Life's a Beach...

I'm having one of those days.  We've all had them.  There are times when all the planets align, not in a good way, and you find yourself in the middle of a mega caca pasa fest. Just to add to the hilarity, it's not one of your own making. This one came at the hands of a third party dipping into my checking account unauthorized.  After a quickly made phone call, I was assured all would be well - and corrected....but not until sometime next week.  Well, that's just peachy sir, but rent is due on Sunday, and you just yanked out 25% of it without so much as a 'by your leave'.  I hang up the phone and think "Hey, Thanks for the help. I wasn't tight enough on cash flow yet." (Heavy sarcasm intended)  At which point I started channeling 'Bruce Almighty':

B-E-A- yuuuuu-tee-ful.

I admit it.  I suck at this.  Especially when it comes to being financially squeezed. The sheer frustration of being relegated to sitting on my hands until the cogs of an impersonal business entity ever so
sl-o-o-o-o-wly turns drives me nuts. (especially when it comes to fixing their own errors). 'Saddle 'em up, move 'em out, Rawhide!' -  that's my motto. Just git 'er done. Yup, that's how I roll.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world usually doesn't. 

So rather then work myself into a stressed out lather over something I have no control over, I decide to pull up my big girl panties, and give myself a 'time out'.  I need to get out of the house.  I need to go for a walk...something to dissipate my anxious energy.  Fortunately, I live a five minute walk from the lake. It's a gorgeous Lake Tahoe summer day...and gratefully, the beach doesn't cost me nothin'.

I sat there basking in the sun's rays, while finally cracking open a book that looks to be apropos for what's going on in my life right now (Repacking Your Bags).  I'm only half attentive to the text though, I'm distracted by the many mini scenes going on all around me .  As small children play along the shore, I have a flash back on how nice it was to be that age; when your biggest worry was getting sand in your pants (especially that super fine stuff that gets into every crevice.  That's the worst!)  and the inevitable pouting when those 'big people party poopers' (parents) decided it was time to leave.

The wind is blowing a soft but persistent stream, tossing the water into something you don't normally see on mountain lakeshores during summer months - waves that could almost pass as ocean surf. A few older kids are on their boogie boards, riding the waves.  I doze in and out of consciousness, but instead of hearing the familiar gentle lap of water meeting the shore, there is the sound of mildly crashing water.  I smile while telling myself a little joke, wondering if this whips up enough negative ions to improve my 'tude.

The sun becomes intense despite the wind. I wade in and brace myself to take the first swim this summer, wondering if the water has warmed up enough to be past icy, stop-your-heart temperatures. The initial shock of cold water hitting warm skin makes me shiver.  Once committed to taking the plunge, it's really quite refreshing.  The water is warmer than the wind above it. I float below crystalline blue skies as I let the water wash my cares away.  Yeah, today was trying.  But really, in the grand scheme of things, it's really not all that tragic.  As a boss used to say whenever the proverbial sh*t hit the fan -"hey, what's the worst they can do? -they can't eat ya".  True enough.

Some days, life's a bitch...
But at Tahoe, even on a bad day, Life's a Beach.

Welcome, World...

I've been working on this site for awhile and it has taken me a few months to actually bite the bullet and launch it.  And now finally, here it is.  I'll be adding content and photos, information and knowledge as I go, but I now have a place to start.

So often, I stumble across things in the design industry that inspire or incense me, blow me away with their creativity, or stun me with the sheer ignorance of it all.

As an Interior Designer specializing in Kitchen and Bath Design (well, OK, who am I kidding?  Having spent a fair amount of my career working for contractors doing whole house remodels, what I really specialize in is tearing people's homes apart right down to rough stud, redesigning it and starting over...) it is always surprising to me how little knowledge a homeowner has about what they are getting themselves into when they embark on any type of home improvement project. That lack of knowledge often leads to frustration, anger, tears, temper tantrums, sleepless nights, rapidly emptying bank accounts and threats of legal action.  And that's just from the contractor!  Multiply that by a factor of ten and you've got a homeowners reaction.

It just doesn't have to be that way!

Having worked a great deal on the construction end of the Interior Design field, (not just the froo-froo decorating end) I've had the unique opportunity to work with all phases of a remodel or  new construction project - from the initial concept, design phase, bidding and construction to the finished 3D reality.  In addition to the knowledge that comes from the usual designer's job of working with clients, space-planning and the plethora of finishing materials and products, I've also interfaced with architects, engineers, building departments, contractors, sub contractors, other designers, vendors, retailer's...the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker...well, you get the idea - all those needed to get a project from point A to a finished point Z.  I not only know how all these different entities operate within a construction project, more importantly, I know how they think.


Which means, dear friend, that I've got 'the dirt' on the whole enchilada.  Call it the 'Kitchen Confidential' and 'the Waiter Rant' of the residential design and building industry.  
Why spill all the beans? Because I can! But also because I'm a big believer in the phrase "Knowledge is Power".  I also know that the building process, while often painful, doesn't have to be anywhere near as miserable as it often is for homeowners if they just had some of that knowledge on how it all works.  There is a rhyme and a reason to it, and there definitely is a progression...and building projects work best when it is understood and followed. 


So often, when dealing with a client, it is near impossible for any one of the above pro's , myself included, to impart all of their years of experience and knowledge, distilled down into an easily and quickly digested increment that a client can absorb during your relatively short time with them.  Given deadlines, the immense amount of details and a pro's not knowing what their client do and do not understand about the project they are embarking on, information from a pro to a client unfortunately often falls under the category of the Hawkeye Pierce quote: 

"I didn't think I had to explain the incredibly obvious, the merely obvious would suffice".

It usually doesn't.


So toward remedying that end, this blog was born...


I'll confess, I'm not being completely altruistic here.  If a client understands the process, it not only will make their life a heck of a lot easier during a design and construction project, but hopefully everyone else's job as well, mine included.


So buckle up buttercup, engage brain and put your memory in gear....here's lookin' at interior design and construction, kid.