What’s the definition of crazy?

It's us, right now, making a ton of decisions. And we've only been at it two and a half months! It’s actually an amazing process but so much to think about. And everything has to be decided under the watchful eye of Savannah's Historic Board of Review and the state historic guidelines. Just this week we’ve been asked to decide on our interior shutter style and color, pick out the banister and picket style for the porches, and choose an exterior stucco color....which means the window-frame color and shutter color. They have to coordinate, right?! Thank goodness I’m not the type to have to stare at something for weeks and months to make up my mind. But these are not turning out to be easy decisions. The project is estimated to take a year and a half so I'm sure these sentiments will be thought often. And those of you who have been through the process of building or restoring a home know what I'm talking about.

Possible picket style although we're getting one more sample milled that is a little less curvy. Then we'll make a decision.

There are places we can see on the exterior stucco of the house, those that were protected from the elements, that show the house was once painted a light salmon color. It's not our ideal color but variations of this color are very prevalent in Savannah. And we're trying to stay as true to the history

as possible.

so we've been armed with paint chips canvassing the town trying to find the perfect color combinations. We’re narrowing it down. But it’s so blasted hot outside I can only wander so long without needing to get back into air conditioning and re-hydrate. We found these colors that are close to what we want. We're also thinking a light cream window trim and very dark brown shutters. David, our stucco and plaster craftsman, has been very helpful.

I don’t know how the workers are handling the heat all day long. It's supposed to be 97 today and they say the heat index will be over 105. With the humidity it's beastly. We’ve had two crews working most days the last few weeks. One is working on building replacement brick walls between the “public” and “private” sections of the main house courtyards. The existing brick walls were weak so they had to be redone. They’ve changed the walls a bit by creating an opening in the middle for an iron gate that will allow us to go between the two sections of courtyard.

The other crew has been putting up studs to define the few interior wall changes/additions we’re making plus building an elevator shaft. (Yes, we’ve decided to have an elevator. The main purpose is to allow us to live in the house longer. With 12-foot ceilings, there are a lot of stairs from the first floor to the third. The exercise is great now but could prove problematic in the future!) The elevator will have two doors. One will be accessible to the outside sidewalk and the other side to the inside of the house. Kind of a pass-through.

In the plan views below, you'll see the many additions to the first floor. The first one is a "before" and the second one the "plans." We're replacing the original staircase that was removed. The first floor was used for many things over the years. At one time it was a doctor's office. It was also part of a rooming house at one time and then a fraternity house in the late 60's. In the largest room, there was a dividing wall. We'll be putting that back. We're adding a bathroom and kitchen so it can be used as a separate guest suite if needed. The garage is part of a 3-story addition. The room to the left of the garage will be Steve's art studio.

As you can see, the house really is a shell. The previous owners gutted most everything including appliances and fixtures. They did a great job of preserving the plaster and woodwork which I'll show in future posts.

They say the biggest extra costs on projects like this are changes. We’re trying to foresee everything so we don’t have to make changes down the road. And the builders are very good at asking us questions as we go to make sure we’re happy with the layouts. Thank goodness. We’ve already made a couple small pre-build decisions that we’re happy we thought more about! Two changes on this floor plan: More closets in the main rooms. One can never have enough storage, right? And in the carriage house, the washer/dryer combo will be on the second floor.

We have electrical wiring going in the carriage house today and the HVAC has been installed. For the carriage house, the next step is the new roof. In the coming weeks, the plumber will be working in the main house. When he’s finished, a concrete slab will be poured and eventually we’ll lay stone tiles over the slab. Lot's yet to come!

Next time, tourism in Savannah and how it affects our home.