Playing House

We have been busy the last few weeks, finalizing plans with our architect.  He has really done an outstanding job.  This week, we are going to submit the plans for approval(s).  There are a number of approvals that have to be cleared before we will be licensed to start construction.  We have already had a number of meetings with various departments to talk with them about our ideas, and understand the requirements.

For the most part, things have gone smoothly, but there are always a few surprises.  The health department are particularly pedantic, especially when compared to some of the places you see running.  It is sad to think that over time, the quant, local Portuguese bodegas that are so common here (and so integral to the local flavor) will slowly be devoured by an army of bureaucrats demanding separate men's/women's employee changing rooms.  Most of the restaurants in this city would never have gotten off the ground if they had to fight the regulations we are up against today.

But, lets not get diverted... This is not a blog post about the frustrations of planning permissions and regulations (although there will almost certainly be a few such posts before we open).  This is a post about the excitement of seeing a dream take physical shape.

TerraPlana at 1cm = 1 m

After months of discussing ideas, things are really starting to come together.  Our jaws dropped when our architect brought out this model of the house.  Looking at this, we can really start to imagine what it will be like to move around in and around the space.

If you get close enough, you can almost smell the pizza

It's hard to appreciate how cool this model is in pictures, and it will be even harder to describe with words.

A few things can be pointed out.  First, the top floors of the building will be separated into a small apartment.  The bar will occupy the ground floor.  From the very beginning, we understood that the focus of the bar would be the garden at the back of the building.  Since the garden is at a higher level then the street, we made the choice to open the ceiling and create a mezzanine level above the bar.  Since the current second floor has two large doors opening onto the garden, there will be a small metel catwalk above the bar, joining to the upper level of the garden through these doors.  There will also be a spiral staircase to the mezzanine which is not shown in the physical model, but can be seen in the drawings below.

Everything will become clear when we have the life size model done

This model is really the culmination of a million small decisions that we have been making.  As with any choices, the big fear is always, "Will we regret this someday?"  It seemed natural that when we finally came to this point, where the plans are basically done, we would have last minute second thoughts.

And yet, here we are and there is NOTHING but excitement!

The work ahead of us cannot be ignored.  Just the approval process is going to take months.  We have a lot of work to do regarding materials, engineering, and building.  We haven't even signed a contractor yet.  Then there is the work to start the bar.  Decorating, finding distributors, creating recipes etc...  It's going to be a busy year.