Our scheduled three-hour meeting went for four hours. With the help of Sean, Marc and Caleb, I decipher opaque references in the Andersen window bid. Some of our windows are ‘double-hung’ sashes, for a traditional look. Some are casements, where required for escape routes, some are picture windows large are small, where we don’t anticipate needing ventilation. And the remainder are ‘awning’ windows, hinged on the top to swing out a few inches, where only ventilation is needed. The needed information is on the Andersen bid, it just needs to be quarried out.

I’ve been devoting much nighttime thinking to the design of a drainage system. My goal, shared by Green Star (!), is to keep all precipitation on the property, soaking into the ground rather than spilling into storm drain. I offer an eager endorsement of the system we use in Fargo: downspouts on house and garage, feeding into drain tile whose perforations let the water seep into two feet of gravel—all invisibly. No gutter extenders, no swales, no ponding on the grass. And little mess was involved: 4-inch-wide trenches dug with a ‘ditchwitch’. But I am not able to articulate a plan that catches on.

In the afternoon, Linda and I continue shopping with Marc: Lappin Lighting in downtown Minneapolis, where we pore through catalogs for the wrought-iron look in ceiling fixtures. Then we visit a former project by Sean, a house in Como Park that was rebuilt from ground up, including simple but very attractive all-wood cabinets by J&R—Amish cabinet builders in central Illinois. Very solid, even if the door spacing strikes me as inconsistent.