When I walked into Granny’s West, I got a big smile. Geri, the former assistant manager at Monical’s, was talking to Jan at the hostess stand. I couldn’t wait until my brother found out. Maybe I should mention that his massage business was in the strip mall. I would make sure to buy her a free massage for Christmas. Come to think of it, that would be a great gift to give all our employees, and give Greg a chance to earn some cash for the holidays.
“Hello, Mr. Dawson,” Jan said formally.
I noticed she rolled her eyes at the new girl and kept a straight face.
“Your order is almost ready,” Jan continued.
“We’ll help you carry it over,” Geri said.
I thought they were just being polite until the food started to come out in sacks. Jan handed me the bill, and I figured Mom must have decided to feed every realtor in the county. The three of us carried nine bags of food next door.
When we walked in, I figured it out. Cindy and her Ohio State contingent were here. I was told they wanted to get confirmation on their design direction. They had made a model of the proposed changes, and pictures were taped to the wall in the conference room.
Dean Lloyd and Cindy each grabbed a plate of food and joined me to look at what was planned.
“We’ve been showing your mom what everyone came up with. Once we get her okay, we can finish our projects for the semester,” Cindy said.
This was one of those moments when I had to bite my tongue. I’d told my mom to take care of the details. It would have been nice to at least be given a chance to see the final plans before everything was decided. I took a deep breath and realized that was precisely what they were doing. Dean Lloyd began to walk me through the proposed changes.
The interior of the house was going to be completely updated. Downstairs, there were five bedrooms, and each one would have a bathroom with a shower. They would close off the garage and turn it into a man cave-slash-playroom. The second floor would have the master suite with huge walk-in closets and a bathroom that would rival a five-star resort.
Kitchen upgrades included a set of commercial appliances. Cooking for a family my size needed something bigger than a standard kitchen offered. I know that at our house, there were times when a second oven would have been handy. The rest of the upstairs was an open concept that combined the dining and living spaces. There were floor-to-ceiling windows on the two sides that had the best views of the ocean. The windows were movable walls that would open the home to the outdoors and to the balcony that wrapped around.
There were three different designs of the overall look and feel. One was modern and mainly white. The second was a Spanish style with large red tile on the floor and hand-painted tiles as accents. The final version was labeled ‘Italian.’ It featured more earth tones and used stone for things like outside wall accents and the island front in the kitchen.
“Which one did my mom like?”
“She’s leaning towards the Italian design,” Cindy shared.
It was my choice too.
From the balcony, there was a staircase to the roof. It was designed for more outdoor living with a kitchen, bar area, fireplace, and hot tub. I could see whiling away an afternoon, spending time with friends and family, and enjoying the ocean views.
The current pool house was going to have a second story added, which would add three bedrooms. There was already one bedroom on the ground floor, along with a sizeable family-room-like area with a small kitchen. There were also two dressing rooms for the pool and an outside shower.
In the back of the property, there would be a new two-story building that would double as a garage and security office and have four additional apartments. The garage was double depth and had garage doors on both the front and back.
“That looks huge,” I said as I pointed at the garage.
“Its ground floor is four thousand square feet. That makes the apartments a thousand square feet each,” Dean Lloyd explained.
When we’d kicked ideas around, I guess it hadn’t seemed real. Now, I started to worry that this might all be too much. Only the fact that my mom and dad had been involved with this from the beginning stopped me from panicking.
I’d also expanded my family since the initial discussions. I could envision the kids downstairs and Peggy, Pam, Ashley, and Scarlet in the pool house. The new garage would allow us to have a driver, housekeeper-slash-cook, nanny, and security living on the premises.
“The only thing missing is a tennis court,” I joked.
I saw Cindy write that down.
I left the conference room to grab my lunch. My mom took me back to her office.
“What do you think?” she asked.
I could see she was happy.
“I think you’ve done a great job. Are you sure I can afford it?” I asked.
“You sound like your father.”
“It’s a valid question. I mean, wow! It doesn’t seem like they had a budget in mind when they suggested all the changes.”
