Plans

One of my strongest suits is logistics. I love planning. So when I decided to move to The Fitzgerald, I visited the site many times, first to pick out the specific apartment and then several more times to measure the spaces. From those dimensions, I drew a plan view and played with placement of my furniture, also carefully measured, until I decided where everything would go. As anticipated, there was a lot of furniture left over. This went on a list of things I must dispose of, one way or another. I called an auctioneer who was willing to come to see if he was interested in carting it all away for sale. I told him I’d get back to him once I had a contract on the house.

In addition to excess furniture, there were other problems. While I love my art, I have a lot of it, too much, in fact, to fit the wall space in the apartment. After I’d placed all the furniture in my mind, I went back to the building to measure wall space and planned where the art I couldn’t live without might live. Sadly some of my collection would also have to go. Naturally, I made a list, and would the auctioneer take that too, after I had a contract on the house? Further, since there are no bookshelves in the new apartment and I have lots of books – as well as other things that should go on shelves, like boxes of photographic disks and negatives and albums – I made several trips to Ikea to find a system that might solve that problem. I played with those possibilities until I had designed one whole wall of bookshelves for the master bedroom. Maybe, when that time came, I could get Eric to put it all together? Yes; he’d be interested, when I have a contract on the house. Next was the lighting. I bugged the construction manager until he sent me a lighting plan from the building’s blueprints so I could determine which switches controlled which fixtures, and where both the switches and the outlets were located. With my own lighting plan in hand – I decided I have to put up lots of track to light the spaces the way I want them lit – I went back to the building to confirm that the track would not interfere with the air-conditioning ducts. Then I went to my friend, Bob Jones, for advice on the lighting. David, Bob’s assistant, sent me a quotation covering our decisions, but I won’t be buying it, David, until I have a contract on the house. With this issue settled, I went back to my realtor to clarify which fixtures would not go with the house but would move with me to the new apartment (once I have a contract on the house). Having always coveted the Eames chair and ottoman made by Herman Miller, I visited American Office Furniture, the Herman Miller dealer in Baltimore, where Mandy gave me a quotation for them. Would that be in cherry frame with black, or brown, leather? I could decide that later, I said, when I have a contract on the house.

And so it goes. I’ve planned as much as I can, going as far as I can until… well, you know.

Stay tuned.