Meet the Architect day

We drove down to Madison yesterday to meet Jim Gempeler the residential design architect at GMK Architecture. We actually met Jim a few years ago when we were trying to plan our earlier (but failed) project at the Merrillan Mill site (see earliest posts).  We had approached him to design our home there and besides having some great ideas, the first time we met at his office, we ate bratwursts they were barbecuing out back and ruffles potato chips for lunch.  I think the brats sealed the deal for Anne.

We showed Jim the topo survey map that Anne made, pictures, and video of the site and talked about what we "envisioned" being built there.  We also talked about the design materials that we would like to see (exposed concrete, steel, and glass) and things we didn't like so much (curved walls, angled rooms).

The whole time, Jim was really excited enthusiastic and you could get the sense that he is passionate about his work and really wanted to design a house that fit us and our lifestyle.  Something about the whole situation just felt right and there was a certain calmness about it.  He threw out many great ideas but really wanted to take a trip to the site to see and discuss it first hand.  Since we didn't have much time left in our trip and with winter approaching, we decided to meet there the following Tuesday morning.  We left that day feeling even more excited and optimistic knowing that we were one step closer to finally making this a reality.

We drove back to Merrillan and to top off an already great day, we went back out to the property after dark and watched the Moon rise over our view of the eastern horizon.  It was awesome to think about how many more rising moons we would see in the coming years when we live here!