'll be a nice space that will sort of overlook the stairway and the kitchen below, and the opening will let natural light into the hall from the east.

Today I need to decide what material to use for the stair treads, which pretty much depends on whether or not they'll be covered. If they're bare, oak; if not, then probably pine or some kind of manufactured composite. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards oak.

We also decided to deal with the front porch. That's pretty exciting. I think I'm going to go with a concrete footing and hopefully keep the brick for appearances. Now I need to figure out what the posts and railing will be like.

The greatest thing was that Dave and I were able to review some plans that Julia and my friend Kelly did a couple of years ago. It's always seemed like it should be doable but has always felt a little pie-in-the-sky too. He helped me to understand a few alternatives for how it could go if I were to go through with it, and it turned out that was just what I needed in order to feel more confident about the finished state, or planned finished state of the current project. Doing what I can now and keeping the dream alive for later. I left that meeting happier than ... well, I was going to say happier than I've felt in a long time, but really, it's probably happier than I've been in a week, and more confident moving forward than I've been yet. I'm very grateful to Dave for his patience in letting me explain all that I was thinking about.

Finally, it dawned on me last night and this morning that if I'm going to feel settled with this for a while--and I'd better--I'm really going to need to address the upstairs bathroom, maybe just keep the layout how it is and replace/repair the subfloor. Or maybe put in a shower separate from the tub?... Hm. I haven't sprung the bathroom notion on Dave yet.