Progress?

So, in this sideways two-step, backwards cha-cha, there might actually be progress on the house project. The two recours against the project were rolled into one, and then adjudicated. The Tribunal de Premier Instance rejected all the concerns of the plaintiffs. That was November. In January, in a 14 degree (celsius) living room, I started looking for a new architect.

My previous architects were very, very good. But their estimates on the project, with their fees at 20% on top of that, were too much for me to manage. I took the MPQ list from the canton of Geneva and pared it down to about ten names for first choice and another bunch for second choice.

Interviews started in April and I made my selection by May. I am very happy with them, but no architect seems to have a good handle on budgeting. We are going to go over and that seems to be normal. I don’t like it. But there you go. I just think of my neighbor from Eaux Vives who had a 250k budget to renovate a large apartment and ended up spending double that. That is a physical impossibility for me because the money just isn’t there.

Works should start in mid-October. The construction manager predicts to be finished in mid-April. I figure I’ll move back in mid-June. It is all at once exciting and terrifying.