Architect and planning

May 20
We met with the architect today. She is a close college friend of my mother-io-law. Basically, it was a sort of a getting to know us and what we wanted type of meeting. We didn't go through the usual round of interviews to select an architect because we figure that she'd do a good job for a reasonable price. Although, we still had the option of not using her since we hadn't signed any contracts or paid any deposits yet.

After seeing her ideas for the remodel, we decided to commit to her. She definitely had some creative ideas *and* she keeps the cost in mind as she doesn't want the remodel to run her friend's kids into the ground. :p

Throughout June and July, we worked on fleshing out the layout. She came up with a brilliant idea that maximizes living space and minimizes hallway space. Then at the end of July, we left for Taiwan until mid-August. For August, she went on vacation. So we didn't work on the plans again until September.

For the months of September through November, we were working on fine tuning the floor plans, the electrical plan, and elevations (e.g., where the windows would go). In October, when the floor plan was pretty much done, our architect brought a structural engineer on board. We were working up through December with perfecting the plans we were to submit for permits until our architect set a hard deadline to submit the plans. This is because if we submitted our plans in 2011, we would need to comply with the new 2011 building codes.