Chapter 15 - The Smaller Dream
We could afford Nia's revised plan only by changing the interior. The guest room disappeared, the upstairs bathroom grew smaller, and the kitchen island I had sketched for months became a plain table near a window.
When Owen came home from Hartford that Friday, I showed him the budget before the drawings.
“Tell me which part hurts,” I said.
He studied the numbers. “The workshop.”
He meant the small room where he hoped to repair chairs and cabinets. It had been the first thing he added to our original sketch.
“We can build a detached shop someday,” I offered.
“Maybe.”
I waited for him to argue. Instead, he took a pencil and moved a downstairs closet so there would be room for his bench by the back door. He was learning a kind of compromise that did not require anyone to approve of him.
Nia and Sam completed the revised package within three weeks. The drainage design kept most runoff directed into an existing vegetated area, with improvements that would be inspected as part of the building process. The house remained a real two-story home, with cedar siding, a covered porch, and a chimney made of local stone. It would still be visible through bare trees in winter.
We submitted everything at once with a cover sheet cross-referencing the five concerns from the work session.
I sent Celia one short note: Thank you for helping identify the items the board needs to review.
The fact that I meant it surprised me.
A week later, she responded with a request for a new road-level photograph at the last marked roof height. Nia had forgotten to include the photograph from the eastern bend.
My first impulse was to say that Celia was inventing another obstacle. Then I checked the submission. The image really was missing.
I called Nia, who apologized and sent it the same afternoon.
“We all get one mistake,” Owen said when I told him.
“Apparently,” I answered, “we've had several.”
At the next scheduled committee meeting, Evan asked whether the package was complete. Celia agreed that it was, and the minutes reflected that agreement. The board scheduled a final design decision in two weeks.
We had stopped trying to make them love the house. We had given them a plan they could evaluate.
Then our updated construction estimate arrived. Lumber, excavation, and lending costs had pushed us beyond the budget we'd first made together.
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Approval, if it came, would no longer be the end of the problem. It would be the beginning of a choice neither of us could avoid.
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