The Dojo of Karate

A co-worker of mine has a husband that is a General Contractor, who knows an architect. Sounds complicated right now, but bare with me. Well, I met with him on Monday (the architect), so he can take a look at my school and see what type of work is entailed to get some drawings up, see if I will need an extra bathroom, and the layout I have envisioned. See, the City of Westminster (and most other cities) require that all commercial properties be drawn and stamped by an Architect. Once approved, you are then awarded a permit to do tenant improvements and such. With that said, after my architect walked round the mess I left behind, he kept telling me this should be a fairly easy project because we are clearing out all of the walls and pushing the electrical to the main dividing walls - which makes the project easier. He had also mentioned that if I use his construction business (he’s a licensed G.C.) then he would give me a discount on the drawings. I’m all for discounts! If you recall, I was planning on pulling the building permit myself and then just sub-contract different projects. This allowed me to control my budget. Since the guy seems like a nice guy, and he was a referral, I’m gonna go ahead and have him do all the work for me. As long as he stays within my budget, then I think everything should be fine.

So tomorrow, or today if you read this on Thursday, my architect is coming back out to starting doing measurements of the school. I’m thinking it’ll take about 2 hours to finish this, then an entire day to complete the drawings. He also contacted the City of Westminster to clarify some of the fire codes and determine the load capacity (but hasn’t heard back), which will then determine if I need an additional bathroom.

I’m pretty excited about this part because I’ll then get to see my school on paper, and it will be one-step closer to becoming a reality.

Later!