Well, friends. This might be my last update until you get some sneak peeks into the final project. In case you haven’t been following The Fig House project click here for the whole story. It’s getting epic.
Six months ago the space looked like this:
Not exactly where you want to have your wedding reception. Nay.
And now:
It’s amazing that the above photo shows six months of progress. I know it just looks like we took out some weird shelving, painted the walls, and put some windows in, but what you don’t see is that we moved ALL the plumbing, redid ALL of the electrical, added insulation, soundboard and drywall to the walls, opened up and added huge sliding glass doors and windows, added bathrooms, opened up the roof, and then yes, primed the walls.
It’s like completely restoring the guts of a car when it just looks like you gave it a quick hand washing.
We are in the last stages and it’s finally looking like what my imagination has promised me the last six months. The furniture is at the upholsterers, the sconces are ready to be installed, the amazing stained glass doors are being installed on Friday and the landscaping is under way.
The exterior used to look like this:
And now, it’s looking like this:
We had to move some doors around, re-stucco, get rid of those weird black things in the ground, and ONE MILLION OTHER THINGS, but it is looking GOOOOOOOOD. I chose my favorite navy blue paint (Farrow and Ball ‘Hague Blue’) as the exterior and those doors are going to be stained a dark walnut. So pretty. We have yet to add the trellis outside those huge doors, and of course, the stained glass and all the landscaping on this side.
Then inside the other building we used to have this lovely Chinese restaurant (don’t worry, the family sold the business to retire). It once looked like this:
And now:
We knocked down walls, built other walls, got rid of windows (for a good reason, I promise) moved all the plumbing, moved all the electrical, relocated flux capacitor, etc., etc. The amount of inspections one needs to nail a nail into a wall is insane. I had no idea how much minutia this would actually entail. But that wallpaper (Block Stripe) and our custom designed millwork is already killing it.
All in all it’s looking VERY good and intensely satisfying. There is still one million things to do, a lot of which isn’t terribly fun — hinges, doorknobs, bathroom stalls, ADA soap dispensers, toilet seat covers, address numbers, fertilizer, security lights, light switch covers, and one million other things. But soon, folks, soon we’ll be able to bring in 30 pieces of upholstered vintage furniture, 20 incredible sconces, 25 pieces of incredible art, 10′ art deco mirrors and we’ll play and style and fluff for days straight. It’s like Christmas, except so much better.
Wish me luck. September is shaping up to be the busiest month of my life.