SO confused

I met with the architect Saturday morning and picked up the sketches. We gave him a ton of constraints to work with and he was unable to meet them all (surprise, surprise). Unfortunately, the ones he didn't meet were the ones we really wanted. I have had a few days to digest and think them through and I feel like what he designed for us works really well for us now and gives us a lot of room to grow into. There are two huge issues in my mind, though. One, I think the house is too big for the lot and I think it is going to be too expensive to build. He did nail the exterior- we love the way it looks from the front of the house.

Hubby finally got a reprieve from his job and came home last night. He hates the plans. He thinks they are too complicated and way more than we need. I am going to let him digest them today and see what he thinks tonight. One of the activities I spent most of Saturday working on was creating to scale representations of our furniture. It really helped me understand the plans spatially.

Yesterday, my folks finally got back from their second vacation of the month (first to France, now to Colorado), so I gave them a few hours to rest and then took the kids over and spent all day at their house. We went to the little, old house and marked up the trees on the plans. Unfortunately, the 80+ year old elm tree is not going to make it. The location is right in the middle of the lot and it would block the driveway. I do think we can save the huge pecan in front.

I would like to meet with a builder who made our short list and see if he can give us a rough estimate. I am extremely nervous to hear that number. It still seems surreal that we are actually building a house, a house exactly like we want and a house that we plan to stay in for many, many years. It feels good.