Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: design team

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Jan 11, 2006, at 2:49 PM, Sharon Villines wrote:

> Have people on your design team who always wanted to be engineers and 
> you will be grateful to them forever.

I should have said "engineers and librarians" because all the info has 
to be saved and recorded in a format that everyone can access.

Questions will follow for years about how to match the counter tops or 
cabinets. Who made the floors in the dining room? Who made the fixtures 
in the kids room? What's inside my walls?

We actually video taped our walls before they were closed up but where 
are the tapes? It's a hunting job whenever we need one of them. We have 
all the brochures and catalogs from all the suppliers, all the 
appliance info, etc. in a library one of our members organized. But 
most of us need the librarian to find the information. It has been very 
helpful in re-sales also.

Of course in normal construction you have none of this, but in 
cohousing where you are managing your own building complex without a 
real facilities manager, it is priceless.

(Don't get me started on management companies. Our "manager" handles 18 
properties, some much larger than our 43 units and I doubt if any are 
smaller. On onsite manager, even part-time is a better idea in most 
areas.)

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org