closing is really opening

We closed on the new house yesterday. That means the links to the realtor's website in previous posts no longer work. Odd that it's called closing when it's really more of a start than an end. The end of some torturous negotiations in our case, but the beginning of something I expect will be great....in about 3 or 4 months.

We had a 3+ hour meeting with the architect today where we finalized the kitchen plans, and took a stab as some ideas for the bathrooms. I'm afraid the dog crate built-ins are gone, as are the pocket doors I was in love with. They weren't really necessary and the more freaked I am getting over the budget, the more nixing them becomes a good idea. The upside is the living room isn't going to shrink by three feet. As for the doors, they were to be between the living room and kitchen. I could imagine no circumstances under which I would ever close them. The built-in pasta cooker/steamer unit remains however, in the island, which will be a lovely 3" shorter than standard counter-top height.

The bathrooms will be interesting. I would love to witness the demolition, executed by someone named "Rocky" who sounds like he has no neck and is probably from Jersey. Apparently for a mere $700 he will take a room back to the studs in 1 day and haul away all the debris.

I am still in a quandry over colors for just about every room in the house. Various shades of beige are starting to look attractive.