Breaking Ground. It’s a literal action, tearing into the earth and tossing it aside into piles of topsoil, not-topsoil, rocks, etc., and an emotional moment. Like stepping up to the starting line of a long-distance race you’ve never run, you can feel everything you’ve done to get to that moment in your muscles and bones and mind. You can see some of what is to come, but then the course bends and you can only estimate what comes after that turn —you can’t know anything for certain, even if you’ve walked it before. So, you brace yourself as best you can, and you keep digging and piling and taking those first steps forward in the race nervous and excited and nervous again, anxious to build up speed while begging your heels not to dig in.
We’ve watched enough episodes of Grand Designs to know better than to guess at when we’ll be able to move in. “12 months,” the homeowners always say confidently. 15 months later, they shrug and hope the kitchen cabinets arrive soon. We won’t, then, guess at a race time, but we do know what we want the finish line to look like and that fuels us to move forward thoughtfully, and with greater care for detail than concern about timeliness.
What’s Next
Next, we’ll be pouring the footings and then the foundation, which includes a basement (hence the very deep hole). We’ll also be starting the excavation and foundation for the ‘barn,’ an accessibility-minded guest house for accommodating family and friends comfortably.
What’s On Our Minds
In particular? Exterior render (in the US, stucco) color. Stucco sounds southwestern, so we prefer the Brits way of saying it — i.e., render. The buildings that inspire us most are dirty. They carry a century or more of grim, and they carry it well. But that can also make it hard to color match against because what you’re seeing isn’t where it started and we aren’t trying to copy where something is today, but where it began a century or more ago. In picking a color, we’re trying to rewind time in a way that will age gracefully. It’s a little like washing linen. It looks good new, but so much better after a few runs through the cold cycle and time on the line drying in the sun.
We’re also coming up with tile patterns for floors and walls. More on that later, including my very rough sketches that make most people screw up their eyebrows and ask, “huh?”, to come soon.
- Pippa
July 20, 2024
Our Team:
Architect – Christie Billeci
Builder – Art of Building (Project Manager: Jane Irvine)
Surveyor – Philip Massaro