Women In Architecture: Burnt out

Since last week, I've been working on the measured drawings for Project F.  Project F is bigger than I thought. 

First, the weather thinks that we are still in the Winter season.  The building has no electricity; so when it is 50 degrees outside, it feels like 30 degrees in the building.  In order to stay warm, I had to make sure I was moving at all times. Measuring an existing building = frozen toes with a runny nose, lol. 

Source: Facebook.com

Secondly, it has a tight schedule; so instead of taking a couple of weeks to measure and document this historical building, we are rushing to get the first part out next week.  Despite the time crunch, I was able to get the plans out to the engineers on Tuesday.  It was rough but I feel like a load was taken off my shoulders.  Even though I finished the first task, I'm far from finished.  The thing that separates Project F from the rest of my projects is that it is historical.  That means I have to custom make every piece in my Building Information Modeling program - Revit.  I can't use the generic windows or other pieces that are in the program.  Later in the post, I will show you photos of the details.

Even though everything burning me out, School M came to the rescue.  While I was in the middle of the deadline yesterday, my boss went to the bid opening for School M.

Businessdictionary.com describes a bid opening as:

"Stage in a bidding process where the received bid-envelopes are opened and examined by the advertiser (called buyer, client, customer, or owner) of an invitation-to-bid (ITB). In an open or public bid opening, the bidders (and other parties) are allowed to witness the process and inspect the bids, in a closed opening only the owner's staff is present."

There were five contractors that bid on School M and all the bids were close together.  Success!  That meant my drawings were sound.  The second part was that the lowest bid was $1,000 more than my estimated budget for the project.  Double success!  The bid was $15,000 more than the owner's original projected budget.  Good thing we showed the owner our budget before the bids.  This made my day and week so much better!  Hopefully, the lowest bidder does a great job on the renovations for School M.

To continue with Wednesday's theme but with just photos, I am linking up with Alex @ Good Girl Gone Wife for Wordless Wednesday to show you each custom detail I will have to make for Project F: