The Pre-Construction Meeting, etc

So, Monday morning at precisely 9am, Kelvin Pierce and Alan Bennett arrived at the house for our pre-construction meeting.  Kelvin is the co-owner of Commonwealth along with this wife Susan, the architect. Alan is to be our project manager for the duration.  Celebrities they most resemble?  Hmm, thoughie, but glad you axed, Kelvin resembles a younger, circa "The Right Stuff", Scott Glenn, Alan, I'll have to think about, I have a character actor in mind but I can't remember what he was in...I digress. 

M had met and spoke to Kelvin on the phone, but neither of us had met Alan.  He's a decent guy, and we got a really good feeling about him.  We walked Alan throughout the house and around the perimeter of the house and we learned the following:  

1. They are going to need one of our garage bays as a staging area. We'd heard that before, but now it's official, so we have to do something with any stuff on that side of the garage.
2. This was a bit distressing, but not unexpected; they'll need access to our electrical junction box throughout the project, so we have to clear a space to it.  Unfortunately, it's behind a sectional sofa in the den, so the sofa, will need to be about four feet away from the wall for 3 months.
3. He suggested we pact up small knick-knacky items anywhere in the house that are difficult to clean, M is going to have to pack up his refridgerator magnet collection...it's rather extensive if you haven't seen it.   I am going to need to pack up all the stereo equipment, keeping only a dvd player and the cable box.  We'd just purchased a 46" Samsung LCD HD television for x-mas, and it's going back into the box for the duration...out comes the ancient (1994), but reliable Magnavox.  I am going to miss being able to read end credits.  
4. The construction won't extend out as far as we thought it would into our back yard, Alan said that they needed a 6 foot perimeter, which saves some of the plantings we were concerned about.   
5. They are having to replace a window on our second floor that interferes with the roofline of the new addition.  Alan said they are going to do this in the 2nd week of construction if the window is here.  We didn't realise it would be that soon.

They were there for the better part of 2 hours.  Kelvin had a checklist of items he was supposed to discuss with us.   Towards the end he went over the client emotion checklist.  He said that during the duration of this project (approx 3 months, they say), we will go through highs and lows.  He said that the two main LOW periods will be during the demolition, which is messy and will lead to dark thoughts of "WHAT THE $%&# HAVE WE DONE!!!", and the other period will  be when the drywall goes up, which is also messy, and he said that everyone has a similar reaction to the results, where they remark that the new space is much smaller than they thought it was.  

They left around 10:35am and we headed into work.

Monday night, we had broiled pork chops, whole wheat couscous and okra and tomatoes (One of the last 3 bags of okra from last years garden).  After, M cleaned up we packed up more china, glassware and kitchen crap.  There's one more nights work in the kitchen and it'll be done.

Have a great day everyone!

CC