So our fabulous architects from Point of Departure, Jason and Dan, gave us this cool 3D model - a rough draft of what our new house would look like. (That's a shot from the 3D model, left.)

They chose the concept of a nest for their starting point (thus the Point of Departure name of the firm) - an idea we loved. They took our huge laundry list of stuff we want and condensed it into this ultra-cool plan. We're beside ourselves, just totally excited about the whole thing and can't wait to get started. Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait years to break ground, but hey - it's good to have such a clearly-defined dream.

Now, we're deep into the tweaking. This is the first version of what is bound to be an incredibly iterative process, so we took our time, amassed a two-page email of changes and fired it off yesterday, after our morning coffee. We felt a little guilty. Their model is awesome, as-is. I think we're more comfortable being on the receiving end of creative changes than the giving end. 

But, this is our house we're talking about, so we sucked it up. We're at the jumping off point for our project, the time where we're supposed to be making deep changes to their hard work. Make big changes later, and that's when you've got problems.

It's a balance, though. We deeply value our relationship with our crew. During The Varmint's and my long, caffeine-drenched musings over our dream house, we talked at length about the value of setting the right tone and honoring the creative relationship of our quartet. People are as important as projects.

So, I sent the email to everyone, our changes and all, yesterday. 

Within a half-hour, a second email dings my inbox. I open it. It's sent by The Varmint. You know. As an addendum.

"Tam, after much thought, decided that this is what is missing from the design."

To our architects' credit, they replied promptly, and without blinking:

"How ironic. That is exactly what we were thinking. Except maybe the dragon is purple, kinda like Puff, you know... the magic one."

They SO get us.