Waiting Game…

BK and I’ve been through this before. Where in a heat of passion, we call things off.

Last night, things started off fine. We had dinner, although all throughout dinner I was asking him to stop playing on his phone and pay attention to me. Then after dinner, when we were getting ready for bed, I asked if we could cuddle, and said I felt like I wasn’t getting enough attention. I didn’t want to make it sound like I was blaming him or asking him for more than he could handle. But he snapped at me. And said that I always wanted so much attention. Where before, he could give it to me willingly, but not anymore, because things changed after we had a rough patch.

That he loves me, but he doesn’t know if he is in love with me. That things are different now. Where before, he used to be able to share things openly with me, and now it is hard to talk to me.

I don’t know how it got to this. But I know, that I need to be strong and whatever his decision may be, that is his decision and that I cannot do anything to control his feelings. I could have made his experience with me more positive. And I should’ve worked on that. But I wasn’t getting what I needed?

Two months. I just needed to focus on making his experience with me positive for two months.

I am torturing myself for what I could be doing differently, but in the end, there is nothing more that matters than becoming a better version of myself.

 

 

Once in a Lifetime

There are some things that are easily recognized as being once in a lifetime opportunities. At this moment, I can say that I have the opportunity to experience one right now at work.

Last year April, I left my job at a CM to work for a GC. I was becoming more interested in working as a contractor doing residential or commercial work. Hospitality work, truthfully, was becoming boring because while it was a challenge logistically, every room was the same.

Today I am working on a custom residential home ($20M) where the Client has a budget, but they are prioritizing good value with good quality. There is a custom Molteni kitchen suite, commercial Halton exhaust hood, a swimming pool, 2 onsens, a Tesla Powerwall system (10 max as dictated by Hawaii building codes for residential projects), and a bunch of bedrooms, full bathrooms, ensuites, powder rooms, etc. The project architect is Shim-Sutcliffe Architects based out of Toronto. They have been very good to work with, and I can say that working with them has taught me a lot about design and construction.

In terms of construction, we are constantly pushing the boundaries of how we know to build (try bringing up three 4,000 lb rock up to the 2nd floor on a site as logistically tight as ours). Installing a steel roof structure. Having “coffers” be your ceiling. Verifying the chemical properties of various metal components to ensure that they are bronze or stainless steel.

Design wise, I have never learned about design as much as I have working with them. The architects are so passionate about design. The principal architects stayed in the house over two Christmases to really study and “breathe” the space. They realized while they were staying at their old, existing house that the best views were not visible in the public spaces.

The project sits right at the beachfront of Lanikai Beach in Kailua. Lanikai is most famous for these pair of islands a few hundred yards away, simply referred to as The Mokes.

The property, which sits right in this vicinity, never had this view from the old house. So Shim-Sutcliffe, when designing a house for the new owners, knew that they needed to take advantage of this gorgeous view. In order to do that, they “flipped” the traditional house so that the main public/entertainment areas (the living room, dining room, kitchen, public lanai, pool, and onsen)  are all on the 2nd floor of the house, and the bedrooms are on the 1st floor of the house.

Then, secondly, all the rooms in the house are all orientated to a diagonal 45* along diagonal gridlines which set up the framework for the entire house. The reason for this is to maximize the “long” of the site, but frame the Mokes which are 45* to the right of the house.

Next, the architects had a concept for the roof of the house, and that it would be “floating.” In order to accomplish this, the roof is supported on columns off concrete walls in very select locations (minimizing the number of columns in the house), but also to provide relief at the roof level. The steel columns are then cladded with bronze to act more as an architectural element than a purely structural function.

Everybody that has come on to the site realize that this is a very special project that may be once in a lifetime type of project. The Client is willing to spend the money on things that are valuable to him (including a custom kitchen, artwork, precious metals like bronze and stainless steel). The wood coffers that make up the 2nd floor cost about $800K, the concrete coffers on the 1st floor I don’t know how much (before my time), but as most things on this job was custom!