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They
will happen so when they do don't freak out, roll with it make them into
features you never considered. We had a few along the way. One concerned
the windows on either side of the garage roof. They were matching square
awning windows which can be seen framed out (see the red squares) in the
shot below prior to the garage roof going on. Who knows what happened
next. I think the problem was in the slight overhang on the front of the
house not being taken into consideration which made the garage ridge not
exactly centered between the two windows. Whatever it was you can see what
happened when the garage roof fell into place...in the immortal words of
Homer Simpson; Dooh. So what did we do? Well after scratching our heads
for a few minutes we decided to put a smaller octagonal window in place of
the awning. Playing Monday morning quarterback I would have to say it looks
better. From the front the garage is so large you cant see both windows anyway. Around the corner from the one we made into an octagonal is
another octagonal which when seen from the road compliments the
other nicely.
 
<
This... Became This >
Another
problem was the stairs didn't land where expected downstairs. This came
from switching to 16" TJI's for the second floor joists. This was
under the recommendation of my framer for a more solid floor. This raised
the second floor up a little which added a step or two to the staircase
which in turn left the bottom step a little further out into the kitchen
than imagined. We just rearranged the downstairs pantry and garage door
and found a solution that again seems better than the original design.
The
final "major" issue concerned the chimney. We had this massive
old crumbling chimney that housed only a single flue. The think would have
taken up substantial space in the new bedroom so we planned on knocking it
down as low to the floor as possible and immediately jogging it over to a
smaller square cross section. This happened but not as low or as far over
as intended. We wound up boxing out this sort of weird space in the
bedroom that became a built in bench (for more visit our Masonry
page)
The
underlying root to these and other small problems encountered along the
way was my plans. Like I said earlier these plans were good but were by no
means detail drawings from the latest shuttle design. Many of those
"verify in field" measurements required the framer to really be
thinking on his feet and when things went wrong he always had a backup
plan. This reinforces my thoughts that finding a really good framer (in lieu
of $15,000 architectural plans) is crucial to a successful project.
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