#setting up the foundations of the house before I start paint or furnish or whatever

[penisbutterjellytime]

Can't wait till next week is over so I can show the progress I've made for my senior thesis

[alottanothing]

Kismet

Summary: Evie prepares a meal for the stranger who helped her and finds herself more than a little smitten.

Previous Part: Hope

Word Count: 5707

Warnings: Language

Tag List: @ramilicious, @txmel, @edteche2, @gloriousdarkangelsworld, @diasimar, @xmxisxforxmaybe (Let me know if I missed you, or if you would like to be added to the tag list)

A/N: Okay, I almost didn't get this up today because I was up most of the night sewing kilts for Highland Weekend at the Ohio Renfiare. BUT I stayed awake and did my final read-through, so this should be mostly okay. I skipped a couple steps in my editing to get this up on time but I think, for the most part, it's okay. If you see a grammatical booboo, just ignore it, I'll get in here sometime this week with my other two editing steps and find it, then repost this. Capisce? Okay, cool...now. I hope you enjoy it, I also hope my trying to phonetically write Mer's accent doesn't get too annoying. I know you really shouldn't write accents, but I think it helps add to the characters. And I do try to keep it to a minimum so it doesn't get annoying. Thanks for the love the first part received last month! I know waiting so long between updates is a bit sad after weekly updates with LtR. But life is busy right now and once a month is all can guarantee.

Jonny did not know how to keep a house.

In fact, Jonny did not know how to do much more than drink, argue, and get into fights. He was nothing but a thorn in Evie's side—never mind how much she needed him for a place to lay her head. A necessary thorn was still a thorn. Given the opportunity, she would rip it out as soon as she could and dress the wound promptly so she was finally able to heal better. She stayed only because she had no other choice. And every time Jonny raised his voice or stumbled in reeking of alcohol and red-faced, Evie could hear her best friend's warning in her head. Cynthia had begged her not to go with him, but she hadn't listened.

Oh, how she wished she had.

Luckily, Jonny wasn't the kind of man who liked to stay home which eased the ache of the ever-present thorn in her side. Whatever money he did have, he spent out on the town—the town being New Orleans. Like Evie, Jonny had been born and raised in the Big Apple, the noise and the chaos was part of him. As such, he hadn't taken to the quiet suburban life Bridge City offered as well as Evie. She liked the quiet, easy flow of the sleepy town. Her housemate loathed his new home. He thrived in disarray, thus, he found a group of like-minded young men to run amok with in the neighboring metropolis every chance he got.

If Jonny had been any sort of amicable company, the notion of him leaving most every night to wreak havoc several miles away would have been upsetting. Thankfully, his penchant for city life meant a good portion of Evie's days were spent out from under Jonny's tyranny. The hours he was gone were blissful and calm, and she relished in them. Whether she was creating art or tending to chores around the old house, Evie didn't care as long as Jonny wasn't there—never mind how lonely the routine often was.

Evie had never gotten the chance to meet Jonny's maternal grandmother, though she suspected she would have liked to. Unlike her grandson, she seemed like any other sweet elderly woman judging by the furnishings she'd left behind. There were dozens of lace doilies, and table cloths with soft patterns, decretive china even, but it was the plethora of photos the old woman kept that told Evie she'd carried a kindly heart. All of them were kept in pristine albums or intricate frames; they were the only barbles that seemed to have been cleaned or dusted with any regularity which spoke of how much she must have treasured them. Evie loved those tiny trinkets and black and white memories. It didn't matter that they were not her legacy of family heirlooms to keep, she adored them anyway.

She couldn't count the number of times she'd replaced a broken frame that had fallen victim to Jonny's drunken belligerence or scrubbed tirelessly at a stain he'd left on the patterned tablecloths. It proved to be a hefty undertaking, but dwelling in the fantasies of someone else's history let her forget the grief of her own. She was willing to sacrifice a little elbow grease if it allowed her mind to roam away from the shadow that never really seemed to vanish.

For all the effort Evie put in on the interior, the cottage held little in the way of curb appeal. The porch was sunken in the middle, the paint was peeling off in chunks, and the yard was mostly weeds. Worst, however, was the screen door which squeaked so loudly, every dog in the neighborhood howled in protest every time someone crossed the threshold. The outside needed love that Evie simply didn't have the energy to lend. Despite the grit, however, the foundations were sturdy enough that she didn't worry. The cottage proved to be stronger than she looked—a feat Evie felt she had in common with the old house. And while it was a swell enough place to rest her head, it never truly felt like home. Home was somewhere safe, and as long as Jonny lived under that roof she wasn't safe. Not really.

Fortunately, Jonny wasn't home when Evie returned after her run-in with Mr. Shelton—Mer, she corrected herself with a hint of a giddy smile. Without her housemate there, her evening promised to be hopeful instead of lonely, and she wasted no time in figuring out what to make for dinner.

With her red pumps replaced by her worn-in slippers and her blue checkered apron secured around her waist, she set a pot of water to boil and dialed the phone conveniently located in the kitchen. Every evening she called her sister-in-law to pass the time and keep up on unimportant gossip back home; this time, however, Evie was excited to finally have some good news to share.

"You got the job, didn't you?" Cynthia Clarke asked on the other end, sounding hopeful. "I knew you would."

Evie grinned, still amazed how the sound of Cyn's voice always seemed to settle some of the ever-present anxieties buzzing in her head. She missed her friend so much.

"I didn't even say yes."

"Did you or did you not get the job?" Cynthia pressed.

"I did," Evie confirmed and her smile grew hearing her friend cheer on the other end of the phone.

"See! I knew it." Cynthia said. "My gut feeling is always right."

Evie rolled her eyes and shook her head fondly.

"I think I'm gonna like working there too, so that's good." she mused as she stood at the stove, eyeing the pot of water she’d set to boil.

"That's so great, Ev. I'm so proud of you." Cynthia paused before continuing. "So, what are you up to tonight? Avoiding Jonny?"

"Sorta," Evie nodded even though she knew her friend wouldn't see.

As she continued to watch her cooking pot of water she told Cynthia all about her trouble with Jonny's car and the man who'd been so kind to help her.

"Wait. You invited the stranger over who fixed the car?" Concern was heavy in Cyn's voice, and Evie half expected a lecture to follow.

Despite knowing each other since childhood, Cynthia had taken on the role of her protector since Evie's family was no longer in the picture. The war had claimed Evie's father, and brother—although they'd never found her brother, Jimmy after he disappeared behind enemy lines. Evie never lost hope that Jimmy would one day be found, Cynthia though, was certain her husband was never coming home. After Cyn’s brother, Charlie, died at Normandy Cynthia had difficulty believing anyone was going to make it home. As for Evie's mother, losing a child and her husband to the war was too much for her tender heart and she passed not long after. Ever since, Cynthia was overcome with the need to act as Evie's guardian.

"He wouldn't let me pay him," Evie explained. "So I'm making him dinner—it seemed like the least I could do."

"I suppose…." Cynthia didn't sound convinced, if anything she sounded slightly irritated there was no quick way for her to argue the logic. "Just be careful, Evie. You don't know this guy—he could be another Jonny Doyle. Or worse."

"He's not," Evie said quickly. She wanted nothing more than to tell her friend all about how benevolent Mer was, but she decided against it. Cynthia would only argue that point somehow.

A long pause followed, and Evie wedged the receiver between her ear and shoulder so her hands were free to work on the meal.

"So, what are you cooking?" This time, there was a hint of jest in her friend's tone when she spoke.

The art of cooking was one creative outlet that Evie struggled with, second only to music. In her youth, her mother did all the cooking—it was a passion of her mother's—thus Evie had done little more than watch in wonder as her mother whipped up meal after meal effortlessly. Breakfast she the meal she was probably best at, apple pies too, but anything beyond that Evie required a step by step guide to prepare. And even then she lacked confidence. Thankfully, when she'd fled south, she remembered to grab her mother's cookbook. It was a cumbersome tome with yellowed pages and notes scribbled into the margins: a piece of art itself cultivated over years of collecting recipe after recipe starting the moment her mother stepped off the boat that brought her from Ireland. And like a witch and her spellbook, Evie depended on it.

"Spaghetti with garlic bread," Evie admitted feeling as though the meal lacked a certain something.

Pasta was something she knew held a low degree of difficulty when it came to preparing. Surely she couldn't mess up pasta.

“Mmm, I can almost smell it,” Cynthia said.

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously,” Cyn replied. “You’re mom’s spaghetti recipe was always my favorite.”

A doleful smile pulled at the corners of her lips, thinking back to her mother happily cooking in the kitchen as she sang a Celtic tune. It seemed strange that those moments would never again play out, instead they’d become bittersweet memories Evie could only relive in her mind.

“Mine too,” she murmured, suddenly missing her family.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Evie’s mind roamed the dregs of her grief before blinking back into reality and the hope of something happy to come.

“I need to go, Cyn,” Evie told her friend with a sigh. “I don’t want to burn the garlic bread.”

Cynthia chuckled and said her goodbye, only after making Evie promise to call her in the morning to let her know how everything went.

With her second hand restored after hanging up, Evelyn reached for her mother’s cookbook to give the steps another look over to ensure she had done everything and added every herb and ingredient she was supposed to. She’d followed everything perfectly, even factoring in the little notes scribbled into the margins left there by her mother—those she smiled at fondly and traced the fading ink with her fingers. Everything was as it should be. Even so, without a taste, Evie knew the sauce she had prepared would never be as savory as what her mother made so effortlessly.

“You were the artist in the kitchen, Ma,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll stick to paper and canvas.”

For the smallest of a moment Evie thought she would hear the warmth of her mother’s laugh, and when it never came she sighed again, trying not to dwell on the shadows behind her. What mattered was the light ahead.

Despite her lack of confidence, the meal came together without any severe hiccups. The noodles were not overcooked, the sauce was a complementing mix of savory and sweet (though, as she had guessed after a tiny taste, was not nearly as good as her mother's) and the garlic bread was nicely golden. A small tingle of pride manifested in the form of a surprised, but satisfied, smile as she surveyed the dinner before her.

“Not bad, Ev,” she told herself, knowing her mother would have been delighted.

With the cooking done, Evie threw a glance over her shoulder to the clock mounted on the wall, triggering a surge of anxiety to bubble in her gut. Stranger, perhaps, was the amount of excitement coursing through her veins. It was as though all of her happiness was riding on whether or not she would see Merriell again. None of it made sense; the man was little more than a stranger. The coupling of nerves and delight was not a feeling that put her ill at ease, however. She trusted it. And it was that peculiar sensation that seemed to fuel her movements.

With a few minutes to spare, Evie wandered into the small bathroom to freshen up. She made sure her hair was still pinned the way she liked—up and pretty. Her make-up was holding up nicely despite the heat; all she needed was a fresh layer of lipstick to complete the illusion of a put-together young lady. It wasn't often she wore a dress with heels and a face of cosmetics—she liked to when the opportunity arose, but she was just as comfortable in a pair of old overalls and smudges of charcoal on her face.

Just as she wiggled back into her red pumps—discarding her worn-in house slippers with a couple of calculated kicks—a knock on the door signaled Merriells arrival. Immediately a grin curled onto Evie's lips and her heart began to pound an anxious-excited rhythm. A blush threatened to color her cheeks to give away the torrid muscle beating in her chest—her ever yearning heart already making leaps and bounds for a man she had known for mere hours.

Don't be ridiculous—she warned herself taking in a deep breath to curb the eagerness coursing in her veins. Untying her apron, she tossed it along with her discarded slippers and went to answer the door, taking one last deep breath to steady the fervor in her heart.

Merriell had changed and showered. The sweet bouquet of his shampoo coupled invitingly with the musk of the aftershave he'd chosen, making it difficult for Evie to keep from soaking in the scent he carried. His curls were still somewhat damp—too much moisture in the air to keep the heat from drying them on his way over—though they fought to spring back into their previous fluff. The grease-covered, jeans he'd been wearing had been replaced by a nice pair of tan slacks, and the buttoned shirt he wore was a soft shade of green that made his eyes glitter a deeper emerald as he stood under the glow of the porch light. All Evie could do was stare—utterly beguiled—every rational thought in her head lost to her.

Mer smirked, amused by her ogling. "Hiya."

Evie blinked, coming back to reality, suddenly feeling foolish, and uttered a nervous "hi" before swinging her arm to invite him inside.

"Come in."

Merriell's smile grew as he crossed the threshold, inhaling deeply. "Mm, smells tasty in here."

He gently forced a bottle into her hands as he passed on his way to investigate the savory smells in the kitchen.

"I wasn' sho what ya was makin', but I figured wine usually goes with anythin'."

"Oh, thank you." Evie glanced at the label, unable to read the French words printed there. "You didn't have to bring anything."

"I know," Mer shrugged, placing his hands in his pockets. "I just wanted to make a good impression."

There was something almost boyish when he smiled then—cheeks coloring pink ever-so-slightly—that made him even more of a mystery. One Evie was eager to solve.

"Well," she said placing the bottle on the kitchen table. "It should go perfectly with dinner."

His expression lost a hint of its boyish charm as it grew into a look of delight.

"Make yourself at home," Evie gestured vaguely between the table and the sofa in the living room as she ventured to the cabinet where the stemware was kept.

She placed two crystal glasses on the table along with the wine and retraced her steps to fetch some of the nicer china Jonny's grandmother had kept. Mer watched her, his gaze, gentle and attentive, and a little bit yearning as she methodically sat the table.

"Need help with anythin'?" he asked finally.

"Nope," She replied with a smile. "Everything is almost ready."

The hearty red sauce on the stove was beginning to boil again which told her it was hot enough to serve, and Evie eyed the pot with scrutiny, praying silently her attempt at cooking would go over well.

"I'll pour us a glass then," Mer announced.

"Great, lemme…" Evie spun to fish for the corkscrew in the drawer of misfit utensils, finding it, only to turn to see Merriell holding his lighter against the neck of the dark bottle just below the cork.

Before she could ask, a loud pop sounded, causing her to jump as the cork went flying.

"Oh my goodness!" she laughed, a little surprised, a little impressed. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Mer shrugged, a sly expression on his features, and left her question unanswered.

"How much ya want?" He held the open bottle over the top of her glass, waiting patiently.

"Enough," she said, tossing him a coy smirk without really meaning to.

He bit his lower lip as he smiled, chuckling under his breath when he poured a generous glass of red wine for each of them. She thanked him as he took his seat and grabbed his plate to dish out their dinner.

"How much pasta would you like?"

Mer's face lit with charm and mischief as he turned to face her.

"Enough," he grinned.

The expression on his face was playful, his smirk devious and amused by his own response and his cheekiness settled warmly in Evie's stomach. Not only did she revel in it, but she also played into his whimsy and scooped as much spaghetti into his plate as she could before coupling it with the savory sauce and a slice of bread.

Despite being only strangers, the atmosphere that bloomed that evening was not marked by any hint of bashfulness, instead, it was relaxed and amiable. Warmth that Evie had longed to dwell in again—that unrefutable kindness she'd lost with the passing of her family—flowed uninhibited from the man sitting adjacent to her. His conversation was cautious but still jovial and genuine. It was the first time since running south Evie could recall what life felt like without grief and fear weighing upon her. Merriell was a stranger, but she felt safe with him. Jonny had never made her feel that way.

"So," Evie spoke as she twirled the last bit of pasta with her fork. "What is it you do, Mr. Shelton?"

Mer cast her a look of disapproval—no doubt in retaliation to being addressed so formally—before his features softened back into a neutral, yet somehow still amused side smirk.

"Nothin' too excitin'," he stated vaguely. "The odd jobs are what I like ta do the most—like fixin' ya car this aftah noon."

Without really meaning to, Evie leaned forward, resting her elbow and chin on the table, utterly enchanted by the beautiful stranger at her table.

"You like to get your hands dirty, huh? Fixing things?" she was entirely too intrigued with the thought of what he could do with his hands.

He shrugged, suddenly modest after a foray of playfully arrogant smirks and glances. It made him abruptly twice as charming.

"I've always had a knack for it, I guess." Merriell finished the food on his plate with the help of his remaining garlic bread to mop up the sauce still left on his dish.

"What about you?" he asked after chewing. "Ya workin' anywhere?"

All at once, a proud smile lit up Evie's face. After all the excitement of seeing Merriell again, she'd almost forgotten about her good news.

"Actually, I just got a job today—the general store downtown, Southern Comfort."

Mer's face lit up too, "Birdie's place?"

"Yeah, you know it?" Of course, he knows it! She thought, Bridge City's population was slightly less than the number of people who lived in a single district back home in New York. Everyone knew everyone else.

"Sho do—I was practically raised there…ole Birdie's like a second mothah to me."

"Really?" Evie found a great deal of comfort in that notion. In fact the more she thought on it, the more she realized how similar the old woman and Mer were; they radiated the same magnetism and sincerity.

"Mmhm," he nodded, his eyes focusing elsewhere as the veil of memories danced across the contours of his features. "My mama used ta work there…once upon a time…"

"Does she still work there?"

Merriell's face lost a hit of its levity and he swallowed as though to fight off the onslaught of sudden emotion threatening to cast a shadow onto his expression.

"No…" he said softly. "She—uh—she died, about a year ago."

Shit!

Abruptly, sick knots twisted into Evie's stomach, feeling callous, but understanding of the quiet misery he hid under layers of charm and arrogance.

"Merriell, I'm…I'm sorry—I didn't mean…"

He met her eyes and cast her a quick smile—doleful, but enough to ease the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"It's okay," he reassured her, reaching for his glass of wine and taking a good gulp before changing the subject. "Birdie's great—you'll enjoy workin' for her."

"I hope so…" Evie said softly, still too embarrassed to meet Mer's glance longer than a second or two.

For the first time all night the atmosphere they shared felt cumbersome—perhaps more melancholy—than she'd wanted it to get. Evie sat, worrying her bottom lip, her fingers toying with a loose thread in the table cloth as she stole quick glances through her lashes in Mer's direction.

He was nursing the alcohol in his glass with the same sadness she'd caught plaguing him as he sat at the bar hours ago. And while Evie was eager to know if his grief stemmed only from the loss of his mother, or perhaps more, Merriell was still too much of a stranger to warrant such questions. It didn't matter how easy it was to be near him, she had not earned the right to know his narrative.

A soft sigh broke past her lips as she fought to find a way to properly allay the gloom that was quickly ruining an otherwise wonderful evening. It wasn't until her eyes found their desert sitting on the counter, waiting to save the day, that she perked up.

"Got any room for apple pie?" Evie asked with a hesitant smile. She hoped he wanted to stay long enough to have a slice, though she would not have blamed him for wanting to leave.

Immediately Mer perked up too, the shadows on his features retreating with the promise of something sweet.

"I was countin' on it—seems as how you promised a slice earlier," he said with a boyish grin.

When she stood, he did too, helping clear away their dinner plates, and letting them soak in the sink to be washed later. Evie cut them each a slice of apple pie and the delight on Mer’s face made her smile too seeing him lick his lips as his grin continued to grow. Catching that flash of his tongue was like a bolt of hot lightning striking her without warning; a blush rose so quickly on her cheeks Evie had to look away to keep the blunder a secret. Thankfully, the pie was more than enough to hold Merriell’s attention away from her.

“Mmmm… Almost looks too good to eat,” he said ogling the desert in front of him.

When Evie chanced a look his way, the expression on his face caused her to chuckle, “‘oughta be, I made one for my pa every year for his birthday since I was nine. It’s probably the only thing I have any confidence in making in the kitchen.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Mer quipped as he loaded his fork with as much pie as he could.

The moment he took a bite, his brows creased, and eyes closed as he chewed painfully slow. Those few seconds were like agony. Evie’s heart was pounding in her chest with so much anticipation she feared she might faint as she watched him sample the only thing she could actually make that was worth a damn.

“Fuck me, if that ain’t the best apple pie I’ve evah had the pleasure of tasting.”

A somewhat nervous, but relieved chuckle sounded in the back of Evelyn’s throat as she watched Merriell shovel a larger bite of pie into his mouth.

“Mmm… Yep. God damn delightful.”

“Stop,” Evie said sheepishly, suddenly afraid he was overselling his reaction to keep from hurting her feelings.

“No,” he wiped his mouth and leaned across the table to meet her gaze with a sincere expression that stole away all the doubt writhing in her stomach.

“I mean it. If I wasn’t so full of pasta, I’d eat that whole damn pie right now.”

“Well,” Evie grinned softly, trying not to let her blush color her cheeks too obviously. “Thank you. And you’re welcome to take the rest of it when you go.”

Excitement took form on his face with a smirk that was sweet but roguish all at once—a sort of debonair charm that amplified his magnetism—as if his bright eyes dark curls and razor-sharp jaw did not make him alluring enough already. Again she had to look away knowing the pink in her cheeks would be too strong to combat.

“Imma have ta take ya up on that offah. An’ I’ll be thinkin’ ‘bout you every time I cut me a slice.”

That blush was unstoppable; her heart was suddenly so smitten, it felt as though butterflies were fluttering merrily in her stomach. She felt weightless with warmth and hope swelling in her bosom, fearing any slight breeze would carry her off. It was ridiculous how at ease Evie felt sitting there eating pie with a complete stranger. The conversation had been easy all night; even when it had delved into less savory topics he still made her feel comfortable. Evelyn had forgotten what it was like to be in the company of a man who wasn’t easy to anger, who was genuine and kind and wanted only to live in the moment.

For a time the whimsy of the atmosphere faded as the warmth in her heart ached, suddenly missing her brother James and Cynthia's brother Charlie. Both of them were good men, kind and genuine—like Merriell—but they had been swallowed by the rages of war. Brave young men were lost forever, while a man like Jonny Doyle was still alive How was that fair?

No matter how pleasant her thoughts could be, they always fell back to the grief that plagued her. She sighed, deeply, pushing those intrusive memories back into the depths of her mind so she could find joy once more in the moment with a kind stranger.

When Merrill finished his plate he made a beeline for the sink full of soaking dishes.

“Oh, no,” she said jumping to her feet. “I can do those.”

Merriell, however, shook his head. “Uh-uh, you did the cookin’, I can do the cleanin’.”

When Evie tried to argue, Mer simply shook his head, his grin amused but determined as he kept scrubbing the dirty dishes.

“Let me help at least,” she suggested. “I’ll dry and put them away.”

Before he could protest, she snatched the freshly rinsed dish from his hand and began wiping away the droplets of water clinging to the porcelain surface, throwing him a smug smirk that made him chuckle.

“Alright,“ he smirked.

She watched him for a moment not really paying attention to her task as he scrubbed the old plates clean, overcome with a blissful vision of peaceful domesticity. It made her stomach fill to the brim with whimsy and her heart was fluttering again; had this stranger bewitched her already? Or did what she feel bubbling lightly in her gut like a seltzer stem from an end to her loneliness—even if it was only for a few hours? Evelyn didn’t know. Nevertheless, she was intrigued with a profound feeling and she wanted to dwell in it for as long as she could.

Occasionally as he would hand a freshly washed dish her way, his calloused fingertips would brush against her skin, igniting a spark she didn’t know how to react to. It was more than an amicable tingle racing from the tips of her fingers right to her heart. And each time they touched, Merriell would cast her a gentle smile that held nothing more than his inherent charm and magnetism. She wondered if he felt it too, or if her need for companionship was playing a dirty trick on her.

When the dishes were all back in their usual places—the night drawing to a close—Evelyn realized she was not ready to say farewell to her Beautiful Stranger. She longed to stay up all night just chatting with him, she did not care about what, Evelyn only wanted to stay encompassed a while longer in the blissful warmth he brought into her life. Once he was gone, all she would be able to do was stay up and ponder the significance of those little touches and the sparks they brought.

Thankfully, Merriell lingered on the old rickety porch, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto his plate of leftover pie, seeming to stall their inevitable departure.

“Well,” he said with a grin. “Thank you for invitin’ a stranger ovah for dinna.” He paused, glancing at the leftover pie in his hand. “Can’t recall ever having a better plate of pasta, an’ nothin’ evah gonna beat this pie.”

Evie quickly looked at her feet to hide another blush.

“It was the least I could do,” she told him before looking back to meet his eyes. “You have no idea how much of a savior you were this afternoon…”

A glint of concern flashed in his eye, his brows beginning to crease as his unspoken question lingered between them.

She thought about telling him—telling him how Jonny was nothing more than a throne in her side, and how much she cherished Merriells company—but Mer was still a stranger. It wasn’t right to unload so much onto someone she’d only known for a few hours.

Before Mer could offer any reply, the sound of screeching tires stole all their focus as an old wagon pulled along the curb—narrowly missing a collision with the mailbox. The rowdy passengers were laughing and shouting loud enough even before the door opened to let Jonny stumble out. He staggered on drunk feet and screamed a handful of profanities to his buddies in the car which made them all roar with laughter.

It was only after the wagon full of hooligans pulled away that Jonny began to stagger towards the house, and it was exactly then that Evie’s fluttering heart became consumed with panic.

She and Mer watched him cross the yard, unseen, both frozen: Evie in fear and Merriell in confusion. Jonny’s intoxication level inhibited him from taking notice of them until he was at the base of the steps leading onto the porch. Immediately, his eyes narrowed and he frowned.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Jonny, this is Mr. Merriell Shelton,” Evie said quickly, willing her voice not to shake.

The Doyle’s were not known for their hospitality, nor were they known to trust most people. Especially strangers.

“He helped me this afternoon with a bit of trouble I was having,” she explained vaguely, hoping to thwart any more suspicion. “I made him dinner to say thank you—he’s just about to leave.”

Jonny eyed Merriell, seizing him up as best he could through drunken lenses. Mer stood his ground, eyeing him back with a subtle intensity that never so much as cracked under Jonny’s scrutiny.

Finally, being the better man, Mer held out his hand in a friendly manner, “nice ta meet ya.”

Jonny cast a prolonged glare at Merriell's open hand, his brows furrowed and part of his lip hiked up in a sort of snarl. Instead of returning the kind gesture, Jonny made a show of spitting at his feet before tossing his heavy leer at Evelyn.

"Evie, do not invite any more strangers into my house. I don't care if they are dying." He shoved past them both, purposely bumping Mer's shoulder (most likely in hopes to start something) muttering as he went: "I don't trust any of these filthy southerners."

Shock sent Evie's jaw slack; this time the redness in her cheeks was a symptom of embarrassment instead of infatuation. She should have known Jonny would say something rude and uncouth. Without another thought, she grabbed Mer by his sleeve and pulled him across the lawn until they stood next to his truck parked along the curb.

"I am so sorry about him," she said, crossing her arms and glaring at Jonny's house, ashamed and angry.

Mer shrugged as he placed his partially eaten pie in the passenger seat through the open window before fixing his hands in his front pockets.

"Ya boyfriend's a bit of an asshole."

"He is not my boyfriend," Evie corrected vehemently. "I don't think he knows that though. I'm just staying here until I can figure some things out."

Merriell was quiet a moment, nodding silently. It seemed as though he was taking his time processing the whole situation. There was compassion on his face and behind his eyes, but it was guarded somehow. Evie caught it though and she was grateful when he didn't ask the questions plainly forming in his mind.

"Well," he said finally, his tone light as one corner of his mouth quirked into a grin. "Since he ain't ya othah half, I feel more inclined ta leave ya with this…"

Gently, Merriell caressed her upper arm as he leaned forward to plant a tender kiss on her cheek. He let his lips linger slightly longer than was common for such an act, that all at once wove a new hopefulness into her heart.

"Dinna was swell," he added as he pulled away, his smile somehow more charming than it had been all night. "Hope I see ya again, Evie."

"Me too," she murmured.

Evie watched as he got in his truck to leave, her hand held to the cheek he'd graced with his kiss. And when he drove away, it took everything inside of her to keep from running after him.

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Rj Refurbishment Solutions.

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Little Orangery Conservatories And Glass Conservatories.

Newly Built Houses.

How The Home Improvement And Also Repair Solutions In London Work.

A refurbishment will certainly offer you the possibility to modernise your house. A much better use of room will certainly permit you to transform the format and produce better living locations. Our professional residence refurbishment group operate In Ealing And West London.

Rj Repair Providers.

Our full style and also develop solution is a worry-free choice due to the fact that we care for whatever for you-- task managing the work from perception to conclusion. If your London residence was built in a certain age like Tudor, Georgia or Victorian as an example, after that you need to try to restore maintaining the original personality. Particularly in visit their website as well as throughout London you will discover these design residential or commercial properties. Have a read of a few of our post that reveal you just how to carry out remodellings on a home for its period.

What should you not say to a contractor?

https://trusted-builders.co.uk/cellar-conversions/ Should Never Say to a Contractor'I'm not in a hurry' 'I know a great roofer/electrician/cabinet installer!' 'We had no idea this would be so expensive' 'Why can't you work during the thunderstorm/snow/heat wave?' 'I'll buy my own materials' 'I can't pay you today. 'I'll pay upfront' 'I'm old school.

We were very lucky to have actually selected her and we won't do an additional repair if she's not readily available. From your ceilings to your floor, from your furnishings to your designs; all element of your home will fade as well as degrade over time due to a range of variables. Sunshine can create your designs to discolor and also routine footfall will certainly put on down your flooring material. At C W Refurbishments Ltd, we can finish any kind of repairs in your house, store or workplace; leaving you with a modern style and layout.

Beginning Your Task.

When you hire Sandarov for your house refurbishment task, you are putting your residence in good hands. We belong to the Build Assure system, which insures your home in the highly not likely event that something fails. We are likewise members of the Federation of Master Builders and the European Building contractors Confederation - evidence of our outstanding credentials within the structure profession. https://trusted-builders.co.uk/new-build/ has additionally be validated under the government's Depend on Mark scheme. From the original style drawings to the last lick of paint, we will certainly exist to ensure that absolutely nothing is entrusted to possibility.

How do I find local builders?

How to find a reliable builder 1. Ask around for builder recommendations. 2. Look at boards at building sites. 3. Search online for highly-rated builders. 4. Choose a reliable builder from trading associations. 5. And one final big no-no to remember when choosing a reliable builder 6. Once you've found your builder.

Tiny Orangery Conservatories And Glass Conservatories.

Whilst much improvement work will certainly not call for preparation permission, big expansions and also job to provided buildings or those in designated locations may-- if in any kind of question check with your neighborhood planning division. Whilst not important, it is wise to get a warranty on your renovation. A guarantee is a plan which will certainly cover your residence against defects in its style, products or construct quality, in addition to any kind of issues that take place as a result of these problems. Common expenses range from ₤ 500-1,500 relying on the project.

Such is the online reputation of our structure and decoration service, we function thoroughly throughout Greater London and also the house regions - reviving several of one of the most respected houses in the country. With the house remodelling bought as well as the architectural problem examined, the following task will certainly be to develop a style for the restoration as well as any kind of extensions you might have prepared. Many people remodeling a house locate that creating a style for an existing house more difficult than starting from scratch. There is typically superior put on residences in need of modernisation. We'll be happy to help you set up a consultation and offer you better information about your project.

How do you tell a contractor you are unhappy?

When talking with the contractor, explain why you are unhappy with his work, and get him to sign a document detailing the solutions that you have both agreed on, so that if he flakes, you have written proof. Remember to avoid writing an online review before talking with your contractor.

Every one of our tradespersons are certified, guaranteed, and also covered to deal with any kind of structure tasks you might have. You can rest assured we'll treat your home with treatment as well as respect.

Put your home in our risk-free hands, as well as we will certainly finish your refurbishment task to the highest possible standard. In the case of a lot of renovation and renovation tasks, an element of architectural modification will certainly be necessary in order to make your home suitable for modern-day living.

As experts in the trade, All Stage Building and construction Ltd know what it takes to strike the best balance in between the two, creating an environment that helps both team and homeowners. At Sandarov, we take a structured, detailed approach to domestic structure and also repair works.

The specialists who will certainly manage your renovation job are 100% insured, experienced structure specialists that will certainly provide you valuable results in a short time period. We additionally undertake tiny jobs industrial refurbishments across North Wales and the North West of England, we are a team of polite skilled tradesmen that work very closely together to get the job done. We enjoy what we do and we look to finish the job right, promptly as well as on budget plan with extremely delighted consumers thanking us for it. Treatment houses are crucial for our neighborhood and also give numerous senior individuals with the possibility to enjoy their later years in a place they feel comfortable, secure, and also secure. As a result of the different treatment demands of each person, the building space requires to fulfill particular specifications, both in regards to layout as well as functionality.

You might include a house extension, loft conversion or knock via the existing format and have a completely refurbishment of your house. If you're serious about your renovation project, we will certainly give a totally free study and quote of the task. This will give you a clearer concept of what to expect in terms of expense as well as timescale.

If we identify the demand, we can carry out a problem study on the residential or commercial property before the works are even prepared as well as certainly began, this will certainly help identify the range of the job required for the restoration. Jeffery and also Wilkes are experts in residence improvements across London and also West London suburban areas.

There were numerous points that we had to send them record important to get back at a conditional authorization.

The good news is for us they returned our downpayment which was substantial.

I then asked our salesman if she would certainly call as well as allow us recognize when the house was going on the marketplace as we had figured out another method to still buy the house.

The house didn't also have a "Up for sale" join it because we understand a person that lives in that community as well as they told us so.

The house got on the marketplace less than 24 hr and had a deposit on it and also entering into contract the really next day.

I assumed the salesperson was absolutely authentic and also wanted us to have your home however she failed to call us and also we saw our desire decrease the drain.

We can additionally refurbish any product of furnishings to make them look as good as brand-new! We are based in South Croydon, yet we can cover all of Chelsea, Kensington, Hammersmith, Belgravia and the rest of London.

Obviously, this will vary depending on the nature of the job. Jeffery and also Wilkes is an accredited design as well as build firm encompassing a complete design to completion solution, inspiring and supporting customers to produce amazing spaces and also safe settings to live, function and play. If you decide to select Jeffery and also Wilkes to accomplish your London home renovation project, we will after that designate you a Task Manager.

Decrease, underpinning, or stacking job to the existing foundations can be a particular issue. If side spread has actually happened in the wall surfaces and roof covering, steel connections could be needed. In exceptionally unpredictable home remodellings, the insertion of steel props, beam of lights or scaffold will stop additional collapse. It truly does pay to spend a couple of months living in or at the minimum hanging out in, your home prior to generating a layout. This will certainly allow you to see where as well as when all-natural light gets in your home, which format arrangements job and also which don't and also enables you to accumulate a suggestion of exactly how the house might best benefit your way of life.

Who are the top 10 home builders?

The top 10 residential construction companies for 2020 1. D.R. Horton. 2019 revenue: $17.4 billion. 2. Lennar Corp. 2019 revenue: $20.6 billion. 3. PulteGroup. 2019 revenue: $9.9 billion. 4. NVR. 2019 revenue: $7.2 billion. 5. KB Home. 2019 revenue: $4.5 billion. 6. Taylor Morrison. 2019 revenue: $4.6 billion. 7. Meritage Homes Corp. 2019 revenue: $3.6 billion. 8. Toll Brothers. 2019 revenue: $7.2 billion. More items•

We're committed to providing our consumers with a reliable as well as exact service; we intend to be one of the most trusted repair company in London. That's why we always aim to finish your task on schedule and also within your spending plan.

[singapore-movers]

10 Best Office Moving Tips You Must Know by Vincent Movers in Singapore

Moving to a new office area is just as worried a procedure as shifting to a brand new home. You’ve got huge, bulky furniture, difficult to p.C. electronics, and more than one room really worth knock-knacks to get packed up. And usually, there’s now not an entire lot of time to get it all completed (you may not precisely close down operations for per week to kind matters out). An office relocation is lots of paintings, no matter the size of your employer. If you’re looking to navigate one, observe these hints to make the technique cross as smoothly as possible. Hire a professional office mover Singapore easy to move all things of office without any damages.

Start planning early

There’s no such factor as “winging it” when it comes to transferring to a new office area. You must start the planning manner early, divvying up who may be doing what, how they’ll be doing it, and whilst it is going to be getting accomplished. Otherwise, you may discover yourself scrambling on the final minute, and nobody desires to be in the office all night throwing staplers in a field or trying to parent out how to get a dozen large printers geared up for transport. In addition to planning how you’ll get everything geared up for transferring day, you’ll also need to have a plan in vicinity for wherein things will cross when you arrive at your new workplace space. Use a blueprint to figure out office and not unusual area layouts and discern out any new needs you would possibly have. Figure which you’ll probably must set aside as a minimum some months to effectively plan your office moving, and more than one months to absolutely get the entirety set up and prepared to cross. And don’t forget to plot in advance for your moving finances, it’s critical to realize how a whole lot you need to spend.

Appoint a move manager

Even if you’re going to be dividing up the work, it’s nevertheless important to have a designated flow manager who can facilitate and observe up on every step to make certain that things are progressing. Usually the excellent character for that is an administrative assistant, but you may also choose to appoint someone who has past enjoy with commercial relocations.

Do research to locate the great shifting agency

We usually suggest gaining knowledge of and getting prices from at least three expert moving agencies earlier than booking your flow, however due to the fact an office pass can get very expensive, very fast, you’re higher off looking at a couple more than that. If you've got the price range for it, plan to rent a full carrier shifting organization they’ll do all of the packing for you, as well as the loading, unloading, and unpacking. Ask round for guidelines of transferring agencies that have experience with workplace relocations, on account that you’ll want to make certain you only lease an employer with a demonstrated track file of fulfillment in this area. To get the most correct quote possible, have a representative from every corporation come to your workplace and see the scope of the work. With jobs like this, it’s no longer enough to explain what wishes to be completed over the phone.

Any shifting organisation you rent for your commercial relocation must be certified and insured. Check out our transferring employer listing for a vetted list of respectable movers.

Assign all of us the project of packing up their very own table

While you may be having a moving business enterprise come in to take care of the large stuff, it'll nonetheless be a major help to have everybody answerable for their very own desk space. Give your group of workers a heads up on while they’ll need to have their desks packed up via, and try to inspire them to perform a little bit at a time so nobody is trying to get all packed up on the last minute. You may need to just give your team a couple hours of break day at the day earlier than the pass to get their desks in order.

Don’t forget I.T.

One of the most important complications inherent in moving to a brand new office area is disconnecting and reconnecting all your tech. As quickly as the date of your circulate, have your I.T. branch draft a plan for shifting all of your office’s technical equipment. This includes computers, servers, and phones, as well as your facts and internet plans. This is a huge job, and one that you may not outsource to the professional movers, so it’s critical that your crew gets to paintings on it as early as possible. If there are portions of device that you’ll be getting rid of, set up a plan for recycling or donating them. Human-I-T, Computers with Causes, and the National Cristina Foundation are all non-profit organizations that accept used tech and donate them where they’re needed maximum. In some cases, the gadget does not even have to be in contemporary operating condition. If you’re planning to recycle un-needed gadgets instead, take a look at the EPA’s assets on where and how to do it right.

Get a cope with on constructing regulations

Unless your organization owns the building you're moving out of or in to, you will want to get a complete breakdown of all building policies round relocating. It can be which you are handiest allowed to move for the duration of non-commercial enterprise hours or that you need to install a special request to use the provider elevator. Get these regulations from building management as early as you could, because it will dictate the logistics of shifting day.

Put cope with change orders in vicinity

It’s better to start updating documents together with your new address earlier instead of later, so place your orders for new business cards, letterhead, envelopes, go back labels, etc. right when you recognise your new address. Make positive to replace your customers as well, in particular if they regularly ship stuff to you. It’s much higher to have all your updated documents on hand earlier than your pass than to threaten going days or even weeks without them on your new space.

Be diligent approximately labeling your boxes

Labeling your containers is critical in all moves, however especially while you’re shifting to a brand new office. To hold operations jogging at some stage in and after the circulate, you’ll want to cautiously label every single field so you’re not searching out things like more printer paper or toner simplest whilst you really need them. For most efficiency, label every container with a location and a number, and hold a corresponding spreadsheet that lists each box variety and the items which can be inner of it. It’s a bit more work, however it will save you a ton of time whilst you’re getting settled on your new place and it will likely be easy for everybody to access.

Make sure the entirety will fit

While you could intend to bring that large breakroom refrigerator with you, the dimensions of the kitchen area to your new breakroom won't allow for it. Instead of losing time, energy, and money on transporting items that aren’t going to paintings in your new office space, get the dimensions of your largest objects and compare them to the measurements of your next location. This applies to things such as your convention room tables, massive electrical device, and whatever else that necessitates quite a bit of space. Hopefully you've got chosen a brand new workplace that allows for the lodging of your current furniture and tech, however in case you haven’t, you’ll want to understand that before passing in not after. Office mover moves and packs all things and marks the packed box because it is easy to relocate the things to another place.

Try to move some non-necessities on your own first

Simplify transferring day by way of transporting the little stuff as you could, furnished there’s an overlap of timing together with your new lease. You could make the entire transferring technique simpler via taking over objects like plant life and bulk workplace supplies on your very own, especially if you can get them set up in their new locations earlier than you officially flow in.

Celebrate your new digs

An office relocation is traumatic on absolutely everyone, along with your employees. As a “thank you” for anybody’s cooperation in making it manifest and as a manner to have fun your new area, finances in a small celebration for after the flow. You don’t need to be absolutely installed yet, and it doesn’t have to be whatever major even a mid-day party luncheon sometime in the first week after shifting will show your personnel how a whole lot you respect their help and welcome in thrilling things at the new office.

Moving to a new office is a lot of paintings, but possibilities are you’re doing it for an amazing reason. Plan ahead as a whole lot as you may in order that to-dos don’t slip through the cracks, and hire your move supervisor very early on within the method. Knowing that someone has a cope with on all of the transferring elements will help alleviate stress and keep matters going for walks on track.

Are you looking for a professional movers company for your Business, Contact Vincent Movers, your Singapore movers and packers expert at +65 9232 5581 or email to enquiry@vincentmovers.com.

Move your house, office, piano safe and secure by the experienced professionals in Singapore at the best price.

Visit: http://www.vincentmovers.com/

[propertyhold]

Designing Olivebridge Cottage 2.0: Part 2!

So, you may recall that last time we discussed Olivebridge Cottage, we had a plan to kinda-sorta rebuild the house and it looked more or less like this:

This period was the closest this job probably ever came to feeling manageable: we had the town and the engineers on our side, the homeowners were happy with the direction, and the tasks ahead were difficult but not that difficult. It’s a little one-story house—a few more months and we’d be out.

Then the homeowners threw a second floor master suite into the mix. Which they wanted me to design. In approximately 5 minutes. Two weeks before we were set to start construction on a plan that had remained unchanged for a few months.

At the time, the logic went like this: after spending so much time and so much money on this house, reselling the house at a price that bore any resemblance to the amount invested would be somewhat impossible if the finished product didn’t really differ materially from the original house. Adding a whole bedroom and bathroom would turn the house from a 2 bed/1 bath to a 3 bed/2 bath, essentially shifting it into a different bracket of real estate. Obviously the upfront building cost would be higher, but the homeowners felt that it was the right move.

And so, the second floor. Maybe it sounds easy to you. It did not sound easy to me. It didn’t even necessarily sound fun to me, because I think I’m more of a renovator at heart. I like working within the constraints of an existing structure. Pulling a design out of thin air…that’s a whole different thing.

And you can’t just plop a second floor onto a house and call it a day! You have to rethink everything. For starters, stairs! Stairs take up a lot of space. You also have to think about using that new space efficiently. You have to think about plumbing paths and electrical requirements and septic systems and all the codes. And you have to think about what that new house is going to actually look like! And, in my case, without really any experience to lean on, I had to do it in a really short amount of time and have it approved by two homeowners, a team of engineers, and the fine folks at the local building and zoning department. And then I had to be able to build it.

All that being said, it’s not like I could just propose/build whatever. Every design job has constraints, and often those constraints guide the design much more restrictively than your imagination does. As somebody with some educational background in architecture, and certainly a personal interest, my mind immediately went to all kinds of things I’ve seen or read about. The Eames Case Study House, constructed from factory components in a matter of days. The stark geometry of the Bauhaus. The undulating concrete forms of Saarinen and Niemeyer. Those incredible walls of glass and rich wood finishes and the indoor-outdoor dialogue they create that Neutra did so well. It’s easy to get caught up.

And then you come back down to reality, because these were my constraints:

Experience: at this stage, we didn’t even have a builder. Obviously I can’t literally, single-handedly construct a house, so I knew I’d be working in conjunction with a contractor, but we didn’t know which contractor. New construction is somewhat uncommon around these parts, so there really just wasn’t room to gamble on some complicated or experimental design. This house needed to be simple and straightforward to construct.

Cost: I had to be able to build it inexpensively. New construction is never cheap, but there’s a big difference between a simple, traditional stick-frame structure and a complicated one that requires steel supports or tons of custom components or hard-to-source materials. Time is money when working with contractors, going back to the ease-of-building point. Cost is also part of what eliminated prefab as an option: everything I found was priced much higher than we hoped to be on a cost-per-square-foot basis, not to mention really tiny!

Footprint: partially because we were working with most of an existing structure, and largely due to zoning regulations and setback requirements, we essentially had to maintain the footprint of the existing house. More on that in a second!

Site: this site was somewhat challenging. You have the beautiful wooded areas in the back and off to the side with big mature trees and boulders and the wonders of nature, but then across the street and next door you have houses. Two of the three are currently in states of disrepair (and even fixed up, it’s not like you want to highlight neighboring houses when you have nature as an alternative!), so I had to try to maximize the appealing views and minimize exposure to the less desirable ones.

Practicality: even with the additional floor, the house still isn’t particularly large. You can dream all day about the architecture of a space, but ultimately you still have to have a functioning kitchen, three bedrooms, storage, wall space for art and small storage and display, two bathrooms that meet code, utility space, and laundry. The house has to work.

Codes: There are codes for almost everything. Heights, spans, clearances, distances between supports, the rise and run of each stair tread, the R-value of insulation, the placement of electrical receptacles, forms of egress, the type of glass required on a given window, fire safety, vapor barriers, grades of lumber for interior walls vs. exterior ones, the space around the toilet bowl. To say the learning curve for me was steep is an understatement.

Engineering: Regardless of what would have actually been possible, the engineers had some restrictions that my hands were somewhat tied to follow—the most consequential being the pitch of the roof. You hear a lot about snow loads being greater than they used to be, and our engineers said emphatically that our roofs had to be 6/12 at a minimum. This refers to the rise and run—for every 12″ of run, the roof must rise 6″, which is fairly steep. That’s kind of fine for a regular gabled roof, but wouldn’t allow us to build, say, a shed-style roof without the angles just looking insane.

Time: there just wasn’t enough of it! I had to design it quickly, primarily because all of this came about in mid-September, and we had to get a foundation in the ground before winter hit! And we had to build it quickly. Had is a strong word—the homeowners wanted it done quickly. They wanted it done yesterday. There was quite a bit of time spent on this project trying to explain why various things were so time-consuming, and why we probabbblllyyyy couldn’t build and finish (and furnish!) an entire house in 3-4 months.

Homeowners: as much as the homeowners and I really did get along and were on the same page about so many things, remember that I’m designing this house for them, not me! It’s easy to forget now, but during this period there was SO much anxiety and frustration that, for the homeowners, it started to feel essential that the house had mass appeal. OH DEAR. To me this house was always aspiring to be more modern, not less, but Adriana started showing me examples of these very traditional, kind of generic but well-executed new construction projects that just felt so at odds with the actual house, or what they even wanted to live in! I think it was really just panic about the future prospect of resale, which I understand. Not only did this feel really…uninspiring, it also seemed like an efficient way to increase construction costs: with modernism you can get away with simplicity and utilitarianism, but it’s hard to do that with more traditional styles without everything just looking cheap and flat. As a small example, we were aiming to reuse certain things like windows that were still in fine shape, but large single-lite vinyl casement windows were not going to look right on a house that’s supposed to have 6-over-6 divided lite double-hungs. Nonetheless, this period of not wanting to go “too daring” with the design was happening in the background of this and felt like a big complicating factor, even though they eventually got over it. Ha!

SO! The first thing was figuring out the space I had to work with. Our original footprint was this, with the top facing the street:

Since we asked real nice and applied for a zoning variance, the town allowed us to bump out the living room wall 6 feet, giving us an addition 120 square feet of space to play with. Like so–shaded section is new:

One of the challenges I see in designing a structure vs. renovating one is that with renovations, you tend to be thinking mostly about the interior or mostly about the exterior. Exterior work is often cosmetic—re-siding, re-painting, re-roofing, landscaping…ya know. But you have a structure: you have window locations, doorways, ceiling heights, the direction the roof pitches. But designing a building, you have to consider the how the interior looks and functions and how the exterior looks, and the two don’t always play well together! You might think a certain window would be nice inside the house, but then outside it just looks totally dumb. Or vice-versa! Or you want really high ceilings inside, but that makes the structure really tall and proportionately unappealing. There are so many things like this. In this case, it felt imperative to maximize light and views on the elevations of the house that face nature, but ALSO create a street-facing facade that looked welcoming and attractive, but didn’t highlight the undesirable views available to that side of the house from inside. Tricky!

In super simple terms: green is where we have good views, red is where we have bad views.

So, at THIS point, the back portion of the house (now the “guest wing,” since the master bedroom is moving upstairs!) was supposed to remain fairrrrly unchanged, although I wrote in the last post about some of the stuff we were required to do with it.

The kitchen and dining room plans were also more or less set, at least in their locations. That footprint wasn’t changing, and since we were hoping to keep some framing and the foundation under the kitchen/dining space, which would not allow us to put a second floor over that part of the house without redoing the foundation as well. Weight and stuff. So our second floor master suite is confined to the area where the whole foundation would be new—directly over the living room.

So basically we have this enlarged living room, which is also the only artery to get to the kitchen/dining spaces, the guest wing, up the stairs that don’t exist, and into the house at all unless you’re just going in the front door and into that long skinny guest room. It’s a ton of space, but once you add in all of those factors it gets a little tricky to create a room that doesn’t just feel like a massive pass-through.

It dawned on me that nobody was especially tied to the front door location, and that maybe it ought to be facing the street. Incidentally that’s where the front door was before the previous owners bought and wreckovated the house.

It also occurred to me that it’s not like you spend a lot of time in a stairwell, and you can get sort of creative with window placement in a stairwell, and that the stairwell should probably go against the street-facing wall, too. That way, we concentrate the views from the living room out into the woods, not onto the street and neighboring houses.

That’s how I got to some earlier version of this. You’ll notice that a couple of walls have shifted around in the guest wing with the elimination of the old entry, but those changes weren’t planned for until after we started building! A number of major things changed on the fly once construction got underway.

ANYWAY—if memory serves, all of this took place in a couple of days, and then it was time for another meeting with the engineers and Adriana the homeowner. In the background of all of this was the fact that I was no longer under contract at this point—we had to scrap and re-write my contract for the job completely, which was underway but not complete. This sounds inconsequential, but typically I wouldn’t be designing or sharing drawings and renderings (not to mention running around town to building departments and engineering firms) until after I have an executed contract and a deposit check in hand—a little freelancer safeguard against doing a bunch of work and never getting compensated for it if a client decides to be a jerk. Unfortunately it’s happened so I’m leery of it, even when I work for people that I know and trust!

The point is, we walked into this hour-long meeting with the engineer, and I didn’t really know what we were doing there. Adriana had called the meeting but without a design in place, it seemed premature and potentially like a waste of everyone’s time.

As it happened, Adriana had been corresponding with the engineer and had submitted a sketch of what she thought the second floor layout should be. I think she’ll be OK with me pointing out now that it was…a mess. Haha! Problem number one was that it wasn’t at all to scale and showed the staircase coming up in a location that made no sense for the first floor. The allocation of space was choppy and complicated and gave the toilet the best corner in the whole house! There was an enormous amount of space given over to closets, not enough room to actually use the washer and dryer in the plan…and I was just sitting there like…oh shit. 

Again. I am not hired. I am not being paid. I am watching the engineer set these plans in stone in CAD, and feeling like if the meeting continued on this way, we’d have a terrible plan that I could then be possibly tasked with executing, and a client who might not understand the need to start over with a different plan since why did we have that meeting in the first place where we designed the house in an hour?!

So, I stepped in. And drew up a little sketch of what had been tumbling around in my brain. Then we dropped it into CAD. And then we moved a couple things. Then we rotated the roof 90 degrees to have a street-facing gable. Then…the basic strokes of the design were all there. We had a shape. We had walls. We had rooms.

Then some more decisions. How tall are the first floor ceilings? I say 10 feet. Adriana wants 12. How tall are the second floor ceilings? I say 8. Adriana insists on 10. All of a sudden the house gets four feet taller. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but things like that had a bigger impact on everything—costs and time, for instance—than any of us appreciated at the time. That’s longer lumber, more insulation, more of all the finishing materials…whoopsie!

With those plans and decisions in hand, and shortly thereafter my contract executed, it was time to take our basic shape and basic layout and flesh it out into something resembling a house!

Because budget was such a concern, it was always the plan to reuse as much of the original house as we could in the rebuild! That’s right up my alley, of course, but it’s tricky—you don’t want to be so tied to the idea of reuse that the end result suffers because you were just trying to make too much stuff work together. This started with the windows, so I made a simple visual of all the windows that could potentially be relocated and the rough openings required to install them:

Pretty exciting stuff.

Then I set about placing them, and quickly realized that we’d need more windows, and the sizes we had were mostly really strange and difficult to work elegantly into a design. I tried, though! In order to keep costs down, I recommended that new window purchases be readily-available stock sizes.

Here was the first proposed design—oof! I hated that entryway when I proposed it, and I hate it now. Haha! Since the front elevation is where we wanted to minimize views, I kind of liked the idea of doing it up really fortress-like with just a couple little windows on the front. Those windows come from the list of windows with potential for reuse, but the sizes felt arbitrary and not so great.

The clients thought it looked uninviting and scary. I get that. Moving on…

Idea #2! In both of the first two designs, I sort of liked the concept of doing a shed roof over the kitchen/dining spaces, but the required 6/12 pitch was kindaaaaaa too much. I also turned the entryway inside-out, thinking a little recessed covered exterior mudroom kind of thing might be totally cool? Especially clad in a cedar tongue-and-groove or something? Given that we already bumped the front of the house out closer to the road than the existing zoning allows, it seemed like an interesting way to avoid pushing our luck with the building department by also asking for some kind of porch/portico/something that would bring anything structural even closer to the road.

The clients did not like the outdoor mudroom concept. Still not feeling the facade. Next!

I liked this plan! I think I still kinda like this plan! The mismatched window sizes on the second floor window are an error on the rendering, so ignore that. Anyway.

This plan definitely felt the best so far to the clients, but something still wasn’t sitting quite right (with all of us, really) so we brought in another set of eyes! Trained, talented, and experienced eyes! Adriana is great friends with an NYC-based architect named Matt Bremer, so she brought my renderings to him for some input!

Matt drew the above doodle, Adriana sent the doodle to me, I made the alterations in SketchUp, and that got us to…

Boom, house!

And that’s…pretty much what we ended up building. With some minor changes, naturally.

All in all—is this the house I would have built if I could have built anything my heart desired? No. But it IS a house that I think takes into consideration the things that I talked about at the beginning of this post. Simple and relatively inexpensive to build fairly quickly, satisfied our technical requirements, had the happy approval of the homeowners, made effective use of the site, and allowed for an efficient but spacious-feeling interior layout. Check check check!

Now let’s build this thing! This is where it gets fun.

Psssst! Olivebridge Cottage is an ongoing series about a renovation that flew off the rails (and then found its way back on)! For lots of backstory and schadenfreude, check out these past posts!

 New Season, New Project!

Plans for Olivebridge Cottage!

Oh Dear, Here We Go…

Little House of Horrors

From Bad to Worse (And Worse and Worse and Worse)

Blogger is Hired to Renovate, Mistakenly Destroys Ulster County Art Piece “House”

Olivebridge Cottage: 2.0!

Designing Olivebridge Cottage 2.0: Part 1!

Designing Olivebridge Cottage 2.0: Part 2! syndicated from findqueenslandelectricians.wordpress.com