Plans: A Fable

Fitzpatrick-I’ll share with you a delightful, cozy nightmare about not following plans, so everyone will understand why I and so many designers have a metaphorical drafting scale up our rear ends about the issue.

First, designers and architects spend a lot of time drawing plans; or their draftspeople do. A set of plans is the time-honored (think DaVinci, Palladio) and industry-standard method for conveying the visual specifications of a project to a number of people for the duration of the job, and after, without the designer physically talking to each one of the entities involved in completing it.

• The plans communicate to the client what we agreed upon and how their space will look.
• They communicate to the general contractor the scope of the work for a bid and guide its execution.
• They do the same for the general contractor’s sub-contractors, if she has them.
• They also communicate to the governing building body for compliance with codes and issuance of permits, and to anyone who seeks, in later years, to comprehend what was done to a space.

In other words, we ain’t drawing 'em for fun.

I can’t tell you how many general- and subcontractors I’ve run into over the course of my career who simply refuse to read plans. I don’t mean they simply skim them or read carelessly; I mean they expect me to stop my workday, drive out to a jobsite and verbally review a job with them because:

1. they can’t be bothered,
2. they never learned to read plans, even though it’s an integral part of doing business in the trades,
3. they’re approaching middle age and are so in denial that they refuse to wear reading glasses in public. I’m not kidding.

The best story involved a small but intricate bathroom remodel a few years ago, where I’d spent about twelve-hours drawing the tile pattern to be executed, a copy of which had been attached to the client’s contract as an addendum. I was having surgery the week the tile was set, and my boss, who was the general contractor on the project, didn’t check his subcontractor, a superb craftsman, but—a middle-aged guy who

1. couldn’t be bothered to read plans,
2. because I’m not sure if he knew how, and
3. was also too vain to wear reading glasses.

The plans had a BIG note on one of the sheets with an arrow leading to the pattern. It called out that the points of the floor tiles were to meet the points of the wall tiles at the floor and wall joint, and that the whole pattern was to begin with a twelve-by-twelve, placed at a 45-degree angle centered on the oil-rubbed bronze wall faucet which fed a custom-granite wall-mounted sink. Yes, it was an intricate little gem-of-a-room.

I went out the following week, as the tile was being grouted. The wall tile on the wainscot was correct, but the installer had decided to center the floor tiles on the doorway. Apparently, he just thought it looked best. Thus, forever more, when you walk into the tiny room, you see this great pattern—that doesn’t match up where the wall meets the floor. When I photographed the job, I put a pair of reed spa slippers over the offending intersection to hide the glaring mistake.

The client rolled with it and didn’t want to hold up the job to have it redone. If it was my bathroom, I would have demanded that the floor be replaced, with the installer providing the additional labor and material to fix it so it looked like the one I paid for in my contract. (The likely result being that he would have walked off the job and I’d be stuck getting a new installer. You really can’t win in these situations).

But the piece de resistance was the shower. It was only three-foot-by three foot, so I specified that the soap and shampoo shelves be recessed into the wall to the right of the faucets, on the same wall as the door. That way, if the client had less than photo-quality shampoo bottles and sundries (as most of us do), they wouldn’t be immediately visible upon entering the room.

Our guys, working under the general contractor, had also decided that the plans were just silly little pictures they didn’t need to review. They never framed for the shelves, and since the tile man didn’t read, he tiled right over the area. (My boss insisted it was because I’d called the shelves “inset” and not “recessed.” Whatever dude, as we say out here in California. The drawings said “SHELVES” of some kind, and no one called to clarify. Because they weren't READING THE PLANS).

So the tile guy, being a nice thoughtful human being in every other capacity except READING THE PLANS, decided that that shower needed a soap dish. So he took it upon himself to supply and install one; a bright white wall-mounted pre-made ceramic soap dish—smack dab in the middle of a shower of terracotta tiles, in a room with terracotta walls and terracotta ceilings, in which I had gone to the lengths of ordering terracotta light switches (with oil-rubbed bronze switch plates, mind you). Even the lever on the toilet and its water supply outlet were custom-ordered oil-rubbed bronze. In other words, THERE WASN’T A SPECK OF WHITE IN THE ENTIRE ROOM.

These shelves were redone, according to THE PLANS, costing time and material and profit from the job.

On the next project that season, a kitchen, the same tile setter, Mr. Plans?We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinking-Plans was back on the job. And I was there too, explaining the entire backsplash pattern to him, verbally. But karma did act quickly. Not a single tile on the entire 20 lineal feet of backsplash was a full piece.

So, READ THE DAMN PLANS. And have a lovely evening.