A New Perspective?

Swung by the bungalow tonight after work to show Courtney the interior of the place, and she ended up doing more "harm" than good: namely, she mentioned thoughts she had about our plan for the layout of the great room, and actually got us thinking that her idea was better than ours.  Oh no!  Actually, she had a few ideas, but one of them won out.  (One involved moving where the dining room would be, which I'd be amenable to except I would never want a dining room to have a bathroom next to it, so that was nixed.)  But now, we're meeting with the architect tomorrow and have to seriously think (at nearly midnight...) about whether we want our plan or our plan with Courtney's edit.  Thanks, sis!

The great room, with Leo guarding it.

Met a new neighbor tonight-- Melissa, along with her two dogs Homer and Ella.  The kids were adorable playing with the dogs by the fountain, and continued doing so while we gave Melissa the grand tour.  It's great how the neighbors want to see the place.  Some of them have lived next to the place for up to 3 years, and are understandably excited about seeing renovations begin.  Luckily, they have the windmill next door to watch while we go through the creative process.  One Saturday a couple months back, we had at least two dozen people file through to take a look at the place when I was in there with the doors open waiting to interview contractors.  Some even said they were checking on the place to make sure the door hadn't swung open inadvertently.  Nice try, neighbors, but I have no problem with looky-loos!

Experienced rush-hour traffic for the first time today after Courtney picked me up from work.  We got past the Maryland state line in no time at all (20 minutes at most), but then had to wait seven cycles to get through the intersection of Beach Drive and East-West Highway because of the traffic stopped at Jones Branch.  Very poorly designed intersection... especially because it took us at least 20 minutes to get through there, whereas it'd probably have taken ten just to park and walk to the house.  Oh well.  More news tomorrow, as we meet with the Montgomery County Planners and the architect, but let's see what Courtney has to say about her evening tour.  Courtney?