Exciting Times

Many things have happened since I last posted, but rather than try to list them all out in report form I'll just talk about the one which is most on my mind and may have the most impact on our future: we're looking for an architect.  I hadn't really expected to be looking for an architect until long about December, reckoning that 6 months before building would start would be plenty of time, but Mike felt strongly that we should get started looking for an architect and builder right away, so I thought, why not?  It turns out Mike was entirely right, the architect we've gotten in touch with first says a year is about the right amount of time to begin the design process.  I don't really want to reveal who this or other architects we interview are until we actually decide on one, so we'll just call him the Richmond architect, since that's where his office is.  His firm has a strong emphasis on building green in all its aspects: solar panels, passive solar power, use of local and salvaged materials, rainwater conservation, and many others.  This definitely appeals to Mike and I, since we want to incorporate that kind of thing as far as the budget allows.  The Richmond Architect has also built small homes and homes with universal design elements, two important things to us.  At first we were worried Williamsburg was too far away from Richmond to use him as our architect (it is about 50 miles after all), but he has several ongoing projects throughout the area and that won't be any problem.  In other words, he's got all the experience building the kind of house we want.  However, I don't know if he's worked in Williamsburg itself before, or if he's worked in a historically protected area, as ours is.  And, of course, we'll have to see how Mike and I would feel about working with him personally.  But we do have our hopes up.  We'll need to go down there in a couple of weeks to meet with him and go over the site together. We'll know more then.