Too much wall!

So excited to ride past the house — they put the framing up for the new upstairs walls! But — as I rode past I think the whole neighbourhood heard me shout “Noooooooo!” as my heart sank to the tarmac. Thankfully the boys have already gone home for the day! (After last week’s embarrassing incident involving me screaming at a swooping bird and terrifying the whole street as we cycled past, I could do without another spectacle of Amy’s crazy!)

Our design for upstairs is framed around being able to see from the gorgeous old windows at the front all the way through to the back deck as one open space as you first walk in to the house. This sense of space, openness, lightness and control of keeping the house cool from the airflow that creates is central to the whole design. (Impossible for our Brits to connect with I know, but our biggest challenge here is keeping the heat out rather than keeping it in!)

And as I cycle past there’s a great big wall framed from floor to ceiling where there should be just a half wall by the staircase. Noooooo!!! I race home and pull out the plans, and sure enough, there’s a great big wall there. I’ve studied those plans countless times over the last 6 months, and yet I always saw it as a half wall, in my head it is crystal clear as a half wall! But not so much on the plans.

This is one of those rare moments where I played “the wife”! I let, actually let’s be honest, positively encouraged, Andy to call the builder with a “the wife says” moment. Honestly, I was too upset and devastated my gorgeous plans in my head were so far from the reality that I couldn’t speak to them without blubbering!

Next day, by the time I rode past on my way home, the wall is down! They’ve taken the frame out, re-purposed it for a wardrobe frame, my half wall is framed (at a minimum safe height so noone can fall down the staircase!) and my (in my head) grand plan is back on! Not only have moved the wall to fit our version of reality, they have worked around the fact that it was a structural wall on the original plans. A bit of builder magic means they can put extra bracing on the other side of the house to keep the ceiling up. Clever boys. So happy!