Road Trip!

Yesterday was an exciting day! I was invited to drive over to Augusta for an initial client meeting with Jane. I find it really neat that Jane and Linda's work can spread so far with virtually no advertising and solely relying on word or mouth. They have clients as far as Montana and Dallas! Honestly, their work just speaks for itself and its no wonder that people all over are looking for their talents.

We had a 2 hour and 15 minute drive to Augusta where we planned for the meeting. I also took this opportunity to ask Jane whatever questions I could think of. She is such an incredible resource and is so willing to invest time in educating me. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!  The client we were going to meet is a couple with grown kids and a few grandkids. They just moved to Augusta from Ohio a couple of years ago and they are looking to renovate their kitchen and add on a back porch. I got to see the snowball effect in full force when we arrived as suddenly things spread to encompass the kitchen, the laundry room, the walk in pantry, the sunroom and even partially the living room! I really enjoyed seeing how Jane ran the meeting, asking questions about everything (functionality, what they like, what they don't like, aesthetics, opening things up, how the space is used, etc), voicing opinions, but what I really respected most was her consciousness of cost and her ability to communicate in a way that she is not trying to sell herself.  As they talked I took detailed notes and interjected whenever I felt was appropriate.  After while, we took lots of good pictures of the space and made sure we had really detailed measurements. Since we were all the way in Augusta we couldn't afford to miss anything important!

4 hours later we headed home with all sorts of information and ideas. We had a "brain dump" session for the majority of the way home and I wrote down any thoughts or any more details that we could come up with.  Jane was really great about talking me through things and asking my opinions and what I would do! I'm really excited to see where this project goes.  Though I don't think I will get to be fully involved from start to finish (as we were hoping) due to the summer's end in sight, I hope that I will continue to be updated as the project goes on while I'm back in Athens.

Next week I will be working on getting the As Built's in and developing a good set of drawings so that Jane can work her magic and sketch a few ideas up. I'll keep you posted as I can!

Here are a few pictures of the existing space!