The jerk store called and they are running out of you.

Today, we were holding a meeting at the site. We were examining the steel beams and talking about eliminating the bolts at the top of the beams. At this point, our builder said: "that reminds me of one of the stupidest lines I have ever heard which came out of the mouth of one of your architects". Yes, I remember that line and for some unexplained reason I had forgotten to relay it in this blog, I am not sure why. It is so idiotic and ridiculous, it surely deserves its own post.

Evidently, it happened a while ago when we DID have an architect. So I am thinking it was some time last year, around this time of year. We were sitting in the architect's office looking at the plans. We kept on noticing these poles throughout the house, not very strategically positioned: one in the middle of the living room (really practical), one close to the entrance and one right next to the kitchen island, kind of to the side of it, about 6" away from it. Of course, we had learned by then that if we wanted to question the architect, we needed to sugar coat the "questioning" or he would just get offended. But this time, because this pole business had the "Idontgiveafuckaboutthisproject" attitude written all over it, I simply asked: "these posts... all over the place... what's up with that... I mean especially the one close to the kitchen island, it doesn't seem that practical, does it?". To my question, this is what the architect answered: "well, you could see these poles as punctuation, they could be like exclamation points"....................................................................................................

                                       (O_0)


                                        (*_*)

           What the fuck are you talking about???
 

Exclamation points? Really??? Is that all you've got? Some cheap "poetic" bullshit explanation for yet another fuck-up problem? Needless to say that we were not very impressed/happy with this answer. I told him that I wasn't feeling very poetic and that quite frankly, he had to start figuring out how to get rid of these fucking eyesores, we are not building a loft dude! (have you heard of I beams???). At this point, I lost both: respect and faith in this architect. But now that I look back on it, I think it makes for a really good anecdote and something else we can joke about on the job site, which is what we did today talking about those bolts. Maybe they could be punctuation, full stops perhaps?

I met a good architect... miracles do happen... sometimes.

A few months ago, I met a friend for coffee. I was telling her about all the troubles we had with the construction and namely the architect. I could see she felt really bad. She said that, if I wanted, she could introduce me to this architect that she was dealing with on a regular basis and who supposedly was amazing and pleasant at the same time... Needless to say that my reaction was kind of like this: O_0... An amazing AND pleasant architect... really, that exists??? Are you sure??? O_0  

Sketch from the architect -slip joint/head deflector -

I mean, I can't hide the fact that I have admiration for many great architects: Mies van der Rohe, Santiago Calatrava, Paulo Mendes Da Rocha, Peter Zumthor, Rogers and Piano, Franck Ghery, Jean Nouvel, Franck Lloyd Right, Marcio Kogan, Herzog and de Meuron, Ieoh Ming Pei, Luis Barragan... but these architects are pretty much fucking geniuses, they have been or are extremely influential and if they were or are difficult, you would have to suck it up because they have an incredible amount of talent. The talent would make up for the craziness sort of. What bothers me is when THERE IS NOT much talent or no talent at all to make up for the craziness or for the lack of respect the architects will show towards their clients. And that's pretty much what I have been experiencing with architects to this day. So obviously, when someone wants to introduce me to an amazing and pleasant architect, I have the right to be skeptical to say the least. But I guess miracles DO happen and my friend was right, her architect is the real good surprise of 2010. 

First, our written communications were pleasant. I exposed the facts really briefly to him, told him I was looking for an architect to CONSULT on the project. Condition which had been rejected by many architects I had met/dealt with in the past (it is almost like you are insulting them if you ask them to be consultants. "What? A consultant, you must be mistaken, I don't do that kind of stuff".). They all wanted to be paid a minimum of 50k to manage the project and quite frankly, I don't think it makes sense or that it is worth it for that matter. To this condition, he said yes no problem. That was the first miracle.

Second, our in-person meetings have been helpful, cordial and attitude free, which had never been the case with previous architects. Their ego was sometimes so FAT that if I said the even tiniest thing in disagreement with them, they would get TOTALLY offended. And that's because they tend to forget WHO is the client. They thought they were the client. But they were wrong, I was the client. Being considered as such by this architect was the second miracle.

Third, he told me when I asked about how he wanted to go about working together that "just pretend I am a doctor, call me when something is wrong or seems wrong and I'll come and help". Again that's sensible advice, because most things can be ironed out with the builder and if they can't, then it makes sense to have someone you can call and trust. This man understands also that money doesn't fall from the sky and that unless he is needed, there is no point making us spend money that he really doesn't deserve. That was the third miracle. 

Lastly, he has provided me with very useful advice and has followed up a lot of his verbal advice with sketches of what needs to be done. He told me he drew them rapidly but they are extremely well drawn and helpful to the builder whose joke has been "Are you sure he is an architect? He seems too nice!!!". 


To make this long story short(er), I am glad I have met him, I know I can rely on him to help me out when things appear a little complicated and I know he is not going to charge me an arm and a leg for his work.

Don't fix the blame, fix the problem.

Something went REALLY wrong today on the job site. It is kind of like: when it rains it pours. Yeah, it is pouring A BIG ass problem at the moment. So what went wrong? Well, a wall collapsed, sort of. I got the news this morning so I drove to the site as fast as I could. I knew which wall it was so I knew it wasn't part of the big structure, which is definitely a good thing (that's to look on the bright side). Anyways, I was expecting to see the wall actually collapsed into the pit but when I got there, everything looked fine. Our super nice builder was there and said "take a look at the wall". I am standing there and quite frankly, I wasn't seeing anything. The wall was still in place. But, as soon as I turned around and looked at it from a different angle, I was able to see the problem and it is pretty substantial. The wall is wanting to collapse so it is bending slowly but surely inside the pit, it will collapse, it is just a matter of time before it does. It has taken this sort of rotunda shape, it is rounding itself in. Totally not the look we are going for. 


Of course, now, we have to decide what needs to be done. To avoid any discussion about whose fault it is, we have asked the engineer to come and take a look. The engineer seems to already know why it happened and will produce a report. Problem is that neither of the trades wants to take responsibility. They are trying to figure out whose fault it is. To that, I simply want to say "I really don't give a fuck whose fault it is, I know it is not my fault so all I need to know here is that someone is going to fix this screw up and that I won't have to pay for any of it". These guys can work it amongst themselves, they can play the finger pointing game, but as far as I am concerned, I want this problem to be fixed and I don't want to hear ANYONE asking me for money. This is not my problem, I am not the mason, I am not the guy who backfilled, I wasn't even on the site when it happened. I am the client here and I am paying each and everyone of these guys to do the job properly and obviously, when a wall falls down, someone, somewhere, didn't do their job properly and needs to redo it FREE OF CHARGE. So it will go down as follows apparently, thanks to the builder's help: the mason has offered to redo the wall at no charge, someone has to come and excavate, and then the wall will be rebuilt with blocks and then supported properly in order to not collapse again. It will take a couple of days to fix this fucking mess. There is a solution to every problem, that's true, we just want to be sure that our wallet is not involved in any aspects of that solution.

While you were out... the sh*t hit the fan.

Unfortunately, I knew that as soon as I was going to say there was nothing to complain about, something would happen that would send us right back to square 1. And sure enough I was right. I am always right, especially when it comes to predicting arseholes' behavior. I always ALWAYS expect that given this really basic fact "once an arsehole, always an arsehole", it is only natural to expect that an arsehole will never leave you alone. Of course, I would like to be wrong once in while but I have to say that, thus far, I have never been wrong once. Very briefly, because there is no point even giving any details about what happened, our NFH (Neighbors-From-Hell) have risen from their recent inertia and are making our life difficult once again. It is almost like a superhero movie where Spiderman manages to get rid of the bad guy (or does he think) and just when Spiderman expects it the least, the bad guy comes back and he is now totally EVIL, has way more power and is really causing a lot of trouble. Yah, today the shit hit the fan big time in the form of:

-a) a nasty threatening letter
-b) bad/adversarial neighbor behavior on the job site

So what to do when shit hits the fan? Well, first, you have to assess if it is really as bad as you think and looking back, I am thinking, it's not so bad, it's just the same despicable behavior over and over again, so nothing we have not seen or dealt with before. When shit hits the fan, you deal with it and you keep going. I was at the job site today talking to our usual Russian crew and they just appeared really calm and kind of like "whatever, who gives a fuck, let's just keep working". I think that's the best approach. Of course, bad behavior always makes me seriously mad and I wish I could do or say something to get them to snap out of their arseholeness but it is IMPOSSIBLE. So basically, they can shove their threats up their asses and if they continue to try and bother us on site, they'll just be ignored. 

To my sister, with love.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Ocean, things are not going so well...

Namely, in France, where, beside the huge fucking fiasco-ey/explosive situation re: the retirement new laws and the demonstrators taking over the country (rightfully so I must say), my sister has also had her fair share of construction disasters. She had just moved into her newly renovated place and was experiencing the typical new house blisssssssss. Until one morning.... when she realized that hot water had become a missing element of her new life in her almost perfect new home. An expert came and stated "the tank is faulty and needs to be fixed/changed". Oh, ok... ahem...

Fixing the hot water tank would not be a problem if it was fully accessible (which it should be, being a very important piece of equipment) but the contractor had the genius - GENIUS I said - idea to hide the tank behind the drywall with no other way to access it than to rip the drywall out. Wow, that is so fucking brilliant... Whoohoo. Party on! Let's make an "elegant" cut in the drywall and see what's wrong with the hot water tank. I mean... Oh. My. God... how stupid is that? The contractor's first measure was to attached a plastic bottle (what a stylish solution. O_o !) on the wall, connected somewhat to the tank, in case water starts to burst out of it. That's really reassuring. Next step is to diagnose what's wrong with the tank. That could be very pricey and time consuming.

What is the point of this story? Construction is the same everywhere: generally, trade people and  architects don't really give a shit about their work. Of course, there are some exceptions: good architects exist, good contractors/trades too. It is just that finding them is like finding a needle in a haystack. We are very lucky we have found an amazing builder who has a team of very skilled workers. Sometimes though, even if they are good, they might still make mistakes that will cost money. Quite frankly, in my sister's situation, it would not have been difficult to plan an access door to the tank, but it was probably too much work thinking about it, too much work building it so the solution was "fuck it, let's do it this way and hope that the tank never fails". Yeah, in an ideal world, it wouldn't have but we live in the REAL WORLD, don't we? So why not plan solutions for the real world? It is not so fucking complicated!!! Now I wish my sister good luck with this, I hope she gets hot water soon because taking a freezing cold shower in November is NOT enjoyable and it was been quite cold over the past few days in Paris.

Nothing to rant about: it's a good thing, right?

As strange and unlikely as it may seem, I have had nothing to complain about over the past few days. Sure, I have had unpleasant surprises of some sort or I have had to deal with kind of annoying situations but nothing so big and irritating that I have to spend an entire post writing about it. I was talking to a very good friend of mine today (who is very helpful and supportive) and he said "you've got nothing to rant about, that's good, you should write about it". He is right. What the hell was I thinking???? As much as we "like" to focus on the adversity of things, it is always good to remind ourselves that good things DO happen and need to be talked about. Right?!?! So there, nothing outrageously wrong went down on the site this week, things are moving along quite nicely, walls are up. We are still waiting for the steel but it should come next week and then we will be picking up some speed and things should really start to happen. At least, the house is now out of the ground................

So because I am feeling happy about this relatively calm week, I want to post those pictures of design ideas that are a source of inspiration for our house. Because I didn't have to deal with anything ridiculous, I was able to do some research and came accross plenty of pretty/cool/inspiring things. Time well spent. Very well spent indeed.