project update

for those that have been following {high five} i have some updated project photos to share.  for those that have not been following, here are the past two posts to catch up on the project:  post #1  & post #2.  oh, and this post about the acrylic shaped trees.

well, last week i headed out to the job site to check things out and discuss the acrylic tree issue with the princeipla/superintendent.  the project is coming along so nicely!  they have the vinyl wallcovering installed {the yellow on the bottom part of the wall under the blue reveal}, they have got the sun and rainbow graphics painted and the ceiling furrdowns are painted as well. 

welcome color! 

so, the acrylic trees that i have been talking about will go on the corridor walls.  the sub contractor is supplying them even though they fought it pretty hard.  hopefully they will pay more attention to what they are bidding on in the future!  the trees will start just above the rubber base and go about 10' up the wall.  hopefully they will be completed and installed soon!  

this is the part of my job that is fun.  seeing all the work that you did, many months prior, come together piece by piece & layer by layer.  the school is extremely excited and other schools close by have been walking through and are very impressed.  this principal/superintendent in the past had only done white and shades of brown throughout his schools, so doing this was a huge leap of faith.  but everytime i go out there he talks about how much he likes it, how much the teachers like it and how excited they are for the students to see it! 

it's amazing what color can do for an environment if you will let it!

crazy week

it has been a crazy week so far!  monday morning we were informed that one of the subcontractors on the school job, that i have previously posted about, left out a big item in their bid.  in the hallways i had designed for there to be these big acrylic trees.  they are about 10' tall and they are made out of 1/8" acrylic.  the trunk would be brown and the tree top green.  we put these in our "interior signage" bid package.  well, the company that was awarded the interior signage package apparently failed to understand that these acrylic shapes were their responsibility...even though they were listed in their specification section 4 separate times. 

what sparked all this was the general contractor calling and asking that we talk with the sub contractor b/c they had some questions about the acrylic shapes.  when i spoke with the lady she informed me that in the 20 years they have been in business they have never done anything like this and they don't know what to do.  she said she couldn't find what the shapes looked like, the dimensions, etc.  so, having previously gone back through the drawings and specification book {to double check that all the information was there}, i directed her to the drawings where every individual tree was drawn in elevation WITH dimensions.  then i had her look through her specification section and pointed out each of the 4 places where it said "provide 1/8" thick acrylic shapes, refer to elevaions for dimensions".  well, she was just beside herself and just didn't know what to do, to which i responded with,

"these would have been great questions to ask at the pre-bid meeting, not one week before the job is complete." 

to say the least, she wasn't happy.  of course i wouldn't be either if i were her because it is thousands of dollars that they are responsible for.  it continually amazes me at how contractors will bid on a job without fully understanding what they are bidding on!  and in turn it makes me want to be very unapologetic when things like this come up.  i bust my butt to make sure all my bases are covered and i's are dotted...shouldn't they do the same?  i mean we give them plenty of time to ask questions.  any of our public jobs {schools} have at least a 21 day period where the drawings and specification books are available to them to go through, AND we have a pre-bid meeting where they can clarify any questions they might have.  but yet half the time they have not even looked through the drawings or spec book before they get to the pre-bid meeting.  oh well, there is only so much you can do! 

amongst all this i have been tied to my computer working on 3d renderings for another school job.  we have a meeting friday morning where i am suppose to be showing them my concepts for their new high school office building, their renovated existing high school corridor and their two elementary p.e. buildings.  my eyes hurt from staring at the computer so long and my shoulders are probably permanently fused to my ears b/c i have bad posture when sitting for so long and working on a computer!  although, i am pretty stoked about the stuff i have come up with...hope they like it.

we did get good news this week, two of our school clients had bond issues that past tuesday night.  that is great for my firm b/c it means more work {although we are up to our eye balls right now}!  we have done some extensive master planning with one of the schools and will be able to start pretty soon on a new elementary school and a few other projects.  yay for all the local voters!

on an exciting note......two of my friends are coming to visit for the weekend from dallas!!!!!  woo hoo!  we are going to have a fun saturday full of shopping and pedicures and finish it up with a great dinner and who knows what else.  so excited!  unfortunately mymichael will have his nose stuck in books b/c he has his midterm due sunday {oh how i am so glad it is him and not me!}.  although he probably would not have enjoyed hours of shopping and pedicures...not quite his thing. 

hope everyone is having a fun/crazy/exciting week so far....it's thursday....praise the lord!

the "glamorous" life of an interior designer

sometimes i think most people get the impression that an interior designer gets to have "fun" all day doing all kinds of "fun" things.  while it is a great profession, it is not all "fun" and games.  i hope to do some more blogging about what i do in the future....but it seems that by the time i get around to blogging i really don't want to blog about what i do all day.  anyways, this week has been a crazy week so far and we are only half way through.  monday was....monday.  i found out that some boards we had taken to a client were wrong and that one of our renderings {3D computer drawing...allows clients to see exactly what we are proposing} we had done basically needed to be completely redone...thus tuesday morning myself and one of my partners would be having a meeting with the client discussing the changes that needed to be made.  tuesday morning arrives and my 11x17 printer won't work.  i grab all my stuff for my dreaded meeting and start on my hour drive to the client.  get to the meeting and although it isn't as embarassing as i thought it would be, there are a TON of changes that need to be made ASAP. 

****side note:  b/c we use computers all the time in my profession most people think that means that changes don't take very long and things can be added to renderings really "quick" and that they can have their stuff the next day.  news flash....yes, computers help speed turnaround time up but it is NOT as simple as a push of a button.  there is a lot of time that goes into drawing plans on the computer and especially a lot that goes into building a 3D model and rendering it on the computer*****

on our way back to the office, we decide to go by another job site that is close.  here's the background on the job:  it is a school that about a year ago burned to the ground.  i believe they were about to celebrate their 100th year in the original school building.  it was really a sad situation.  luckily we were able to get the job and within 48 hours had a floorplan to the superintendent for a new school building.  they wanted the new building to be reminiscent of the original school building and to achieve this we chose to reuse the original stone, down to the stone that has a bullet hole in it.  

the job is very far along in construction and is looking great.  upon arrival we notice that the building is surrounded by a mud pit.  after looking for a somewhat decent path into the building we realize that this:

is our best option.....rickety pallets placed side by side that move as soon as you step onto them.  "oh yea!" is what goes through my mind, along with "suck it up alayna, you do NOT want to be girly girl, prissy interior designer who can't hack it on the job site!"  luckily i had worn flats...that looked like this afterwards...

{i narrowly missed my socks being soaked with mud!}

the interior is looking awesome.  pre-k through 2nd grade will be in the new building, so our design is very playful.  in the following pictures you can see the corridor with the exposed ceilings that are painted a sky blue. 

there will be floating clouds to help with acoustics and to add a sense of scale.  the lower parts of the walls will be a light yellow vinyl wallcovering that has a subtle design {this will help with durability and maintenance....easy to clean}.   on one end of the corridor, up high above the doors, there will be a large sun with rays painted.  the other end of the corridor will have a big rainbow.  lower on the walls, on top of the vinyl wallcovering, there will be trees that are 7' tall that are made out of really thin acrylic.  the floors in the corridors will be stained concrete with a design using 4 different colors.  like i said...a very playful interior.

my philosophy is that students should be proud of where they go to school.  it should be a place that is welcoming and comfortable....not a huge sterile white box.  luckily our client was willing to go with me on this design concept!  i am excited to see the final product and i will be sure to post some pictures.

as we were going through the building i noticed that the millwork had been installed.  as i got closer i realized that the counters on all of the millwork have the wrong plastic laminate on them.  i pointed it out to the contractor, so he brings the plans, specification book and submittals over.  i look through all of them and they all clearly state that the counters are to be "PL2".  the millwork company has used the "PL3" plastic laminate instead.  now, sometimes when things like this happen i will say "it's okay....we'll work with it".  this time...no.  the millwork company was a butt to work with.  their shop drawings {drawings they send us to look over and sign off on} were terrible.  our contact at the company would not call us back....when they finally did they assured us they would call and discuss before they started production to make sure they understood everything.  we never received a call from them.  so, i am not about to let this one slide for them.  they have ALL the millwork installed and ALL the counters are wrong...lovely!  the contractor was nice about it and put a call into the millwork company....i haven't heard their story yet but i am sure they will have something to say.

 wow...this post has turned out a lot longer than i expected!  anyways, the profession of an interior designer is not always "fun" and pretty colors.  a lot of times it is sorting through crappy shop drawings, trapsing through mud pits on the job site, dealing with hateful contractors {luckily not this time}, trying to decifer clients wants/needs, and wanting to throw your computer out the nearest window b/c it just froze and lost your last 2 hours of work!  but, all that to say that i do love my job.....it has just been a LONG 2 days!

growing pains.........

our tulsa office is expanding!  for those of you that don't know, i am a registered commercial interior designer in an architecture firm.  we do alot of education, churches and other random commercial stuff. our tulsa office has only been open for 2 years and most of the 2 years me and one other person were in the office consistantly.  now there are 4 of us in the office....the original square footage of the tulsa office was only a little over 500 square feet.  as you can imagine with 4 people...it is tight to say the least!  anyways, we are way excited about the expansion.

but, as probably everyone knows with growth most of the time are pains.  the suite next to ours has been vacant for a while, so we decided to take it over, doubling our space.  there was a perfect wall for us to cut a door into {after removing the sink} and we would be ready to go.  the demo guys got out here, knocked the sink and "door" out only to find a drainage pipe that could not be moved on our budget. 

SOOO...plan 'B'...we had to move the door down about 4' completely screwing up my plans for the reception area.  then the demo guys didn't patch the walls correctly so when we finally got another dry wall guy out our carpet installers were starting that day as well, and that royally pissed off the dry wall guy.  i wanted to tell him, "well, if you had been here when you were suppose to be here and done your job correctly, you wouldn't have this problem", but i kept my mouth shut {surprisingly} and politely smiled.  then he left at lunch and never came back, so we had to patch the dry wall {not me....a couple of the other guys in my office} ourselves. 

now we are on the 5th day of painting and we are all sick and tired of it.  luckily i haven't had to do too much...one of the other guys has done the bulk of it but i am pretty sure it's about to push him over the edge!  we have one long red wall throughout the whole space, being the good painters that we are we primed it first and then had to do 5 coats of red paint!  what the heck????  isn't that what primer is for!?!?!? 

today, while trying to get finished with painting, we realize that some of the phones aren't working.  we call the phone guy he comes out punches a few buttons, says we are ready to go and leaves.  oh, we asked him how much it would be to set up voicemail.....his answer $1200!  what the heck?  obviosly we will pass on that and continue to forward our calls to our muskogee office when we are out.  whatever.  probably about an hour after the phone guy leaves we get a call and i need to transfer it...i do the standard transfer and it says it won't work.  i call the phone guy again and tell him he needs to come back out.  he tries to tell me he can explain it over the phone which i quickly inform him that he can not and he needs to do it....he begrudgingly (sp?) agrees.  after an hour of him punching thousands of buttons on our phones {remember, he thought he could tell me how to do this over the phone} we are all set up....again.

so far it has been 2 weeks of "expanding" and i am about expanded out.  one would think that with the carpet done and paint 95% complete, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel....until i tell you that we are purchasing a uhaul full of ikea furniture this weekend that will need to be put together.  yea...no light yet! 

we will get there and we have lucked out quite a bit, i got all the carpet tiles for the new space donated and also two desk chairs donated, so that is awesome!  and i will have a much prettier office once completed.  it will be soon and i will post pics to prove it! 

here's to growing pains!!!