“I AM NOT A SATISFIED LOCUS CUSTOMER”

-Laura G., Minneapolis

(A true story from the my inbox.  If we’d only known Laura then.)

I am not a Locus customer at all.  Never was. Therein lies the problem. When it was time to build a second story on my house, I did not hire an architect to design the space. Imagine my delight when I found a draftsman who could complete the blueprints for only  $165!  I had saved thousands by not using an architect. I felt clever and thrifty.

Fast forward 4 years. My small daughter is now a teen; the household has expanded to include a husband/stepdad, and I can’t find my black pumps or winter sweaters in the only jumbled (now “his and hers”) puny closet in the master bedroom. The walk-in closet of my dreams became a furnace room in the final building moments due to lack of HVAC planning. Upstairs, books fight with homeless laundry for space on the floor because – oops – there are windows where there should be bookshelves. But the windows are all transoms for some reason– too high to see out of ––except the one in my room, which looks out on an expanse of grey asphalt roof shingles.  There are also three really big windows on the tiny Northwest corner bedroom my daughter outgrew five minutes after it was completed.  These floor-to-ceiling windows make the room bone-chilling cold in the winter and bring maximum exposure of the room and all its contents to every pedestrian on the busy street below. We overcome the lack of modesty by simply never opening the heavy curtains. The poor teen goes to bed and awakes in complete darkness year round, never quite knowing what time or season it is.  And every morning profanity fills the air as my husband trips over a vacuum cleaner (did I mention no storage closets?) or stray shoes and falls into the standing garment rack on wheels blocking the bedroom doorway. And the profanity comes from me, not him. I can’t hear what he’s saying above the din.

Don’t be like me. Hire an architect.