The man behind the curtain

No, he's not the wizard of Oz, but you do have to be some sort of wizard to take a house from this...

...to this...

...while sticking to the timeline and the budget, and dealing with crazy clients talking about barn wood floors and jellyfish chandeliers without even batting an eye. I've had a lot of questions about who the mysterious GC is that has been running the show here, but I wanted to make sure to get his permission before using his name on the blog. Now that everything is said and done and we are beyond thrilled with the results, I want to give a huge shout-out to Jeff Clark of Giraffe Design Build.

The man behind the curtain stove

Jeff was a pleasure to work with. He's a true professional who did things right and didn't cut corners - something would bother him and he would fix it before we even noticed it. Moreover, he's an honest and ethical person who we came to trust and just genuinely like. I miss chatting with Jeff now that he's not stopping by anymore to take care of the punch list!


Other people we heart:

Of course I have already mentioned Steven Varnum of Caddis Design, the house genius who drew up the plans for Turtle House. Steven is an absolute gem. If you live in SE Michigan and need some design work done, I give him my highest recommendation times a skazillion billion. Just scroll up and look at those before and after pictures again, people.

We also had interior design help from Mandi Wise at Oyl Design, Ltd. Mandi has a great eye and picked up on our style/aesthetic tastes before we were even aware of them. She was a huge help with light fixtures and paint colors in particular, and if it weren't for budget constraints I would still be paying Mandi just so I could hang out with her at the paint store because she's rad.

There were other subcontractors we were impressed with, but many don't have a web presence so I can't provide links. In particular, we loved working with our carpenters, electrician (Jeff Grubbs at Jaaco Electric), and painters (Al Ayala and team). The flooring installers (David and Rick at Lakeland Hardwood Floors) deserve special mention for taking our insane pile of barnwood flooring and basically turning it into a work of art. Not to mention being super nice guys. If anyone reading is local and wants contact info for these folks, hit me up!

(This post has been sitting in "Drafts" for ages and is looong overdue!)