Back from Break

By Laura Thomas

I had every intention of working on my Hospice Thesis over break. I packed several books to read, I was going to complete my program, do a schedule for the semester, do a site visit and analysis. Out of all of these, the only thing I managed to do was the site visit. Between family and friends, Christmas parties, New Year's celebrations, catching up on sleeping in and trying to relax my time was quickly eaten up.

The "work" time that I did have, I used on my parents house as they have decided to do a massive kitchen / family room renovation that includes tearing out a majority of the original house exterior bearing wall. My first recommendation to them was to hire professionals for the entire process and not to depend upon me or my drawings and definitely not to take on this massive remodel on their own. This is not to say that my parents are not intelligent or that my father is not capable of the labor that it would take to do this but that we as professional architects, interior designers, plumbers, electricians, and all other trades have the experience, knowledge base, and liability insurance to handle this project in a more efficient, timely manner to alleviate the stress from them.

I did do some ground work for them by doing the field measurements, photographing the interior and exterior of the house, modeling the house in Revit and doing several proposals for them to start to bringing their ideas to life. They were able to see the limitations of the small existing kitchen, consider additional ideas, and started to realize this was not going to be like the shows on HGTV where the remodel is done in a weekend.

We scheduled a meeting with Distinctive Designs out of Springfield, IL and spent several hours talking about ideas, looking at cabinets, taking about the length of the project, and the cost of the project. Everything we discussed was parallel to how I would take on a project with new clients but I knew they were out of my league. I don't design kitchens other than general layout. I've done million dollar homes but always consulted a kitchen expert to detail out the kitchen. My parents are going to be spending $50-60,000 on this renovation and they need the best to make it worth their money.

Mom came away from the meeting with a new appreciation of everything I had tried to explain but didn't believe until she heard it from them. I sent Distinctive Designs what drawings I had created to utilize in any way they could. The only down side to this meeting was that I noticed the designer had used the same idea or concept in every example she showed us. I realize that everyone has a style but I warned my mother not to fall for the designers vision but to make sure the designer realized my parents vision. To protect my parents from this I told them to send me everything to review, so I could throw my opinion in and perhaps give them some inside information.

I hope to write a follow up to this in a few months if the planning and design get implemented before my father's BBQ cookoff season begins. If they can't have it completed by June, it will have to wait until October when the season is over. Check back for updates.