Wow! How gorgeous is that!

When I got to the site today, my assistant and Kai had the fountain set up in the courtyard waiting for me. We filled it with water and plugged it in to get a preview of what it will look like. The answer is: Fabulous!

There still have to be some little adjustments made before we can just leave it on, but needless to say, I am thrilled.

Here it is again from the living room side of the courtyard. Once that back bed is planted, it will create a lush backdrop for the fountain.

One thing that happened today—for which I don’t have a picture—is that the tech from the exterior door and window company came and adjusted all the doors and windows. I presume this company does this to cover their liability insurance, because once their tech has inspected everything, they know that it is functioning properly when their warranty kicks in. (They also inspect and certify the installation at the time is done.) My guess is that it is cheaper for them to do that then defend against a bunch of failure lawsuits where their product is not at fault. Anyway, it is pretty unusual and an excellent thing.

The tech was very complimentary to Kai about how well everything was installed so Kai has good reason to be proud of his excellent work. The upshot of all this is that now we can lock up the house.

The other thing going on was that the painter was working on my studio floor. When I first looked at the paint he was using, I freaked, because it was a disgusting pink. The painter assured me that it was only the primer. So then I said, “Let’s look at the actual paint.” I had picked out the color in a hurry on Wednesday from a chip, and if you have been following the website for a while, you will know I am very picky about color.

I looked at the wet paint and it was the color of liver! Ugh! I hate paint chips—they are a snare and a delusion! You can never really tell what color you are getting. I thought I had picked out a nice terra cotta, but no, it was liver. Ick.

I told the painter to take an early lunch and raced down to the paint store where they added some yellow and turned liver into this color. Much improved!

I took this picture from up near the water tank of our soon-to-be new digs.

The other momentous news is that I met with the County Planner and she agreed to sign our building permit. She is the last one to sign which means that we will be getting our final! She was so nice because she took me at my word that I would install shrubs in front of the house without requiring a formal landscape plan and plants in place. I chalk this up to our strong efforts to cooperate with the Planning Department and abide by all the design code requirements. (Plus, she saw the rose garden—which you really cannot see from below—and was very impressed.) So now we have a bunch of cardboard mulching and planting to do in the next 2 months.