Some seventeen years ago I bought a set of fourteen huge, antique teak doors from a hundred year old home in Java. I'd been waiting for the right opportunity to use them in a villa I would build in Bali. I'd dreamed about floor plans and design ever since we stayed in an exquisite villa in Sri Lanka twelve years ago.
Three of those doors were ten feet tall, with an arched space for stained glass above the doors themselves. These I'd imagined installed on the rice field and river view side of the living room. With the shutter side of the doors open, each would require ten feet of wall space, so the room would need to be a minimum of thirty five feet long. With a second set of three similar sized doors for the other outside wall, the great room would need to be thirty five feet square.
This is where my floor plan began, and the rest of the villa followed suit in size and style, including an 800 square foot entry hall with a koi pond open to the sky in the middle. By the time I drew a sketch of the floor plan, I knew the project would rage out of control, with that set of doors, the tail, informing every part of the design.
This was my fourth home to design, build, and furnish in Bali, and I'd worked with this builder and draftsman on my previous villa next door. They were wonderful to work with, and changes along the way were absorbed into the original bid, so the villa was completed on budget and almost on time.
Having ascertained that everyone was on board for this building adventure, I gathered my team of three and excitedly told them that we had fourteen days to design this villa, have all the working drawings done, and have the contract signed. They all rolled their eyes and said OK.
That evening I drew a rough floor plan a dozen times, based on my dreams, until I had something to present the next morning. From then on we met at 9:00 am every day. We moved dozens of walls, changed the bathroom gardens, the front porch, and dozens of other details, day by day, until the plan became working drawings and the working drawings became a bid. Somehow the team was holding up, even though many nights they worked until early morning. They sensed my excitement and added their own.
When the builder handed me his price, I looked at the bid overnight, we signed the next day, and I transferred the deposit. Thirteen days from sketch to contract was exciting madness, but I knew I had the best team ever and had the confidence that it would be a dream made real.
When the villa was complete and we did the final walk through, there were three minor fixes. A miracle these master builders made happen.
