The Lazy Fox Chronicles: Chemistry

This post is about the chemistry we have with others, and the choices we face when that chemistry just doesn't work despite our best efforts to alter the formula, time and again. (I'm not referring to my marriage, by the way. While our chemistry does equate to total and utter chaos, I'm in love with it on a different level- a cosmic level. The same cannot be said for hiring professionals in the world of building . . . although maybe it should.)

Building the house at Lazy Fox is not our first rodeo. In 2008 we remodeled our home in Golden, CO. What started out as adding a second story without touching the existing interior morphed into gutting everything that had already been; we built a new house that used the shell of the little bungalow we originally bought. We learned so many things, primarily:

My husband's attention to detail, while overwhelming at times, is grounded in a very deep and expansive knowledge base. When he notices something and feels compelled to say something, I had better listen. There's an issue;
Hiring people based heavily on your personal chemistry is NOT a wise choice. More on that later;
You cannot be clear enough about expectations;
If your internal alarm is going off, pay attention;
When people feel stressed out, they do funny things;
Never stop walking . . . no wait, that was our rule from a trip to Amsterdam in 2004. That's a post for another blog entirely.
It's absolutely OK, and in fact our job, to speak up about what we want. This may sound obvious, but it's weird how when you are surrounded by "professionals," there is a tendency (for me, anyway) to default to their knowledge and opinion. Bad idea! It's my house for freak's sake. As my kids would say:

With such a lengthy, insightful list, it might be reasonable to assume we would be well suited to face the project at Lazy Fox. And we are. And we've already had to relearn some of these lessons just during the design phase. In our defense, this design phase has now surpassed 18 months in length, but really there's no defense here. We simply didn't remember all the previous lessons learned. I suppose that makes one more lesson learned:
8. write down your lessons learned (perhaps in a very public place) so that you can refer to them time and again.

But I digress.

While there are many reasons that at this stage of the game we still have no permitted drawings, the single shiny star is chemistry. Back in 2008 when we were working on the Vernon Drive house, we hired our GC based on an alignment of values, and a really good personal chemistry. Some months later we found ourselves faced with someone completely different. Matters of money had rendered him unable to communicate, and he walked off the job. He claimed he was going bankrupt, but we never got any notices about it, and as far as I know, his company is still up and running. We were as upfront and forthright with him as possible, yet we stopped short of firing him. In retrospect, there were very clear warning signs along the way, yet we chose to ignore them and eventually, disaster struck.

This time around I can say that while we still waited too long with matters of personal chemistry, we have been proactive in changing course even when it feels horribly heavy to do so. Most of this is related to matters of money- letting go of that was huge, and scary, and I'm so glad we did. No one is done any favors when out of steam relationships are pushed forward for the sake of completing a task. The process and product also suffer, changing from something creative to something burdonsome.

All of this is to say that we are (back) on track with Lazy Fox and have a renewed sense of conviction. I'm sure the beautiful spring time weather has helped. We are awakening again to the possibilities that are Lazy Fox.