birthday month

This month is turning out to be much more of an important month than I thought. Not only am I about to celebrate a big milestone birthday crossing over into a brand new decade of life - one where many people find themselves stopping to survey those moments that have brought us this far, dream about the future, and perhaps make a few adjustments for the path ahead - but it’s also the month that this house will officially begin.

Even at the main meeting with the builders last week, when the dates were being set, they mentioned “how about February 17?”, to which I quickly squeaked and said, “That’s my birthday!” But we already have other plans that day to celebrate and I knew for sure that I want to be there for that first breaking of ground, so it was moved up to this coming week instead! I think if I was going to be around for my actual birthday date, even after all of this time (years) of waiting, I would have chosen to push it back a week just so it fell on that specific day. What an amazing and somewhat symbolic act that would have been.

But…
I’m definitely not complaining that it’s earlier.

Yes, in just a couple of days,
that barren piece of land. 
the field that’s been starved of crops for the past few seasons 
in anticipation. 
the plot that many may fear was forgotten,
will show signs of life.
of a new beginning.

Let me back up a little. The past couple of weeks have not slowed down our pace. In fact I feel like I’ve meet with more people, artisans, builders, engineers, and craftsman in the past dozen days than any point in this process thus far. We’ve been busy passing out the ‘computo metrico” (technically the calculated measurements, detailed supply lists, and building plans) to various vendors and contractors to receive the estimates. Then it was comparing, clarifying, adjusting, and then waiting once again for a more accurate quote. 

Finally a few days ago I felt the layers mounting - layers of details, language, and stress - and felt that the best way to settle many of the back-and-forth emails and calls was to have one face-to-face meeting with the main people involved in this next step. Even though at this point it may not be customary for all parties to sit at the same table with the client and discuss together, and it may work more like it had been working for us - with a question emailed, which was passed on to another party, followed by a phone call to clarify, a waiting time while that person called that other person, and waited for that response before the answer finally made its way back (and by that time, I’d already have a few follow up questions to start the entire process again) - I just wanted everyone together, at the same table, with all the information in front of us, so any question could be answered right there. So we called our geometra and mentioned the idea. He said he’d fix the appointment. About an hour later he called and said, “We can all be at the house at 3pm”. punto 

Wow. This was unexpected Italian efficiency and I liked it.

Right at 3:00 everyone arrived. It was the first time I’d even ever met the structural engineer in person, having only ever communicated through email for the past year. We all sat down, and everyone, including myself, pulled out their prospective folders of papers, materials, and notepads. The questions began. And I, as best I could in my somewhat green Italian building-vocabulary set, began firing out the questions.

Big ones like, “So these structural estimates are quite high, and I just want to be sure we’ve exhausted any other creative modes of building techniques and materials. Are there any?” To which the, quite smart and “bravo” as everyone else has said, structural engineer immediately pulled out large drawings with calculations written all over them, that “Yes, this building is quite particular and to hold an extremely heavy concrete roof, with 2 walls made of glass, then the walls can’t be made of anything else except concrete and steel to hold the sheer weight.” We went on to discuss how changes of even a couple of centimeters in the flooring could create a domino effect on the calculations of the ceiling height and foundations, how since this house is being held by the strictest of eco-certification requirements, even changing one coat of a finishing material could effect this, and how in general all of these had been considered already.

That was mostly what I wanted to be sure of - that all options had been exhausted and so that if this was the only, and best, way that this house had to be built and it cost what this estimate was saying, then that’s just what it cost. The structure part is something there isn’t too much choice over. It’s when the finishes, fixtures, etc are done where there could be a big range of choices and price levels.

So all of this to say, that I ended up signing the first building contract that evening. With the builder who was my first choice from those we’d met with and received estimates from. This allows for the building: groundworks, foundations, walls, roof - all the main components of the house itself- to be started. This coming week will be a big one - not with tons of works going on on-site yet, but symbolically. The final stakes will go in, the first pylon will be put in (where it has to sit for 4 weeks to take readings of the land stability), and the site will begin to be secured as a building site and the utilities hooked up for use during building. 

Then the following week will be my birthday.

But I believe in birthday months. So happy birthday month to me.