Or, I guess it's technically considered an estimate. Anyway, we received the first "bid" on the construction project yetsterday, and, well, hrm. It's looking to be a sight more expensive than we had hoped. Also, although I was very explicit in certain details, while leaving other completely open to innovation or inspiration, I was disappointed by the proposed look of the apartment. For instance, I had specifically said there should be a bathtub, not a shower, and that we wanted a loft, with the living room, bathroom and kitchen downstairs, the conceptual drawing includes a shut off bedroom, no loft, a kitchenette, and a shower in the rather small bathroom.

Sigh.

But the gut called after he dropped off the plans and proposal, and said I could talk to him about some of the details, so guess how I'm going to spend my lunch hour?

An architect also came over, who works with one of the other contractors. He had some pretty good ideas for the space, though he did say that it'll be about $130/square foot of space, loft or no loft. Which is also considerably out of our current budget. But we'll soldier on, get the rest of the bids in, and then review our options.