#7 I met an architect

After 8 years (or whatever it was, I'm not strictly sure when the search began) of looking for and at new residences, the search became overwhelming.

I was telling a member of the Spring Lake association where I have a cottage, about my house hunting travails. He's an architect. I didn't know him well but he was pretty persuasive. Like 2 weeks later I'd written an offer on a double lot in RiverWest. He was super enthusiastic, his wife is an architect at a well respected architecture firm and they live a block away from the lot I was buying.

I realize now that my building this house that close to his makes theirs more valuable. I'm sure that was not his intention. Well, actually I am not so sure about that. But his description of building a house, the process was a cakewalk. He predicted it would cost less than my condo. He said, bing bang boom breezily waving his hands about dismissing any fears I had. Yaaasss, yaaass, easy peasy. No problems....I have a guy....know a builder...my kids'll shovel...I'll deal with the city.

None of this happened. Well, he did have a guy, but that's another story. His kids did not shovel when there was a snow storm. At one point he told me he was frustrated with the city and that I would have to deal with them now. I don't know the first thing about the plans, the city, building things. I said, sorry bud, you have to do this. Nothing is easy. Certainly not peasy.

Since my needs were pretty simple it was not too hard to come up with a design we could both agree on. Getting them finished so the builder could start on them was another matter. The second he gave me the finished plans, he sent me a final bill, seriously. There was no kitchen, no bathrooms, nothing inside whatsoever. So his insistence that it would all be "easy" was meant for himself apparently.

I was reminded of a time when I had to have a tooth pulled and the dentist told me it would take 8 minutes. And hour later the tooth was still not out. This process was excruciating for me. Mouth wedged open, chopping, pounding sawing, drilling...the dentist swearing. When he was finally done he said to his assistant, "Well, that was an 8 and a half or 9 outta 10." When I came back in 3 months for a follow up. I referred to how hard it had been for me. And he looked shocked, seriously shocked, stepped in front of me (I was lying back in the chair) and said, "That wasn't so bad!" And I said, "You yourself said it was an 8 and half or 9!" And he said (now leaning into my face), "Yeah, FOR ME!" As if I hadn't been involved.

So there I was with a rudderless shell of a house and a bill of $8,000. The final payment due.