Move it Media lives on the third floor of Fairgard.  With a more direct shot, you’d probably see me through the top window at my stand up desk.

Our Viking-occupied, German beer hall lovingly known as Fairgard (aka our home) is getting ready for a big internal overhaul.  Walls are coming down, the long-ago demoed kitchen will be re-built, basement supported, flooring going in, scary downstairs bathroom spruced up, and wiring and plumbing updated.

We’re on a multi-year plan preparing him for his Centennial in 2019.  (Note: since it’s basically a fraternity house, it’s a “he”).  This year-long celebration will correspond with our son’s graduation from Lansing Eastern in 2020 and the required graduation open house blowout (a #puremichigan phenomenon that people actually schedule major home improvement projects to accomodate).

The Crawford Jones Board of Directors has had the required number of fights and stalling tactic impasses over design, builder, budget, funding strategies–we’ve been through this before on a few other homes and have come to trust this infuriating process…

We’ve selected RJ Kloak, LLC as our builder.  We interviewed many as we continued to refine our ideas.  I found this builder on Thumbtack  after an exhausting number of meetings with referrals from neighbors and individuals didn’t warrant results.  We went with Ryan and his company because he’s clearly a craftsman.  He’s into deconstruction and custom work.  His crew is full of his childhood buddies and he seems to get what we’re going for.  We are contract signed, deposits in, ready to go sometime this week.

My handiwork is displayed in the photos above — I know how to swing a sledgehammer.  When you expose the knob and tube wiring and the sagging floor is shaking every time your smallish son dunks on his Nerf hoop a floor up, it’s time to find some experts!

In the old saying “you can pick two of Quality, Cost, and Speed”, we always choose speed to eliminate.  (Or the less eloquent version of “you can pick two: cheap, fast, or good”).

We’re excited to get started and in a month we look forward to getting back to what we do best, aggressive games of modified wall ball and the raging house party.  Dance floor dimensions have been expanded and a sweet karaoke system has been added to our impressive disco light/smoke machine setup in our party arsenal.  Fairgard will be ready to entertain for his next hundred years.